Gay Uncles Rule

This I Believe: Gay Uncles Rule

I love being an Uncle; I really love being “gay uncle”. An uncle (and I had plenty) can be just a slightly different version of “dad”, especially uncles with children; but I don’t think I am. I’m the youngest of three boys, with five years between my middle brother and me. And I’m single. So, to the kids I’m in a neutral zone between parent and cousin. Yes, I’m an adult, but I don’t seem to be as adult. Sure, I lead an adult life, but mine probably doesn’t seem, well, as adult.

I’m the uncle who gives cool presents. The girls get vintage jewelry, my nephew got the skateboard his parents weren’t very keen on. When I babysat there was always a trip for ice cream or pancakes; there was only one rule, which they were made to repeat…..”Just don’t tell Mom”.

I’ve known the kids to come to me when they’re trying to figure out something about their lives or their families. Or when they can’t quite understand why their parents say, or do, something. And it’s never something trivial or something life altering…..it’s always that something in the middle, more wondering than questioning, almost existential even. And always mature.

But I always, always, listen, then give an opinion, not an instruction. I try to be the buffer between the older kids and the other adults, and being the youngest in my generation, I let the youngest kids in their generation know I get it.

And being gay isn’t the reason they come to me. To them, my being gay is just what it is. I think it’s just one more thing that makes me the neutral zone of our family. I lived abroad, I work with strange old things (I’m in the antiques business), I know the oddest facts, and have the best memory in the family….great for telling embarrassing stories about their dads as boys. Oh, and I’m gay….whatever.

But what really gets me is that whenever I hear a pundit on the radio proclaiming that gays are anti-family I think “so why am I picking up my brother’s kids from skating practice?”

I’m not married myself, not yet anyway, and I get it that the whole concept of marriage equality is new and, to many people, jarring. But here’s the thing. Gay marriage may be new, but gay uncles aren’t, lesbian aunts aren’t. We’ve been around for centuries, millennia really. Lots of people today grew up with them, though they may not have known it. So if you doubt gays and lesbians have the innate capacity to be loving and responsible family people, just think about those unmarried, perhaps slightly peculiar aunts and uncles who were there for you when you needed them. Your doubts may begin to subside. I know being an Uncle is the greatest joy in my life.