How to Be a Neighborhood Aunt, Teenage Version

Last Monday, Toby, 14, woke up in a bad mood. Fearing a long week of school, he thought about what could make him feel better. Then, he sent a text message …

“Hey, do you want to have dinner tonight?” He asked my friend Leah.

For the past four yearsShe, Toby, and her daughter, Sydney, have come to dinner once every season. Everyone loves the ritual so much.

His first dinner was in 2021, when I had Covid. “How can I help?” Leah had sent me a text message, that day. I told him that Anton was happy playing at home, but Toby was restless, he was still knocking on the door of my room, lamenting that I couldn’t let him in, could he ever take him to the pizza? In an hour, she was at our door.

The night was wonderfully. Every time Toby loves an activity, he immediately declares “a tradition”, hoping that he will happen again. And this time, it worked. Leah became his neighborhood aunt.

The food usually includes bread, pasta, temples of Shirley or Ginger Ale and dessert. “It’s called ‘Aunt’ Rules,” Leah laughed. “The rule is that they can get whatever they want.”

“At first, we will begin to be dumb,” Leah told me. “We will play at the head or spy it. But during the last 20 minutes or so, Toby usually begins to ask questions and open, and then I will give my daughter my phone, so that he and I can speak.”

Anton is always invited, but likes to stay at home for a quiet moment. “Now, instead of trying to convince him to come, I bring him a gift,” Leah told me. “As, s’mores pizza or a I-Yo.”

I am greatly grateful that Toby and Anton have a trusted adult, outside the family, that root and is always there for them. “A relationship with a teenager is special,” Leah told me on the phone. “Over the years, we have talked about his divorce, his friends, girls, school things, all kinds of things.” She pauses, then adds: “I imagine this friendship for life.”

PD: How to be an aunt of the neighborhood, the baby version and 10 things that I love of the children of the children/preteen.