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For the first decade or so of my life, I was lucky enough to have that rare and wonderful person in my life: an aunt without children of her own.  She was pretty and, exotically, Southern; she traveled; as if she couldn't get any more impressive than that she was (and still is) a journalist. Even more impressively, she often sent me hardcover books and unnecessarily gorgeous clothes. I clearly remember a traditional costume arriving in a swaddle of tissue from Holland. Where was Holland? Who knew?

Eventually she did have a child of her own who at least had the good manners to be a boy (and not hog the fancy dresses). Still, it was my Aunt Mariana that I thought of when I read Kate Bolick's eloquent piece in the New York Times about aunthood. Bolick suggests that as more woman choose to stay childless, the devoted aunt is becoming an integral element of the modern family. And good thing for kids, since, as she writes, "The aunt exists outside the immediate family unit, ambassador to a universe of other options, as well as — crucially — a grown-up who isn’t an authority figure or disciplinarian." After all, how cool can your own parents be? Realistically, not very.

Today's aunt is less Auntie Em and more, as Bolick puts it, "the glamorously madcap Auntie Mame...Holly Golightly with crow’s feet."  There's even an online community for PANKs, or Professional Aunts, No Kids, presumably a far more chic and fun personage than the Professional Mom.  Still, Bolick argues that this familial role is underappreciated, and the essay diverts into a terrific rundown of aunthood (or lack therof) in mythology and around the world. But to me it also articulates something about what children (and maybe adults, too) crave in their lives: a relationship defined by "not only passionate love but blessed freedom;" a person who actually has attention for them and them alone.

More Auntie-love:
How to be a super-Aunt: One woman's no-fail advice