This has been a rough year for many reasons.
My nephew always liked playing video games when we’d all be at my parents’ house for holidays, and I used to try playing things like Destiny 2 with him, even though I sucked royally. Not just him, but all my nieces, nephews, and niblings loved their crazy gay uncles, and while my husband doesn’t have much patience with kids, I always tried to at least listen and pay attention.
Well, some years ago at Thanksgiving (about the same time his wife left him for being abusive), my brother had a homophobic meltdown at Thanksgiving, lashing out at my parents about how they’re sinning by accepting my husband and I as part of the family, and before he stormed out he said he doesn’t want us [f-slurs] around his kids or giving them gifts. For the record, my parents have never been anything but loving and accepting of my husband and me (which I guess was the problem in my brother’s mind).
So I distanced myself from that whole thing. I’ve never been close to my brother. He’s been like this since we were kids. In fact, he sexually abused another one of our siblings, which … I can’t really elaborate fully in a post, but basically there were a lot of fucked up things – breaking my personal items because he was mad at me, bringing our mother to tears because he was embarrassed about how “nice” she was, being massively insulting to any of my friends or my other brother’s friends – things like that.
Even after the Thanksgiving debacle, his daughter and son (my niece and nephew) would still try to hang out and play games like we used to, but I’d usually make some excuse, sometimes even making an excuse to leave the holiday events altogether and then finding a time when my husband and I could visit my parents without them around. We’d still give my niece and nephew gifts, but I’d give them to my parents and tell them to say they were from Santa or whatever.
As the kids grew older, this didn’t stop them from giving presents to my husband and me. In fact, I remember my nephew learning that I was into particular books or games, sometimes he’d find me things specifically related to those things and gift them to me. I felt bad about not being more present, but I was never comfortable anymore. Clearly in my brother’s mind, I didn’t belong.
So this past year, my nephew committed suicide. I have no idea why and neither does anyone else. And I feel this enormous sense of guilt. What if I had been there for him? I know it’s not really anything to do with me, but what if? Y’know?
Kids are people, you definitely have to say things. The less often you see them, the more important is what you say, it’s the only words they’ll remember from you, and think of you based on them (source: was a kid once, had family scattered all over the world whom I rarely met).
Yeah, good point. Often I just don’t know what to say.
Just think back to when you were a kid, what would you talk about?
It was probably school (favorite subject, worst teacher), friends (and non-friends), interests/hobbies, and maybe you’d listen to any weird story told by someone you had some family/mentor relation with.
story time
“When I was your age, we had no laptops, but one day I got this new set of 36 color marker pens for geography class, and this kid of the ‘no kids left behind’ group who was a nuisance to everyone but kind of had fixated on me that year, just sat in the desk in front of mine, took the whole set from me, and when I asked her to give it back, she started throwing them back… piece by piece: cap, ink sponge, outer case, one by one, filling my whole notebook, desk, and everything in ink… while the teacher wasn’t looking. I used to have a lot of patience, but when she got to about half of them, I finally had enough, grabbed her by the scruff like you’d do with a kitten, pushed to the floor, sat on her, and said ‘quit it!’, then let go when she stopped squirming. The whole class looked at the scene dumbfounded, teacher included. They let me pick up and reassemble the markers before having a talk. Had a separate talk with my mom… who later told me the teacher said ‘finally, someone had the guts to do something about her!’. There was no punishment. Curiously, she calmed a lot after that, and we became sort of friends by the end of that year. I learned she lived alone with her grandma, because there was some problem with her parents, poor kid.”
“Do you guys still throw wet wads of toilet paper to the ceilings of the bathrooms, so they stick like stalagmites?” (wait and see if they correct you)
“Don’t run with scissors, I got my lower lip pierced that way [proceeds to show scar]”
“Say, what do you kids do these days for fun? Hope you no longer burn ants with a lens on sunny days. We had to run like hell when we set a pile of leaves on fire by accident.”
…y’know, I bet you can find some relatable stuff from when you were a kid. Many things have changed, many have not, but they’ll often correct you and call you an old fart or whatever, just be ready to take it in stride.
Or learn about their hobbies and ask them about that, people of all ages like for others to hear them talk about their favorite subjects, and you might either learn something or have a chance to engage in a shared interest.
Also, use active listening:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_listening
(this applies to all ages, but kids are particularly used to adults dismissing them and just telling them what to do, so by just actually listening you’ll already stand out)
Thanks. I feel like I’m a good listener, but I’m terrible at small talk, especially when I only see them in person a couple times a year. These are great ideas, thanks!