Welcome to the Auntie Collective

While the Auntie Bulletin's primary home is currently elsewhere, I offer this parallel version on Ghost for those who choose not to give their money to Substack. And boy, do I ever feel you, dear boycotters. For the time being, I can't afford to leave Substack because this newsletter is my main source of livelihood and Substack's discoverability features are the core of our growth engine. I am slowly building out features and content here on Ghost, but it's a process (links to older archived posts still go to Substack, for example). Thanks for your patience and support.

The Auntie Bulletin is a weekly newsletter for Aunties and alloparents of all stripes, including family, found family, foster parents, grandparents, step-parents, godparents, childcare providers, educators, coaches, and anyone else who aims to live a childful life – whether or not we have kids of our own.

When you subscribe to, read, comment on, and share The Auntie Bulletin, you are joining the Auntie Collective – indeed, you’re helping seed an Auntie Movement. We have robust and fascinating conversations in our comments threads. For example, check out the abundant wisdom in the comment thread on this one:

The #1 Best Way to Decide If You Want to Have Kids

From compulsory parenthood to informed consent. It took my partner and me a long time to decide not to become parents. We really wrestled with it. I had never wanted kids until, literally from one moment to the next, I did. My partner was game, so we started trying. I

The Auntie BulletinLISA SIBBETT

Building Kinship-Based Communities of Care

Daniel Hunter from Choose Democracy has a great way of thinking about the different roles we can play in building a better future. We can help protect vulnerable people and groups; we can defend civic institutions like schools or departments of public health; we can disrupt unjust policies and disobey unjust laws; and/or we can envision and help to build sustainable alternatives. All of these roles are necessary and important, and they often overlap.

Here at The Auntie Bulletin, we’re all in on envisioning and building alternatives. In dominant, mainstream, capitalist societies, Aunties are marginal, rarely-acknowledged figures. But I think we may be carrying the keys to a better world. Those of us who choose to love and build kinship ties with kids who aren’t our own are modeling what it means to build the beloved community. We’re showing the way toward a collectivist future.

About Lisa

I live in a small co-housing community in Seattle with my partner, our friends, and our friends’ kids. Although my partner and I decided not to have children, there are so many kids in our daily life that labels like “childfree” or “childless” just don’t fit. Instead, I’ve started describing my life as “childful.” It is abundant with picture books and art projects and middle school plays, exhortations to pick a snack with protein in it and battles of will over the brushing of teeth. I used to worry that, as I aged, I would no longer have young people in my life. I’m not worried about that anymore.

My writing at The Auntie Bulletin is informed by nearly twenty years of teaching kids and adults, including about a decade teaching adults how to teach kids. I have a Ph.D. in Education and a background in academia that’s proved surprisingly useful for writing a weekly newsletter about kinship and found family.

More Auntie Bulletin Posts to Check Out

The Nuclear Family is a Failed Experiment

When has a nuclear experiment ever been good, honestly? I got to go on Virginia Sole-Smith’s Burnt Toast podcast recently, which was so awesome. I’m a longtime fan[[1]] of Virginia’s anti-diet parenting newsletter and podcast and grateful for the exposure to her large and wonderful audience.

The Auntie BulletinLISA SIBBETT

An Auntie’s Compendium of Delightful Activities for Children

You can start a summer camp now. I first came to Substack by way of Anne Helen Petersen’s consistently excellent newsletter, Culture Study. I knew nothing about the Substack platform, but I got wind of AHP’s newsletter, started subscribing, and read it eagerly as soon as it hit

The Auntie BulletinLISA SIBBETT

Why Sensitive, Neurodivergent Introverts Make Great Aunties

So 👋 many 👋 waving 👋 hand 👋 emojis 👋. I don’t know about you, but the idea that sensitive, neurodivergent, introverted adults would be great with kids strikes me as counterintuitive. Those of us with sensory sensitivities (hi! 👋) often have very specific needs around lighting, noise levels, smells, messes, and bodies careening around

The Auntie BulletinLISA SIBBETT

On Befriending Kids

Kids don’t want to make polite conversation. Here’s what they want to talk about instead. There’s a nine year old in my life who I only see occasionally because he and his family live in another state. He’s historically had approximately zero interest in grownups, and clearly doesn’

The Auntie BulletinLISA SIBBETT