Becoming the Uncle You Remember

On a post-wedding trip with my wife’s family, I played a lot with Skyler, my wife’s nephew. Skyler is five years old. He’s very bright, both in an attitude- and intelligence-sense. He knows an enormous amount for his age, is curious about everything, especially animals, and has energy beyond measure. We walked over 10,000 steps every day on average, and he constantly kept up.

Like me, Skyler likes Pokémon, and he badly wanted to tag along when I went to a card shop in Amsterdam. So he and his mom walked an extra 15 minutes with me each way. She even bought him his first ever pack, and I gifted him a second one. I also bought some for myself, but before donating most of the bulk cards I didn’t need to him, I asked his mother: “Is it too much? Maybe I give them to you and you hand them out to him slowly?” That’s exactly what we ended up doing.

Maybe the Pokémon cards were the main reason, but Skyler took a liking to me. He told me about his favorite birds, what he hoped to see during the trip, and showed me videos of his friends and sports accomplishments back home. On a canal cruise, he wanted to sit next to me. Same on the bus the next day. And while walking during a busy area in Paris, he came up and held my hand voluntarily.

It’s all been a great practice run for becoming a dad someday, and beyond Skyler himself, I’m constantly floored by his parents, whose patience seems to hardly know any bounds. Nor do the lengths they go to to provide Skyler and his little sister with a happy, resourceful, kind, clear, and balanced upbringing.

After a long day out and about, while reflecting on how to not overstep with the Pokémon cards, I realized something: I have become my uncle. When I was as old as Skyler, my uncle on my mother’s side brought me cool gifts whenever we met. To him, they were probably small expenses at the time. To me, they felt like Christmas. One time, he took me to see DTM racing, the German touring car championship. There were so many cool cars, and I’ll always remember covering my ears to lower the noise.

That uncle and my aunt eventually divorced, so I don’t hope I’ll set exactly the same example. But it’s kind of mind-blowing to think that, 30 short years ago, I was in Skyler’s shoes—and I can still remember some nuances about that rather vividly. Now, I’m the cool uncle in his mid-30s, who can casually afford gifts his parents would probably only give to him on warranted occasions.

It’s a fascinating switch of point of view, this long-term angle swap. There’s nothing quite like experiencing both sides of the story firsthand. As a kid, everything my uncle did seemed easy and effortless from below. Now, I can see how giving a child a bit of attention or some gifts may not only spark joy but provide actual reprieve from a stressful day job and other adult commitments. Most of all, however, I’m getting a first glimpse at how serious of a task it is to be a good parent. It’s humbling, encouraging, and, for a happy-go-lucky like me, probably sorely needed.

Look out. 30 years can pass in a split-second. Before you know it, you’ve become the uncle you remember, and it’s your turn to help raise the next generation.