Since volunteering to work with Ukrainian refugee families in Poland, I’ve been studying as much Ukrainian as I can fit into a busy day, hoping to be able to exchange greetings and a bit of verbal goodwill. At this point, I have a vocabulary of a maybe a few dozen words (on a good day), including basic family members such as mother, father, sister, brother, aunt and uncle.
To my surprise and delight, the most important word in my micro vocabulary has turned out to be “uncle.” Because that’s what the Ukrainian kids call me. It’s hard to describe the visceral heartwarming feeling when a little tyke whose name I don’t even know runs up, grabs my sleeve and cries out, “Uncle, Uncle, \u042f \u0445\u043e\u0447\u0443 \u0433\u0440\u0430\u0442\u0438 \u0444\u0443\u0442\u0431\u043e\u043b, \u042f \u0445\u043e\u0447\u0443 \u0433\u0440\u0430\u0442\u0438 \u0444\u0443\u0442\u0431\u043e\u043b!” Even though I have no idea what “\u042f \u0445\u043e\u0447\u0443 \u0433\u0440\u0430\u0442\u0438 \u0444\u0443\u0442\u0431\u043e\u043b” means — whatever it means doesn’t matter so much; the important thing is, we know we’re friends.
When you were a child, were you taught as part of “good manners” that you should address non-familial adults as “Uncle” or “Aunt” (or some similar appelation)? In my family, there were two rules: 1) don’t talk to strangers; and 2) when you talk to an adult who is not a family member, you need to address them with i) the appropriate “Mr. \/ Mrs. \/ Ms.” prefix, and ii) their surname. So the range of adults I could freely speak to was pretty limited — basically just neighbors and friends of my parents whose surnames I happend to know (keep in mind, my parents didn’t address these people by their surnames). In contrast, think about how liberating and empowering it must be for a child to be able to approach any adult and address them respectfully and endearingly as “Aunty” or “Uncle”.
I first noticed this cultural “phenomenon” when I was living in China. Chinese kids are also taught to address non-familial adults as “Aunty” or “Uncle”. And it goes even further: a policeman is “Uncle Policeman.” In a similar vein, teachers are formally addressed as “Teacher [insert teachers surname],” but in spontaneous dialogue the surname can be omitted, so e.g., it’s just “Teacher, Teacher, call on me, I know the answer!” It works even if the teacher is a short-notice substitute teacher who the kids have never seen before. Isn’t that nice?
This is such a good idea; why don’t we in the West teach our kids to do the same thing? Have we stopped doing this because modern Western society has become so “free” that adults don’t want to be saddled with the responsibility of being surrogate aunt or uncle to any child that might latch onto them — or is there a better explanation? I don’t know why, in some cultures kids can annoint any adult they trust as an aunt or uncle, but in other cultures it’s not done. Even if we don’t change the way we do things, I believe it would be worthwhile to understand the difference. Let’s think about that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since volunteering to work with Ukrainian refugee families in Poland, I’ve been studying as much Ukrainian as I can fit into a busy day, hoping to be able to exchange greetings and a bit of verbal goodwill. At this point, I have a vocabulary of a maybe a few dozen words (on a good day), […]<\/p>\n