Aunties in the Making

By Shej Shahriar

I remember growing up in a tight-knit Bangladeshi community, talking to my friends about how we’d grow up and be nothing like our parents. We wouldn’t be as dramatic, wouldn’t gossip, wouldn’t start unnecessary shit over literally nothing. We’d be fun, woke, understanding, have good relationships with each other and our kids. 

Now I look back and laugh.

We’re better, don’t get me wrong. But for as much crap as we gave our parents’ generation, ours isn’t too much better - at least not right now.

I grew up with girls who would get mad at aunties for talking about other people’s kids; who got upset at a girl for telling her mom something about us; and now they do the same. People I thought I could trust, I now have to be weary of. All because they grew up, and turned into a lite version of the very people they swore they’d be better than. 

I know this isn’t simply a South Asian problem but I’m going to speak of my own experience. And I know culture has a lot to do with it. The close-knit, almost like family, nature of the relationships we had growing up - and even those we found in our college friendships - paved the way for things to get really messy. And they have. I know I’m not alone. 

I was never one for drama, I’ve managed to stay out of it all throughout school and college. So you can imagine my surprise when I get a text saying “hey who did you tell about this” when I hadn’t told a soul; or my parents calling me up saying “hey Shej do you have a problem with so and so?” If I do, I don’t know about it. 

It was one thing in middle, high school or college. But we’re in our twenties now, we’re past petty drama. We’re at the point in our lives where we’re whole adults ourselves. We have our own established lives, we can converse with aunties and uncles like adults, and we get to make our own choices. But if we want to be treated like adults, we have to act like them too. 

I’m not just trying to bash on people, I swear.

As I said, I’ve always managed to stay out of drama, because I’ve always had the right friends. Whenever I realized I was getting into a toxic friend group, I left. So I ended up surrounding myself with real, genuine friends who actually had my back, never talked shit about me, and always had my best interest in mind. 

But now every time I go back to my hometown, I think thank God I left. 

And there’s no one person or group of people that makes me think this. It’s where I grew up. Everyone has this preconceived notion of who I am, who I’m supposed to be. So no matter who I might be now, however better and grown and incredible of a person I might have become since I left, they’ll never see it. We’re stuck in that time capsule. But it’s also eye opening. To see how things change. Who has changed and who has simply changed into an aunty version of their previous self. 

I’m not just here to bash my hometown.

I see it in some people I met in college too. The girl who was all “omg bestie” with me one day turned out to be the gossipy aunty the next. Who would’ve thought? The girls who will say “oh I can’t believe she’s wearing that”, “wasn’t she wearing hijab before?”, “ok but she should consider the responsibility she has on her”, “did you hear? oh basically all of southern California knows about them”.

No, I didn’t hear. In fact I didn’t need to hear. We should consider keeping our mouths shut like we wish the aunties had about us. We shouldn’t be the ones talking. We shouldn’t become the next generation of aunties. 

This isn’t a rant. It’s a shouldn’t we be better? I mean we grew up first or second generation in the West, fighting for rights, to be equal, to have a voice. We banded together as kids and bonded in the shared experiences we had with our cultures and parents. Only to grow up and somehow turn into our parents and turn on each other?

I have a voice now; which means I also have a responsibility. I know when to speak and what to keep to myself. I’ve grown up not knowing who to trust, with even the simplest things because gossip could spread like wildfire in my community. And it’s a shame that even well into our adulthoods, we haven’t gotten over our obsessive need to peep into others’ lives. 

Let’s do better than those before us, for those after us. So we don’t have to tell our kids “kiddo don’t say anything around that aunty”. Cuz I know I’ve already got a few in mind.