Brett Berk

The Gay Uncle recently received a report on his six year old “nephew” Max. Apparently, a girl in Max’s class was behaving strangely toward him: hiding his windbreaker, grabbing the ball away from him on the playground, offering to be his math partner and then saying “psych”. The girl’s older brother–who is also in their class–wondered what was going on, so he asked his sister point-blank after school one day: “Truth: Are you in love with Max?” The girl reddened, and nodded. “Yes.”

The next morning, the kids were back on the playground. It is unclear whether or not Max received confirmation of his classmate’s amorous attentions. It is unclear whether or not, had he received confirmation, he would return these affections. It is even unclear how the adult who told Gunc this story achieved her insider insight. But despite all of that, the concrete events of that morning are indisputable: The girl approached Max with a request; Max was busy doing something else; The girl was persistent; Max pushed the girl into a tree. When asked why he did it, the boy looked at his feet and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Administrators were alerted. Parents were called. Punishments were meted out. The classroom dynamic returned to its normal, fraught state.

The lessons of the story are as follows:
1) Men are assholes
2) Six year olds should not be entrusted with concepts like being in love
3) Trees are hard, but useful in fighting global warming

You may recall that the Gay Uncle’s new niece, Cakes, is extremely precocious for a 10 month old baby. She walks, she eats mushrooms and spinach (and just about anything else you put in front of her). She laughs at the G.U.’s jokes. And she was reported to be able to say the word “Uncle”. Well, while Gunc was visiting her–and his mother, his sister Roxy, her b.f. Nick, and their other kids Amber, Lucia, and Faye–in the Keys this past week, he did his best to try to get the girl to utter the magic word…to no avail. “Uncle,” he said, over and over, leaning in toward her. “Uncle. Un-cle. Un-cle,” he said, smiling and pointing at himself. “At least say, Brett, you little doughball. The hard consonants are somewhat easier.” This went on for three entire days without end (or success). Then, on his last night in town (as with every other night) he was scheduled to go out for drinks with Roxy, and Cakes was all buckled into her car seat in back when designated-driver Nick pulled up to nab him. As you know, the Gay Uncle loves a captive audience, so he immediately started in on the Say Uncle bit again. The girl simply gurgled and smirked. She even said “Mama” once or twice, pointing at his sister. But then, just as they were pulling up to the bar, she cocked her head, pointed right at him, and–clear as a bell–said…“Gay!” No joke. Gunc didn’t even sigh. He just shrugged and accepted it. He is a professional Gay Uncle after all. Witness the note his older niece Amber wrote on the family calendar (in the image above) for the date he was to arrive in town. If you can’t read her scrawl, it says: “The Gay Uncle Comes In”

In case you missed any of the press the Gay Uncle garnered this week, here’s a quick re-cap:

1) An interview with the G.U.–and Fox News anchor Steve Doocy(!?!)–on NPR.
2) A piece in the Times of London recommending The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting as an ideal holiday gift
3) Two shout-outs in Babble’s 2nd anniversary article, listing The Gay Uncle’s piece on The Economy as “The Article We’re Proudest of Having Pulled Off”, and calling his new monthly interview piece Advice from Kids their “Most Hilarious New Column”
4) A charming write up in Queerty on Gunc and his stellar Vanity Fair gay car column Stick Shift
5) A bit on the Gay Uncle from a nice lawyer fellow who recently took the G.U. and his mom out for dinner

The Gay Uncle is down in Key West this week, visiting with his sister, mom, and nieces. As part of their ongoing tradition of “Uncle Time”–dating back to when the girl could first scream the words UNCLE TIME!!–Gunc and niece Amber (now age 9) spent the afternoon together. They had ice cream, they had pizza, they visited the Aquarium, they watched an insane faux-French man juggle cats on the Sunset Pier. And, like any ideal visit with a pre-tween girl, they went shopping for crappy trinkets at the mall-famous store Claire’s. Later on, he met his sister Roxy for a drink or four, and they eventually got around to discussing U.T. Gunc described how he managed to embarrass the girl–not a very difficult practice with a nine year old–by swishing about, talking loud, and forcing her to toss tips into the buckets of the sunset performers. This was all old hat to Roxy, who shares her older brother’s…performative personality. What she wanted to know was how the G.U. managed to deal with Claire’s a source of endless tension/desire for the mother/daughter team. “Whenever we go there, she wants everything in the store. She nags, she wines, she drags her feet. We end up spending so much time, that by the end, I’m frustrated and don’t even want to get her anything.”
Gunc explained that the trick, like most things with young kids, was to be concrete, and proactive, and set expectations in advance. “Before we even walked in the door,” he told Roxy, “I turned to Amber, and I said, clearly, You have five bucks, and five minutes. If you go over either one, we’re out. She raced around the store, did the math herself, and ended up with some cheap, dangly animal keychains.” He didn’t add that he was campaigning for a fake-rhinestone bedecked headband, or a scrunchy with synthetic blond hair all around. There’s always more Uncle Time.

The Gay Uncle received a note from his friend Lola today titled I’m Just Not That Into My Kid These Days. She wrote: “I have a confession, I’m not sure I like the person that my son became this past week.” Apparently, her nearly three year-old, Lou, had been home sick with a bad cold, and over the course of the four days off from school, both mom and son “started to get a little crazy” with the boy “constantly testing and absolutely not listening.” She ended it with a cry for help.

Well, help has arrived. Here is Gunc’s 5-point strategy for dealing with a home-based, three year-old insurrection, and your own sense of not really liking your kid.

1) Confess: It’s great to admit your frustration to someone (besides your child); it helps relieve the tension. And it’s particularly useful to tell someone like the G.U. because a) He’s an expert b) He thrives on familial conflict and c) He can use these disclosures as fodder for a column.
2) Butt Out: Welcome to the core struggle of three year-olds, the age at which kids become cognizant of their abilities and their limitations, bringing a painful awareness of how their desires contrast with their skill set, and creating a toxic cycle of need, vehemence, and failure. Give your child space to attempt things themselves, and let them know (once!) that you’re there if they need help. But be aware that P.I. (Parental Insertion) is often fuel for the fire–even if you’re just trying to validate their vexation. Practice butting out. Your child needs to get past their frustration threshold in order to figure out where it is and what it means.
3) Loose Strength: The flip side of this is the need to remain consistent about discipline. Be proactive: set up your expectations, parameters, and repercussions in advance, and stick to them. But plan on providing a little extra space and time–one more warning, one more minute–than usual.
4) Sick Sympathy: We all tend to lash out when we feel crappy. (Have you ever visited someone in the hospital?) Illness exacerbates all of the above issues–particularly our frustration threshold. With nose-blows, expect blow-back.
5) Break Out: Imagine how you would feel if you were forced to stay home alone with your mom for a week? Your 3 year-old is used to a correlative measure of freedom at school, and being stuck home as the helpless victim of your caretaking runs counter to the pride and independence their regular life brings. Also remember that young kids thrive on routine, and a break like this is a disruption on every level. Returning to school should help. But your kid might also benefit from some extra time away from you. Plan a playdate, hire a sitter, send them to the movies with their Guncle.

The Gay Uncle is now writing two monthly features for the hip, intelligent, online parenting magazine Babble. The first is a “Dispatch” essay about a topic of his choosing–so far he’s written about things like mediated divorces, gender development, and lying to kids. But it’s the second we’ll be discussing here, a new column featuring his interviews with young (3-8 year old) kids, in which he asks them for their advice or ideas about different issues. Last month, it was The Economy, this month, it’s Careers. Since the shtick has a sort of “man-on-the-street” quality to it, Gunc has to go to places where there are crowds of kids (schools, playgrounds, libraries, Pinkberry) and because interviewing children requires parental consent, he has to walk up to total strangers and ask if he can talk to their kids. This might be easier if he were a) a woman, b) pushing a stroller, c) not insanely gay, d)wearing something besides a long, belted trench-coat. (This last bit is a joke; he never belts his jacket). As it stands, he often ends up having conversations with parents that go something like this:
G.U.: “Hi, my name is Brett. I’m a writer for Babble the parenting magazine, and I’m working on a monthly feature where we interview kids about a topic, and then publish their responses along with a photograph of them. I’m looking for kids between the ages of 3 and 8 to interview. Do you have any kids in that age range who might want to talk to me?
Mom: [Glancing around nervously] “Security!”
or
Mom: [Holding hand to chest] “You scared me.”
or
Mom: “This playground is for parents and children only. Are you a parent?”

The G.U. then has to explain that he’s an early childhood educator, that he ran a preschool, that yes, he indeed wrote the world famous instructive non-fiction book The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting. At which point, some moms soften, and others seem even more suspicious. He offers up his business card, he gives out his phone number and email address, he shows his driver’s license. He refuses to talk to the kids without the parent’s introducing him and remaining present. But some parents still keep up their guard. Dear readers, you know that Gunc wants only the best for all children (and to finish his damn assignment and get paid). Do you have any ideas about how to convince moms that he’s “safe”? Should he get one of those pre-screening cards they have in airports? Should he wear a wig and carry a fake baby? Should he get himself castrated? Let him know below in COMMENTS.

It’s official. The Gay Uncle loves his little niece, Cake. It isn’t only because the girl is very developmentally advanced, beginning to take her first steps well before her first birthday. Or because she’s been a point of care-giving communion for his three other similarly-aged and rivalrous Key West-based nieces Amber 9, Faye 10, and Lucia 8. Or because she’s made his sister Roxy and her boyfriend Nick so happy that they’ve bought a house down there, one with a guest room for him to stay in. No, he loves the baby girl because, when watching one of the videos he recently made for his Vanity Fair automobile column Stick Shift she reportedly cracked up. Of course you know by now that Gunc loves an audience, so that might have been enough. But after she laughed, she pointed at the screen and said the magic word…“Uncle!” Now, whenever anyone says the word “Uncle”, the baby guffaws. Once he heard this story, the G.U. immediately got online, cashed in some frequent flier miles, and booked a ticket down there. He’ll be reporting from the beach next week, and should have loads of good new anecdotes and observations from all your favorite Conch Republic characters.

The Thanksgiving holiday is over. The less intelligent of your loved ones spent most of it gorging, napping, in gastric distress, and trampling–or being trampled–at the nearest big-box store. But not you. You’re too smart for all that. You’ve decided to do all your holiday shopping online. And here’s a chance to get that special someone in your life something truly special. Just in time for the gift-giving season, The Gay Uncle is offering a special package deal on his amazing parenting book The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting. Sure you can buy it from any online bookstore, like our stellar partners to the right, or pick up one of the thousands of used copies that someone’s tossed aside after receiving it at their baby shower, but for a limited time only, you can also buy it RIGHT HERE. And if you do, the Gay Uncle himself will personally inscribe it with a witty note to your loved one, and sign it with his signature…signature. $15 includes everything: book, inscription, collectible bookmark, and even first class shipping. Just type up what you want inscribed in the Inscription field, and click the Buy button. Perfect for every mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, uncle, aunt, or generic gay relative on your list. Much better than another impersonal gift-card. Much more useful than an ugly sweater. And good for the environment. Click and buy below.

Inscription

It’s official. The Gay Uncle is going to Alaska. And it’s not just to check off the box on the only state he hasn’t visited, to eat wild salmon that hasn’t spent the last eighteen hours on a cargo plane, or to see some icy tundra before it all melts. He’s actually been invited to go North to the Future (state motto) to continue his speaking tour of preschools around the country. As it turns out, a friend of his from high school runs the Jewish Community Center early childhood center in Anchorage (www.FrozenChosen.org) and has asked him to come up and deliver a lively presentation to the parents of her students, and do a workshop with her teachers. This won’t happen until May, which gives Gunc plenty of time to find a super-fancy rustic lodge in which to spend the rest of the week he’ll be up there. He’s hoping that, with global warming, it will be “spring” by the time he arrives, and the roads to the super-fancy rustic lodges will be open. But before he heads out to the world of arctic lava hot-rocks and baby-seal-fat-body-wraps, he’s made a second urban plan. Based on a recommendation from one of his former preschool students–and the sincere needs dictated by the high-profile pregnancies in the area–he sent a signed copy of his stellar book The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting to the Wasilla Public Library, along with an offer to be a guest lecturer at their preschool story time. And in an act of kismet, on the day he received confirmation of his Alaskan JCC gig, a letter from the Library also arrived. “Thank you for your donation of the book entitled The Gay Uncle’s Guide to parenting. I’m also going to pass on your information to our Youth Services librarian with the offer of doing a guest story time reading.” The G.U. will keep you posted on how things go, but he is certainly looking forward to the trip, to the opportunity to help Bristol Palin with her new baby, and to have the chance to answer the question offered up by Raymond Carver in one of his famous short stories. “What’s in Alaska?”

The Gay Uncle wrote about sticking his big Gay nose into other people’s business this week in his Yahoo! Parenting column tackling the subject of disciplining friends’ and family members’ kids. Surprisingly–given his status as a know-it-all/butt-insky–he generally advocates keeping his ideas to himself, particularly in moments of conflict, as outsiders making suggestions often confuses kids, raises parents’ hackles, and ends up exacerbating situations. (Of course, he doesn’t always succeed in staying silent.) Instead, he recommends discussing the situation later, after the fact. And obviously, he’s not about standing idly by if a kid is doing something that might result in injury to themselves or others.

Well, just after he sent this column to his editor, he had a chance to put his advice to the test. He was at a party at a stranger’s house in L.A. and there were a few parent couples with toddlers present, including one pair with a particularly adorable young boy. Though this kid was probably around 14 months old and a fully functioning walker, because his mom was only about five feet tall, he appeared…shrunken, like he’d been washed in cold instead of dry-cleaned. He was, however, just the right size for investigating things close to the ground like people’s shoes, dropped tortilla chips, and the cat’s tail. He was also properly heighted for exploring the cabinets under the kitchen sink, where the G.U. noticed him handling various exciting objects like: a bottle of ammonia, a can of Easy Off, and a box of what may have either been Clorox wipes or toilet-cleaning wand refills. Gunc was fully tempted to go running into the room and gently explain to the boy that these items were dangerous, and redirect him toward some mildly less harmful playthings, like a steak-knife or ball-peen hammer. But then the Gay Uncle noticed that the kid’s parents were standing right nearby–calm as everyone in California pretends to be–and he supposed that if they weren’t concerned, then his own attempts at intervention would probably go over about as well as the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He hopes they at least rinsed the kid’s hands off after he finished playing.