Welcome to Aunts and Nieces Online!

By choice or by chance, many women have no daughters. The young girls in our lives are our sisters', brothers' and friends' daughters. This gives us a special opportunity. We are aunts to these girls—our nieces.

Women have so much to offer their nieces, and in doing so create those cherished and important threads that connect generation after generation of women. This relationship between aunts and nieces is very different than that between mothers and daughters—after all, you are not her parent. There are countless books on parenting. I have looked for books on "aunting," but there are very few.

How do you decide what is and is not okay to discuss or do with your niece? Where is the line between being a friend and a "safe" parental figure? What if your niece no longer has a mother in her life? How do you interact with parents and step-parents? What do you do with a five-year-old for a weekend? A ten-year-old? A nineteen-year-old?

I'm Dr. Maggi, and I've created Aunts and Nieces Online as a resource for women of all ages—women just like you and me—who already have or would like to develop close relationships with the young women in their lives. Whether you are connected through blood or other chosen-family ties, the most important gift you can give to the next generation is time and attention. I've learned a lot about how to spend that time and I want to share my experiences, thoughts and ideas for this challenging but rewarding journey. I would also love you to share your stories so we can all benefit from one another's wisdom.

Come on in and browse around. Join us in building our network of aunts and nieces. I hope the newsletter and the blog will be resources you can turn to again and again for advice, information and support. Perhaps our nieces will even weigh in on what works for them.

Welcome to Aunts and Nieces Online! May we learn from each other and become better mentors, confidantes, teachers, listeners and even girlfriends to the young women in our lives.