Linked: The World Needs Uncles, Too

Isaac Fitzgerald for Esquire:

I'll never be a father. But when my friends and family members had children, I learned a new way of showing up for others.

I took the same decision a few years ago. Children are just not for me, and it's a lifestyle I don't think I can live. I have yet to figure out, though, if not having children is a selfish decision or if having them is one.

But the world needs uncles, and it needs aunts. And a lot of them. I don't believe two humans (and a bunch of random teachers) are enough to show a child how to live through this tumultuous mess we call life.

So far, my favourite way of raising a child is one I took from Aldous Huxley's Island: Every child in the community gets adopted by the neighbours who take over when the biological parents are overwhelmed, or the child needs saving from the neuroses of their parents.

It takes a village to raise a child.