Gen X Meets Gen Z: How ‘Stranger Things’ Brought Me and My Nephew Together

Our writer tried everything to bond with her nephew, but it was the show that finally connected them.

My nephew, Ray, is a movie buff. When he was 11, he and his older sister, Serene, came with my mom from Ontario to Alberta for a week-long visit and I curated a special list of my favorite films for us. But, my excitement at introducing him to classics like Airplane and Coming to America quickly turned to mortification when I realized time had clouded my memory of these cinematic gems. 

After the second time a set of bare breasts appeared on the TV, I gushed out a stream of apologies to my young charges. My nephew just chuckled and shrugged his shoulders, “It’s not like I haven’t seen it before.” Was he referring to the nudity or my auntie fail?

It wasn’t the first time I made a bad movie choice as an aunt. Years earlier I had taken the two of them to see We Bought a Zoo. I pictured the hilarity of monkeys stealing bananas out of children’s hands, and Matt Damon falling into a pile of elephant dung. I didn’t think it was about a father and his children grieving the death of his wife and their mother. Once the popcorn and root beer were finished, my nephew leaned over to me and whispered, “Aunt Nicole, is there somewhere I can go?”

Somewhere he could go? Ray was so bored that he wanted to escape to some kind of waiting room while his sister and I watched the rest of the movie. I wasn’t about to let a 5-year-old wander the lobby on his own, so the three of us packed up and left before the movie ended.

Years ago I made the choice to be childfree, but I bound into the relationships with my nieces and nephews with the enthusiasm of a golden retriever. My aunts—especially the aunts that never had kids—are some of the most adored and influential people I know. They have been generous with their time, wisdom, and love throughout my whole life.

Growing up, my godmother, Auntie Poinkie invited me to spend a week with her in Seattle every summer, and the two of us drove around in her T-top Corvette, talking, listening to Wham!, and sipping our iced mochas. I still remember that first sweet taste of freedom and independence. Long before any of my niblings were born, I decided that was the kind of aunt I wanted to be. 

And now, my siblings’ children are genuinely some of my favorite people. All of them are kind, fun, and unique. They also never say no to my ideas, whether it’s trying my experimental recipes or helping me shovel snow. And they choose to have a relationship with me. There’s no obligation to visit me, or text me when they are excited about getting into college, or send me pictures from their engagement on a mountaintop in Portugal before the news goes public—but they do.

I moved away from my hometown after college, but our family is tight. Between my annual visits and our big family vacations together, I’ve spent quite a bit of time with my brother’s kids, Ray and Serene. We’ve also carried on the family tradition of summer visits with auntie. I don’t have a sweet Corvette, but we do listen to great tunes.

It wasn’t always so easy with Ray, though. Serene instantly loved my eager energy, but he had a quieter vibe. I felt his affection for me, but we weren’t that close; he wasn’t constantly climbing all over me or peppering me with cute questions like his sister.

When he was small, I once decided to have a little fun with his Lego figurines, doing things like putting a princess head on a Batman body with police officer pants on backwards. He looked at me with a stiff smile and put his little four-year-old hand on my arm. “I’m going to do this, but you do what you want to do,” he said. It felt like a gentle signal that I was trying too hard.

It wasn’t long after the pre-teen nudity movie debacle that my nephew told me about a new Netflix show. “I really think you’ll like it,” he said after my brother put him on the phone for a quick chat during one of our calls. He went on to describe a supernatural show about a bunch of kids living in the 1980s. I don’t generally watch shows for, or about, kids, and at that time I wasn’t really a supernatural fan either, but in an effort to connect with him, I gave it a try. 

Maybe it was being reunited with Winona Ryder or the ’80s synthesizer soundtrack or the homage to Stephen King, but a few hours later and three episodes into Stranger Things, I was hooked. And though I was surprised that Ray guessed I would enjoy this show, I shouldn’t have been. While I was laser-focused in my quest to be the best aunt, my wise nephew was quietly observing the people around him—including me. Ray knew that his dad and I love the ’80s adventure movies of our youth like The Goonies and Stand By Me, and this new show fit right in.

With Stranger Things, he opened a pop culture portal where we easily connected. During our family visits, we would discuss Demogorgons, The Upside Down, and our favorite character, Steve Harrington. Soon our conversations expanded beyond the show and we discovered there were many points at which our interests, and our Gen Z and Gen X pop cultures, intersected, from music to food to fashion. I bought him a pair of Doc Martens for Christmas one year, and he introduced me to the world of sneakerheads on a visit to the mall that summer. 

He had saved his money to buy a pair of white leather Nike high tops with black swooshes and blush pink trim. As we scanned the shelf-upon-shelf of single shrink-wrapped sneakers—some highly collectible and selling for over a thousand dollars—I decided it was time to upgrade my Chuck Taylors. I opted for a pair of Air Jordans, and have been obsessed ever since.

On another visit, Ray turned me on to Mitski, and I provided a deep dive into The Smiths with a curated playlist for us to listen to in the car. The Dr. Disc record store that I frequented as a teenager (and is miraculously still in business) is now where he and his friends browse for vinyl and CDs. The two of us went there together last year when I was visiting for the holidays and then discussed our purchases over chicken yakisoba and pineapple shrimp fried rice at one of his favorite restaurants overlooking the Detroit River.

At 16, my nephew chose to take his first solo trip flying 1,500 miles to visit me and my husband in Alberta. “I haven’t seen Pretty in Pink. Do you want to watch it?” he asked on the drive from the airport. He had recently seen The Breakfast Club and knew I would be down to watch teen angst flicks from the ’80s and ’90s with him. We screened Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles, and my favorite movie of that era, Say Anything. When John Cusack’s character, Lloyd Dobler, sauntered onto the screen in his beige trench coat and white leather high tops, we both cried, “Look at his shoes!” when we realized they were first-generation 1988 Nike Air Revolutions—the cousin of my now beloved Jordans.

After we each watched the finale of Stranger Things over the holidays, Ray and I hopped on a phone call to debrief. He and I both had some criticisms of the final season including the lack of risk taking, the superfluous nature of the military, and the fate of the Demobats. But we both liked the way the Duffer Brothers chose to end the series—with the childhood friendships that have always been at the core of the show. Childhood friendships that began in a basement rec room playing Dungeons & Dragons and became deep bonds that last forever.

The show that bridged the divide between nerds, freaks, and jocks bringing them all together in the most epic and heart-warming way, also helped bridge a 33-year generational divide between an aunt and her nephew. That sounds like the storyline of an awesome ’80s movie.

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