How Burnout Led to a Novel Way to Connect Black Women Across Generations

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A decade ago Nicole Kenney, 30, was burned out. Years earlier, she had completed a rigorous undergraduate degree at Smith College and then a master’s program in public policy at Johns Hopkins. Now she was working hard as an NAACP communications associate and taking little time to rest. Meanwhile, the arrests and police killings of Sandra Bland, Walter Scott, and Freddie Gray — key moments in the nation’s reckoning with race and criminal justice — added stress and trauma. Kenney felt anxious, exhausted, and physically ill.

“A single institution didn’t cause my burnout,” Kenney says, “but the cumulative weight of being a Black woman navigating relentless and unique social pressures and stress, while carrying high expectations.”

A group of older women she knew sprang into action, dispensing advice and support. This network of “aunties” included her actual aunt — her mom’s sister — but also older women in her life who aren’t relatives — colleagues, her parents’ friends, women she worked with as a personal trainer or in the YMCA fitness class that she taught.

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Kenney would talk to her aunties for hours on the phone, over meals, while working out, or at church. They helped validate her burnout, telling her about their own bouts of weariness and sharing advice. One auntie encouraged her to invest in personal relationships, telling Kenney that community is a lifeline, not a luxury.

In 2021, Kenney tapped this experience to create a social networking platform to help Black women form “auntie” relationships. Known as Hey Auntie, it connects Black women to other Black women of different ages. Members, who meet in small and large groups, range in age: Millennials, Gen Xers, and boomers are all equally represented along with some Gen Zers. Most are from Philadelphia, where Kenney lives, but there are members throughout the country and around the world.

Although a for-profit business, Hey Auntie has received funding from nonprofits, including CoGenerate, which promotes intergenerational interaction, and the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia. Although some parts of the platform are free, members pay to access premium features.

In part, Hey Auntie aims to answer what many see as a national crisis: the country’s so-called loneliness epidemic, which affects millions of Americans. About half of U.S. adults report experiencing loneliness, which the U.S. Surgeon general last year said can be as unhealthy as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Black women are more likely to report loneliness than white, Asian, or Hispanic women. They also face higher levels of stress but are less likely to seek help. In part, that’s because they lack access to caregivers who understand their needs and experiences: Just 4 percent of U.S. psychologists are African American.

One of Hey Auntie’s goals is to provide Black women with a space where they can receive culturally competent care that formal therapy often lacks. Kenney wants Black women to feel welcome and accepted. “When you are in spaces and places where you don’t feel seen, you don’t feel heard, or you feel like you have to constantly defend your very being there, that is one of the fastest ways to isolate someone.”

Auntie networks have deep historical roots. In West Africa before and during the trans-Atlantic slave trade, protecting a child’s health and well-being was seen as an entire community’s responsibility, according to historian and sociologist Regina Davis-Sowers, whom Kenney consulted when building the platform. When Africans — many of whom came from West Africa — were forcibly brought to America and families were torn apart, children had to rely on an extended family whom they may or may not have been related to.

A Model That Works

Hey Auntie may be just four years old with just a few hundred members, but Kenney is onto something with its design, says Marci Alboher, chief engagement officer of CoGenerate. Participants meet regularly, connect over the shared experience of being a Black woman, and form relationships that are mutually beneficial.

Conversations aren’t always weighty: In one discussion, a group of Beyoncé fans heard from an older woman who talked about paying $2 to see the Jackson Five — proof that certain experiences, such as a love for music, transcend generational divides.

But Hey Auntie is also a place where members can feel understood, Alboher says. And it helps participants stop seeing loneliness as something shameful or that they need to tackle on their own. “The opposite of loneliness is social connection, and if we increase our social networks and the social capital that comes with having a larger network, we have more chances to feel part of something bigger than ourselves,” she says.

Shanel Thompson’s experience with Hey Auntie offers a case study in its benefits. Thompson, who’s 41 and from Pittsburgh, found the platform in 2021 while living in Texas, away from her family. She was single, working as a medical fellow and later as a pediatrician. She says the platform was a godsend because she found her job, still navigating the Covid pandemic, stressful and isolating. Hey Auntie gave her a venue to vent as well as connect with other women.

She recalls one particularly hard day in a rural health clinic. Her last patient was a teenager who had come in for nausea. Thompson not only had to inform the girl she was pregnant but also tell her mother and grandmother. The exchange left her anxious, wondering if she handled it properly and connected them with appropriate resources.

Stress can affect Thompson physically, causing hair loss, a rash, or stomach pains. But when she told a group of Hey Auntie participants about the experience, they provided coping strategies, including breathing exercises and recording her emotions in a journal.

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Thompson says Hey Auntie has helped her learn from people who aren’t like her. She describes herself as “tribal” and explains that she wouldn’t have befriended some of the women on her own. In the past, she sought out women who were the same age, worked in the same field, or shared her faith. But Thompson has since realized that only being in communities with people like her doesn’t provide opportunities to learn. “You’re all cookie-cutter of one another,” she explains.

One woman Thompson met through Hey Auntie has discussed the difficulties of caring for an aging parent. Another talked about a hard divorce. Thompson gained empathy and learned from these women. For example, the divorcee talking about paying attention to red flags in a romantic partner. Since then, Thompson has vowed to address — not ignore — reservations she may have with those she’s dating.

Hey Auntie offers participants various ways to connect. Thompson has found the most benefits from Lela’s Corners, small groups of three to six women, all of different ages. Participants meet once a month to answer the same discussion question.

Kenney frames these conversations as a chance to listen. At the start of each, she sets the ground rules: This is not a debate, she says, and participants are here to learn.

Through Auntie’s Porch, Kenney brings in a speaker, often a Hey Auntie participant who’s an expert on a given topic. This format offers a chance to listen if women prefer not to talk. In January, the featured speaker worked at a federal credit union and discussed ways to become financially stable. Hey Auntie then held a “One Thing Challenge” in which participants aimed to address one issue, such as paying off credit card debt or reining in their grocery bills.

Auntie x Auntee are one-on-one discussions. Women who are less experienced in a certain area of life, the Auntees, chat with women who are more knowledgeable, or Aunties. All members come together on a Slack group called the “The Kitchen.”

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All Hey Auntie discussions adhere to a theme that changes each month. The focus in January and February was financial wellness, while December turned to the importance of resting. Kenney sits in on group discussions and shares what she calls the “Auntie House Rules,” community guidelines meant to promote a culture of safety.

Tashauna Lindsley, 36, has found the Auntie x Auntee conversations particularly helpful. She asked Andrea Tucker, 59, for advice on how to navigate her strained relationship with her mother. She worried that she no longer talked much with her mother.

Tucker told her that the separation might be a good thing and eventually even strengthen the bond. It might take years for Lindsley and her mother to grow close again, she said, but the rift may not last forever. The conversation gave Lindsley hope.

The older Aunties also can benefit from such conversations, Kenney says. Talking to Lindsley and others forced Tucker to reflect on issues in her relationship with her own mother.

“When I’m sharing my story with these women and being very transparent and vulnerable, I realize that I’m hope in human form for them. And at the same time, another piece of me is continuously healing from that pain,” Tucker says.

For Lindlsey, Hey Auntie has shown her she’s not alone in her mental health experiences. She recalls an Auntie’s Porch conversation about seasonal depression. During the conversation, many women shared that they’d known someone with depression or experienced it themselves. The conversation made Linsdley feel less isolated.

“Human beings are not meant to go through life alone, that’s not our nature,” Lindsley explains. “We need each other, we need community.”

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