Dear Rodger ~
After a dozen years of dating lots of men, I have finally reached the point, at 32, where I am perfectly content with the single life. And so, while I am still certainly open to the possibility of meeting a man to share my life with, I no longer consider that a necessity for me to be happy or even a priority in my life.
Unfortunately, my parents do not share my contentment. I am an only child, which means I am their only chance for grandchildren. I am not ready to take on the responsibilities of being a single mother, and they would not like that prospect anyway.
My question to you is: How do I make my parents content with having an unmarried daughter who is not going to give them grandchildren?
Single and Content
Dear Single & Content ~
As I’ve said in the past & will, I’m sure, say to many letter writers in the future: Just about the only thing you can “make” another person . . . is a cheese sandwich.
You can certainly try to communicate—repeatedly—to your parents that you are fully content being single, but you can’t force them to give up their dream of having grandchildren. Then again, while you probably owe your parents a great deal, it’s not your responsibility either to fulfill their dreams or to find someone to father the grandchildren they would like to have.
Rodger
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4 comments:
Your advice is dead on right. From my experience, though, it still takes parents a very, very long time to get around to accepting the reality that there will be no grandchildren and that is okay.
I know I am going to sound really petty, but the problem I have with being a single daughter with no children is that I keep getting a smaller and smaller share of what my parents give their children. My sister keeps having more kids and each grandchild gets the same amount as I do when it comes time for birthday or Xmas gifts. Or when someone of us needs a piece of our inheritance in advance of when they did. My neices get new cars every year it seems but I am the financially responsible daughter who can buy her own car.
This is a sitatuion gay people face all the time. Not only do we shatter our parents' dreams of who we will be with regard to having a wife but we also cannot supply grandchildren. Yeah, yeah, yeah, gay people can adopt, I know that, but I am not going to adopt and raise a child by myself and it is not that eaxsy to find a gay partner who wants to commit not only to one person for his whole life but to raising a child too.
Communicating that it's not your role in life to give your parents grandchildren is not an easy message to get across. Trust me on that. It takes years and a great deal of repetition before it settles in. Although it eventually goes. Trust me on that too.
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