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Not a phase


Ashley Meza

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I would like to vent that I came out as asexual to my mom. Was totally honest, but I didn't like how she said I haven't found the right person, or that's it's because I've never been in a relationship. It ticked me off, I love her but this was uncalled for. Why is it when someone comes out as a sexuality other than heterosexual, they always gotta ask the most dreaded question. "What about grandkids?" Ugh...

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Ah, the ol' "What about grandkids?". Well, if you can't support your own kid what makes you so concerned about grandkids?

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Haven't come out yet but I'm pretty sure I'd get the exact same reaction. mom seems to really look forward to when I have kids, which I'm sure I won't, at least not biological. Anyways whenever she brings it up I'd either go along with, I do like children and it's not like she said they have to be biological, or I'd change the topic. 

 

I can confidently say that I am not looking forward to coming out😓

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The legacy of a family is apparently of concern to many people...carrying on the family name, some one to remember you by once your gone, I can see why it would be important to many people. Also, grandkids are fun. You get to play with them and feed them way too much sugar and buy them loud toys then hand them back to their parents to deal with. Its all the fun parts of cute little infant people without the responsibility parts. A lot of people miss the 'pitterpatter of little feet' and since their too old to have more, and having children is so ubiquitous that its just taken as granted, most people just naturally expect they'll have grandkids to play with some day. "But what about grandkids" is uttered out of surprise that this expected thing is no longer guaranteed. Its like going to a restaurant in America and they don't have forks at all, just chopsticks. No, that may be perfectly valid, but you're still going to sit down at your table and go 'hey, where are the forks?'.

 

As an only child with no interest in kids, I do feel a little bad for my parents, both of whom love kids and wont get grandkids. But my dad has a girlfriend who has grandkids he can see, and my mom lives in a town in Mexico where everyone's kids are everyone's, so she gets to play with little ones whenever she's visiting a home that has them. Its not quite the same, but both of them seem ok with it, so I'm happy that they're happy. Perhaps such arrangements...helping other people with their children or having non blood/legalities related 'family'...can help all these parents who ask 'what about grandkids?' get through this unexpected lack of a thing they were so sure they were going to have and so looking forward to.

 

As for the irritation over the whole 'its just a phase' thing...well, look at it from their point of view. These people raised you, and watched you say 'always' or 'never' a million times growing up. "I'll NEVER forget my imaginary friend!" "I'll NEVER like vegetables!" "I'll ALWAYS like this book". And then...a year, a month, a week, later, our insistence lies forgotten as we move on to new things. Its the nature of humanity, of growing. Your parents watch you do this with so many things as you grow up, even as a teenager, and they remember when THEY were growing up and did the same thing, saying always then changing their minds, and it is now the default belief that ANY time a person of ANY age says 'forever', they're probably exaggerating. The only thing that proves 'forever' is for it to last 'forever'. The longer a particular insistence remains true, the less people will think its a phase. So it is natural and right for people to be initially skeptical when you say that something apart from the biological norm is the case for you. It is also natural and right that as the years pass and you still have not found 'the one' or suffered for lack of finding 'the one', people will slowly stop waiting for it. It took my mom seven years to go from "Well, that's fine and all, but one day you'll change your mind' to 'y'know...I've stopped waiting for you to change your mind. This just is how you are.'. It isn't done maliciously...its born of repetition and understanding of the nature of human brains. We are mercurial. We change. We go through phases. It is natural to expect things that aren't the norm to be phases. As long as no one is getting in your face, insisting you go on dates, yelling at you about grandkids, demanding you change what you're doing...as long as none of that is happening, the thing to do is simply wait. In a few years, they'll stop waiting for you to change. In a few more, they'll realize they don't expect you to change anymore. In time, they'll just stop thinking of it as a phase, not as a conscious choice, but just as a natural evolution of how they think.

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