Dear Queenie,
My parents didn’t have what you would call a good marriage but they stayed together because their religion doesn’t allow divorce.
After watching them for all those years I decided never to have children of my own, for fear of doing the same thing to my children that my parents did to me, and when I finally got married my husband and I agreed that we would not have children.
The problem is that ever since I got married my mother keeps bugging me about when I’m going to give her grandchildren. I keep telling her “never” but she keeps it up and my father sides with her because he says she is lonely and it’s my duty as her child to make her happy.
Queenie, how can I get her to drop the subject?—Childless and happy that way
Dear Childless,
Tell your mother straight out why you refuse to bring children into her family. She will not like it, but she deserves the truth. And while you are at it, tell your father it is his job, not yours, to make her happy.
