#to be fair daddy issues and mother complexes are different in specific ways

[hannah-honestly-blog]

Age Gap Relationships

So, I am a member of a group on Facebook named "Age gaps don't matter in a relationship". It is full of couples from all over the world who seek advice and comfort in knowing they are not alone in their situations. Situations such as bad family reactions, issues which age gap couples face within their relationships such as marriage and children, and the response they have from the outside world.

Now, I am not one to rise to petty people who it seem have nothing better to do with their day than sit behind a computer screen and type all about their opinion on matters that do not concern them. And I still haven't. Instead, I have read and absorbed what they have said and feel my response needs to be written somewhere, even if it's just for me to look back on. They will never read it most likely, probably no-one will read this, but it helps me get things off my chest and mind if I just write them down.

A few members of this Facebook group, it seems, have told their stories to newspapers, who have in turn released the articles on their Facebook pages. This is something I view as incredibly brave and although it's something I don't think I could ever do because the backlash would upset me far too much, I do see what they are trying to do by getting their stories out there. They are trying to bring a sense of normality to a subject that I hadn't even known was such a taboo. This in itself is a hugely difficult task, not made at all easier by the person writing the article littering it with constant commentary about "how old the man/woman was when the younger man/woman was this age". I get it, of course. The aim of some news articles are to report, but most nowadays are to shock and start a discussion, therefore pulling in the most comments and reactions on their post.

It is some of the comments which have angered me. I find it utterly incomprehensible, with everything else going on in this world, that people choose to hate two people in love.

The list of issues with the world that these people could be concentrating on is HUGE: war, poverty, bombings, murder, ACTUAL paedophilia, extreme hunger, rape, sex slaves, slavery in general, mistreatment of animals, lack of clean water, poor sanitation. This is only the slightest of slight compilations of things which actually deserve and require these people's outrage and discussion. Why aren't they focusing on these things? Why aren't they using their brains to try and help with something which negatively effects millions of people? Instead of bashing people who are doing them absolutely no harm? People who are plain and simply in love?

I'm not naive, I get that Facebook is a playground for "trolls", which in my book is a loose term for someone who needs likes on their "funny" comment in order to feel they are accomplishing something in life. Facebook is full to the brim of people trying to "win the internet" for that day. In all honesty, people who put others down in the name of comedy are not funny in the slightest. If you need someone else's misfortune to crack a joke, you need to sit the fuck down and take a long hard look at your own life.

People have opinions, I also understand this. After all, is this whole post not my own opinion? However, I feel my opinion on this subject is somewhat more justified than theirs. My outlook on life is incredibly simple: live how you please...within reason. What I mean by this is that as long as you are not harming anybody else, physically or mentally, you should be able to do with your own life what you see fit.

These age-gap couples are in loving, consensual relationships with one another. They have fallen in love and have chosen to pursue a relationship and created their own small globe of happiness. Which is awesome. Why shouldn't they be happy? Why does the older female have to be labelled a cougar? Or the younger female branded as having daddy issues?

We humans are complex creatures, we are no two the same and we all choose to lead different paths in lives and that is what makes up the world. If everyone were the same, there would be no interest. The beauty of everyone being different is that they are unique, and they bring to the world something utterly personal to them. This is how we have different cultures belonging to different countries, and we celebrate this. We travel to these countries and marvel at what makes them culturally different to us and we love it because it is something new and beautiful and unique to that specific place.

So why is being in love with someone twenty, thirty or forty years senior considered such an inappropriate thing? "Because it's disgusting, he's clearly a peado." No. No. And no, again. If these people had a brain cell to share between them they would realise that if somebody is over the age of eighteen, which is recognised most of the world over as being adult, they physically cannot be a peadophile. It's impossible. "It's inappropriate because she/he is only with him/her for the money." Wrong. The majority of the age-gap couples I have met on Facebook, myself included, are financially stable because they are together. They both work and both pay their way fairly.

When I first told my parents about my age-gap relationship, my mother told me to ask my boyfriend how he would feel if his eleven-year-old daughter was to end up with someone twenty-seven years her senior when she was twenty, like me. And I did ask him, or rather, I told him what she had said. He said that as a father, yes, he understood why they were having a bit of trouble understanding it. BUT, he would be happy with it as long as his daughter was. When you are an adult, and you make a decision, you make it for yourself and your own happiness. There was never an option for me to just do what my parents wanted, because that would be sacrificing my own happiness in order to please them. And it is not their life, it is mine, and mine alone.

Now, things are slightly better with my parents, although they will probably still need more time to wrap their heads around it. I am pregnant with my first child, and I did, at one point, find myself considering what I would do if my daughter were to grow up and enter into a similar relationship to her parents. And I'm fine with it. I might be biased, but that doesn't matter. It is exactly the same situation if my daughter were to come to me and tell me she were a lesbian. Love, whether it be same-sex, opposite-sex or age-gap, is ALL THE SAME.

Many people in the comments detailed what they thought could be possible issues with age-gap relationships. One being: "how on earth do you find something in common with someone who is so much older than you." The answer: Easily. All sorts of different people connect with all sorts of different people. My partner and I both enjoy board games, card games, walks, a fair few pub crawls (before I got pregnant of course). We love finding little hidden gems of pubs with unique decor, and we like finding new places for a good Sunday Lunch. We both like much of the same food and we both laugh at the same things. We can mess around together and play-fight, and we discuss our views on different matters the same as every other "normal" couple out there. We have both always liked to read, and we both have creative tendencies. We're easy-going, open-minded, non-judgemental people. It just so happens that he was born in 1969 and I was born in 1996. And I see no issue with that. At all.

To me, the people who go out of their way to insult and mock others must seriously have such sad lives. There must be so much going wrong in them that the only time they get any sort of mental relief is when they are attempting to knock others down. It is the only explanation I can think of. Because I lead a happy and fulfilled life, and I have plenty to look forward to, and I have never felt the need to comment on someone else's life decisions or condemn them for those decisions. I don't judge others, because it is their life, and their lives do not affect mine in any way at all.

And so, I will continue my life with my lovely boyfriend and my daughter who is going to be coming into this world very soon. And I will show her all of the beauty in it and teach her that love, in all it's shapes and forms, is the most beautiful and sacred thing we, as humans, are capable of. To love another and be loved by another is truly an incredibly pure and amazing thing which should be cherished for all of time. It is most likely inevitable that my partner will pass before me (although not certain) and I accept that. I accept that I would rather have thirty to forty years with him that spend a lifetime with someone who I just didn't feel the same connection with.

Life is not a trial run. We don't get a second go at this. Live it as you please. Do whatever makes you happy. And fuck those who try to tear you down for doing your thing.

❤️

[multiracialmedia-blog]

Ask Lisa: Helping a Child Accept His Evolving Racial Appearance

Evolving racial appearance

Ask Lisa: Helping a Child Accept his Evolving Racial Appearance

All children change as they grow, but a multiracial kid’s evolving racial appearance can have unexpected social and emotional implications. In today’s column, a mother worries about her multiracial son’s longing for the straight, blond hair he had in early childhood and his wish to be “totally white,” like his friends.

Dear Lisa,

I’m white and have been married for nearly 24 years to a multiracial man (he is black, white, and Native American). We have two young children—a boy, 8, and a girl, 3. Our son is going through some issues with his identity when it comes to his appearance. I’ve talked to some of my mom friends, but most of them are white with white husbands and white children, and they don’t get it. They seem to think it’s the same as their kids wanting a different color hair or fewer freckles. We’ve always been open with our son about his ethnicity, and my husband’s family is beautifully diverse in appearance. Some of his brothers married Latina women and one married a woman from India. Unfortunately, we live in a rural area outside a small city and in our area, most of the people are white. We also homeschool, and most of the homeschooling families around are white, so my son has basically all white friends right now (except for his cousins whom he doesn’t see all that often).

Her Son’s Evolving Racial Appearance Makes Him Feel “Other” in his Mostly-White Environment

My son has always looked very white. He has pale skin and blue eyes and he had blond hair in the beginning but it keeps getting darker. As he gets older, it has become curlier and stands up and out rather than hanging down straight. This is bothering him a lot more than I thought it would. He wants to keep it very short, but that’s a band-aid. I want him to be happy with who he is. We talked about how Daddy’s hair grows up and out as well. He says he wants to be blond because that’s the best color, which really disturbed me when he said it. When we talked about how he is of mixed ethnicity, he said, “But my friends are totally white.”

Do you have any suggestions for ways I can help him feel more comfortable with his evolving racial appearance and his identity as a multiracial person? It’s a different challenge than I expected, simply because he is “white-passing,” but has issues around his hair, now that it’s changing.

L.J.

Dear L.J.

It’s inevitable: as humans of all descriptions grow and age, our bodies, faces, and hair undergo changes. For multiracial individuals like your son, the metamorphosis can be loaded and emotionally complex. Racially specific changes may not affect who we are inside, but they do impact how we are classified by American society: our social status, the subtle prejudices others hold against us.

Many of us have looks that fluctuate depending on our hairstyles, clothing or even the lighting in the room. Adult multiracial people like myself usually have an awareness (and a bit of a sense of humor) about how we are perceived from day to day. For example, when I lived in New York, by the end of winter, when my skin was at its lightest, people were more likely to address me in Spanish. When my hair got very long, someone asked me to explain to them about Diwali. When I wore a Star of David, the Jewish symbol, people asked if I was Ethiopian-Jewish. (I am black/African American and white/Ashkenazi Jewish.) As an adult, I am aware of the different ways I am seen. None of it surprises me or challenges the way I see myself.

Children, on the other hand, are just developing a sense of self and starting to recognize that differences between people have meaning. (E.g. Grandpa has white hair because he is old. Aunt Savita has brown skin like other people in India where she comes from.) Despite common misconceptions that young children are “colorblind,” numerous studies show that kids far younger than your son are aware of racial differences and make associations based on color.

Your son may look mostly like everyone else in your town, but he knows that part of him is different. It’s clear from your letter (and from the fact that you married your husband), that you treasure his difference, but I have a hunch your community does not. You’ve been open with your son and talked to him about his multiracial background. But where he lives, white is the norm, the ideal, and the identity he favors regardless of what you and your husband teach him.

Now, as long as your boy appears as white as he feels, his sense of belonging remains intact. (And what does it mean to feel white in a majority-white environment? It means that there is no need to consider your race or to worry about being different because you are simply regular.) Suddenly, your son’s hair is betraying his self-concept, setting him apart from his friends, which is understandably jarring to him.

You’re right to be concerned that he’s developing shame around the one piece of him that appears “of color.” His looks may continue to evolve well past puberty. My own son, now thirteen, had green eyes and light hair as a baby. His hair didn’t curl at all until he was four and his fair skin didn’t begin to tan in the summer until he was almost ten. Since we live in an area where he is surrounded by different races and looks, his evolving racial appearance never distanced him from his classmates. (Though he did once ask me to blow his long, poofy hair straight so it would “hang down.” He looked so silly, we quickly wet it and scrunched the curls up again.)

Whichever Genes Dominate, Counter the Message That Some Racial Features are Better Than Others

Your son will need support in this. While television and films are much more diverse than they used to be, there are still stereotypes and negative images associated with blackness, subliminal messages that prize whiteness and proximity to whiteness. Read books with him and take him to see films that feature children of color as protagonists. Display photos of light and dark family members, so he can see his heritage—and his hair—in photos if not around town.

Also, try to figure out why your son is feeling so bad right now. Are other children making fun of his hair? Are people saying casually racist things about your husband? Or are there gentle reminders that your husband’s racial background is less desirable than yours and your neighbors? Your son may have overheard a seemingly-innocuous comment such as, “Except for his hair, you can’t even tell …” as if African Ancestry were something to be minimized.

While your town may seem polite and welcoming, your son doesn’t see his full identity reflected there and believes he would be better off blond. Your husband’s diverse extended family might be a wonderful antidote. Is it possible for your son to see his cousins, aunts and uncles more often? I think having a chance to enjoy his family’s vibrant diversity might go a long way in countering his shame in not being white. Even more importantly, enlist your husband’s help. Encourage him to teach your son all about his various ethnicities. Most of all, have daddy teach your son how to care for his hair and bond with him over its wonderful, “up-and-out-growing” uniqueness. With an appreciation of his rich, cultural background, your son may soon begin to regard his evolving racial appearance with pride and acceptance.

Ask Lisa: Helping a Child Accept His Evolving Racial Appearance if you want to check out other voices of the Multiracial Community click here Multiracial Media

#Evolving racial appearance