Ace Dad Advice: If the "normal" life milestones are off the table for me, what else is there?
LA writes:
I've recently started looking into the possibility I am ace. One thing that I am really struggling with is mourning the potential loss of a life I thought I'd live, and the possibility I will never experience key life milestones that others do/I've always expected I would. For example, moving in with a romantic partner long-term, getting married, having children (although I never was too set on kids).
I also really do not want property (i.e. buying a house) or my career/money to be my only motivator in life/a milestone I can celebrate in a relatable way with friends/family (because screw capitalism). I also can't get pets so becoming 'crazy cat lady' is also not an option!
To add, I am 27 and out of full time education, my friends are mostly with long-term partners but are also not at the marriage/child stage but it is something they want in the future, I feel this is only a feeling that may get worse with time and the more of my community that 'settle down'?
So, I suppose my question is: As an ace person who doesn't want the life milestones listed above, what else is there? What are some of the other life milestones that aren't related to sex and romance that I can celebrate and look forward to?
Hey LA —
What a fantastic question. Thanks for asking it.
Let’s start by understanding what makes all of those “normal” milestones the standards we seek out. It’s something called chrononormativity.
Chrononormativity is a way to describe the way culture uses time, in coordination with other normative forces like allonormativity or amatonormativity, to exert “life deadlines” on individuals in an attempt to ensure they provide the maximum benefit to the society at large. Chrononormativity suggests that we organize life milestones, and assign moral values to meeting or missing those milestones, at certain times so that we can serve social needs before our individual needs. It’s a way to not only encourage individuals to adhere to cultural norms, but to also encourage individuals to achieve the goals of those norms at specific points in our lives. If we do, we’re helping the machinery of society run more smoothly, even if doing so isn’t the best for us.
So all of the milestones you mentioned are made important by chrononormativity. Hitting those milestones at the times we’re expected to maximizes our utility to society, to capitalism. Chrononormativity never stops to ask whether or not we want those things or whether wanting those things is even good for us to begin with.
So the first thing to hold to here: there’s nothing inherently essential about those milestones. There’s nothing inherently “important” or “vital” in them. We can release ourselves from the pressure of hitting them at specific times in our lives, or we can release them as expectations entirely. And we’ll be fine. We aren’t on a schedule and we can want what we want, chrononormativity be damned.
Now to the next idea: what else is there? That, for me, is the magic. When we release ourselves from the pressure of coupling off, buying property, prioritizing our careers, making money, and all of those things we’re pressured to want and do, we can prioritize whatever makes us happy, whatever fulfills us, whatever sparks the joy we’re looking for in our lives. You can make a milestone out of whatever you want. Set a goal for yourself and work towards it. Build your own timeline. Set your own expectations. You don’t have to wait for someone else to define them for you.
You can also just abandon the idea of milestones altogether. In a chrononormative world, those milestones exist to move you up an escalator of maturity and responsibility. They exist to define your shift from child to adult, from less useful to more useful. But that’s all made up. Your success as a human isn’t reliant on whether or not you meet some checklist from this invisible “THEM” that knows what’s best for you.
What if your life was just a string of fully-lived experiences that reflected your joys, your passions, your values and your dreams?
It can be. And this has always been the beauty of queerness to me. When we make that first leap of accepting a part of ourselves as queer, we make every subsequent leap easier. Once we accept that we don’t have to adhere to one normative structure in the world, every other normative structure becomes easier to question and reject.
So… leap! Leap into the life you want.
Need advice on love, sex, life or relationships? Send your questions to cody@acedadadadvice.com.