Sounds to me like it's not specifically about 'being married and having kids'; more of a catchphrase meaning 'being older'. Like they might say, "You'll have grey hair and walking stick, and things'll still be the same."

Annoying either way.

lol. Yeah. I mean they're right about the issue(s) that're problematic and don't contend with me much, but they're so basic/surface-like that you suspect whoever I end up marrying would be on the lookout for said issues as well and not just be like TAKE ME AWAYY..

I thought they were saying "You may lack empathy for my plight now, but just you wait!"

ah. my mom has done that a few times; I find it an incredibly cheap shot and don't really register it. Like sure, there are issues between parents and offspring all the time, even common ones that I might see with my own, but saying 'you're doing X to me and wait till it happens to you' is some spiteful stuff and isn't really relevant to whatever we were talking about anyway because just because I'm not doing something along the lines you wanted doesn't mean I'm doing something 'to' you.

You'll need your fucking reading glasses to type on a computer and it'll still be like this.

Does that one work?

Well, see, that "you'll be old and still be doing this" thing is logical (if not totally rational because I don't intend to be like that.) But the sneakyness of the wife/kids one is that introduces more characters into the system that I'd apparently be hurting and it's illogical because they're not gonna get introduced into the system if it stays like that.

Anyway, I just ignore most of it. If they're right, they're right, if they're wrong, they're wrong, I'm not going to lend traction to stray things said in the heat of the moment in discussion of something else that's entirely different and more immediate. I learned way too late in life to not parse out statements in arguments but to focus on what's going on behind the words and go for an optimal solution on the immediate thing that needs to be resolved.

Sorry, Firas, that sounds like a classic parental sneak attack. My mom does this with a light little laugh, which means she gets to take a free crack at me; when I bother to object, she says "Oh, it was a joke, honey, don't be so serious."

Related: your parents know how to push your buttons because your parents installed your buttons.

I have recently (like, in the last three years or so) started consciously engaging with my mother on these oft-revisited subjects the way I would with anyone else who poked into sensitive issues: instead of getting worked up and defensive, I snap into cool rational robot-brain mode. I explained civilly that I would not discuss [X] with her at length because it's my decision, not hers, but that she was right not to hang her hopes on [X] changing.

AND IT WORKED. We had to revisit it a couple of times, because she is so used to the old pattern of her poking and me exploding, but after I coolly reminded her two or three times that I would not engage on [X], she stopped poking. AWESOME. I felt like B.F. Skinner.

I'm just gonna wake up one morning and voila! I'll be married. - You say that now.

Times like this I'm glad my mom lives in near constant surprise that her two kids are alive and not in jail to care if we're married or having kids.

That's geat, Elsa! Yeah the power to choose one's response to something is underused. People go far off track not realizing that if they're getting played it's cause they're letting someone play them.