FRENCH LICK, Ind. — Local black metal parents Suzanne and Dmitri Ubnatern are persistent in asking their 30-year-old daughter to give them grandchildren to metaphorically sacrifice, hesitant sources confirmed.
“I just want to be blessed with grandkids so I can finally know what it’s like to truly love a child. Also, we need to sacrifice something in the name of metal every now and then to keep up appearances,” said the father of three. “Sure, I don’t mean traditional sacrifice in an Old Testament sense. No one does that anymore. Instead, I’m thinking in terms of applying corpse paint to the baby’s face and blasting nothing but brutal metal from Norway as a way to indoctrinate them into what I like. With children, I always find it easier to push your own interests onto them. That being said, our daughter should really be thinking about us and our needs from time to time.”
Maxine Ubnatern was not having any of her parents’ requests to reproduce.
“I’m very much turned off by the idea of having kids right now and it’s not just because my parents keep using words like ‘ritualistic’ and ‘sacrificial’ when they ask,” said the child-free daughter. “I’m just not ready emotionally, mentally, and financially to raise anything. Maybe I’ll be all caught up and mature enough by the time I’m in my 70s. Besides, why can’t my parents be normal music fans where no one is ceremonially offered up to a divine spirit of metal? I would almost prefer they be super into Rush. Say what you will about the prog rock community, but not one of them is sacrificing humans in their spare time.”
Family counselor Doug Framerson sees this sort of relational clash all the time.
“Parents kind of need to let their adult children make their own life-altering decisions,” said Framerson. “Either that or let the economy make it for them, which is more typically the case nowadays. You see, more and more young people are not so much choosing not to have kids, but having that choice made for them thanks to unaffordable housing, stagnant wages, and a blistering combination of student, medical, and consumer debts. Long gone are the days when you can raise a bunch of kids on one salary.”
At press time, the Ubnatern parents decided to pivot and ask their daughter when she’s going to get married to a tall, dark, and handsome metalhead.