When your family hates your genre

So, I tweeted a comment about my novel and the characters, which also posted it to facebook. My mother, who generally doesn't read anything I write, and has probably never followed a link in facebook to my blog, decided to comment - directly to me, not as a comment on the post - with "another vampire one?" She seemed genuinely disgusted with the fact that I'm writing a book about vampires.

I would say that it hurt, but I honestly don't care what her opinion is. This is what I am currently passionate about, so this is what I'm going to write. What upsets me, is that she can't even pretend to be supportive of the first thing I have ever been truly excited about in my entire life. I mean, it's my mother. Is it really so hard to try to pretend to care, or to be proud of me? (A post for another time, really)

But, it got me thinking. I wonder, now, how many other of my friends and family would hate my books on principle because of the subject matter. I know that my one cousin became disinterested after she heard that it was paranormal romance. But, I have others that I know would be interested, and are actually on my list to ask to be beta readers when I'm ready for reader impressions, rather than editing work. So, I really don't mind having some that might not even be able to bring themselves to read it. That's just the way it is.

An even more interesting thought, though, is the question of how many insanely famous and popular authors have members of their own families that just refuse to read their books due to hating the genre. Not that I have many delusions that I'll ever be famous or popular. But, the idea that this is something that can, and probably does, even happen to the greats is rather comforting, somehow.

I fully admit that my first thought when my mom made that comment was "Really? You can't be bothered to read my blog, or like or comment on any of my facebook posts, but you can give me a hard time about my choice of genre?" So, maybe it did hurt, at first...

So, what about you? Do any of you have friends or family that just refuses to have anything to do with your genre, even if it's something that you wrote? And how do you deal with it when they do?

And that's my weekly ramble. I'll be posting William's biography tomorrow. I know I'm behind, again, still trying to get back in the swing of things and keep managing to forget what day it is.