Sandra Cisneros is one of my favorite writers. (Read the title piece of Loose Woman, her 2nd poetry collection, here.) Her situation and her life are not like yours--she says she made a conscious choice to give birth only to literary children--but I believe you have a lot in common otherwise. Not even counting being writers I admire.

I suspect your nieces will come around, probably earlier than you predicted. Nothing like the reality of dating in the Tinder age to wake a woman up.