Homosexual parents

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Cathmomof6

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I would like your opinion on how to handle this situation. My family and I live in a very rural mostly Catholic community. Homosexuality is not really that common here. Anyone that we hear who is openly homosexual usually moves away to a more urban setting. However, there is one woman who has a lesbian partner in our community and they just had twin boys not too long ago. This woman was in a previous relationship with a man and has a 9 year old boy in my daughter and nephew’s class. Her son is friends with my nephew - not a problem. The concern is that she just recently introduced herself and her partner to my sister and said she will be calling so the boys can play together. She said her and her partner go out of town a lot and her son would like my nephew to come along. My sister was uneasy and asked my advice. I really don’t know what I would do. They are nice people, but I understand my sister’s concerns about my nephew going to this boy’s house. How do you explain that situation to a 9 year old boy without either judging them or whitewashing the sin? Just curious what others would do. My sister has no problem with this boy coming to her house - just uneasy about her son going to his house.
 
A parent does not always need to explain herself to a child. It would clearly be unwise to send a young child unchaperoned with a homosexual couple or others with different value systems.
 
Difficult situation. I feel for you. Society is in moral decline
 
PaulfromIowa said:
A parent does not always need to explain herself to a child. It would clearly be unwise to send a young child unchaperoned with a homosexual couple or others with different value systems.
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I agree with Paul.
Mary.
 
I would say either one of two things: that we don’t allow our son to go out of town with anyone, (because 9 is very young to be doing that), or if that’s not true, for example if he does go on trips with relatives or close friends, you could just decline, If pressed by the friends, you could say that you are Catholics, take your faith seriously, and cannot permit his going.
 
PaulfromIowa said:
A parent does not always need to explain herself to a child. It would clearly be unwise to send a young child unchaperoned with a homosexual couple or others with different value systems.
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I agree with this but wanted to make sure I wasnt judging them too harshly because they are nice people. So would you just say “sorry but we have plans that weekend”? And what if the child persists in asking “why can’t he go?”
 
Out of town with mere acquaintances at 9 years old? That sounds nuts. The lesbian aspect doesn’t even factor in.
 
Prodigal_Son said:
Out of town with mere acquaintances at 9 years old? That sounds nuts. The lesbian aspect doesn’t even factor in.
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Where we live “out of town” happens if you do anything; going to a movie or bowling, chuckee cheese, etc. There is nothing “in town” so not as crazy as you might think. But I am curious about even letting him play over at this boy’s house. He does have a single dad that lives in the area too.
 
If I were in this situation I would ask that the other boy stay at our house when these trips occur. I would not be comfortable with allowing our son to be with people that I hardly know away from home but I would be OK with having their son under our roof.
 
Prodigal_Son said:
Out of town with mere acquaintances at 9 years old? That sounds nuts. The lesbian aspect doesn’t even factor in.
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mountee said:
If I were in this situation I would ask that the other boy stay at our house when these trips occur. I would not be comfortable with allowing our son to be with people that I hardly know away from home but I would be OK with having their son under our roof.
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👍 Completely agree.
 
Simple: “We don’t allow him to travel without us, but thanks so much for the offer! Maybe sometime your son can take a little trip with us. They have so much fun together!”

It makes it about your comfort level as a parent, and not really about their lifestyle.
I’m sure they realize you are Catholic.By keeping the lines of communication open, you are demonstrating peace to your sisters, but still holding your values.

There may come a time when they may want to dialog with you about the Church’s view.
Would be nice to have them trust you.
 
pianistclare said:
Simple: “We don’t allow him to travel without us, but thanks so much for the offer! Maybe sometime your son can take a little trip with us. They have so much fun together!”

It makes it about your comfort level as a parent, and not really about their lifestyle.
I’m sure they realize you are Catholic.By keeping the lines of communication open, you are demonstrating peace to your sisters, but still holding your values.

There may come a time when they may want to dialog with you about the Church’s view.
Would be nice to have them trust you.
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I really like your reasoning in this situation, I believe that this type of approach will work well in all types of situations.
 
Cathmomof6 said:
Where we live “out of town” happens if you do anything; going to a movie or bowling, chuckee cheese, etc. There is nothing “in town” so not as crazy as you might think. But I am curious about even letting him play over at this boy’s house. He does have a single dad that lives in the area too.
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Just to clarify, because I wasn’t sure from the OP: if they are going “out of town,” does that mean overnight trips? Or just a few hours somewhere and then coming back home? Because I would say to overnight trips no matter what if I didn’t know the parents and child extremely well, but a day trip is different.

At the boy’s house might be OK. I think I would really want to get to know the women first, and maybe even go there myself first. And again, this is probably something I would do regardless of what’s going on with the parents.
 
My gut feel is no matter what you tell them, in the end they will know it’s their lifestyle.
Polite and making it about parenting as pianistclare said seems like a wonderful way to handle it.

I grew up back in the day when I had a single parent mom and lived in a crummy ap. The line “You can play at my house anytime, but I can’t come to yours, sell girls scout cookies with you,”
was a polite way to say I lived in the “bad part of town” with neighbors what were “iffy” in their minds.

I knew it as a kid at a very young age. Sadly there is no way around the truth at the end of the day no matter how politely you word it.

That said, my neighborhood was not safe and those parents made the right decision.

Mary.

Mary.
 
If the nephew and the kid in question are going to be allowed to play together, then the parents are going to have to have an age-appropriate discussion about lesbians and what we believe and why we believe that’s not right. It’s really up to the parents to decide if their child is ready for that discussion. However, once that discussion has taken place, and assuming there isn’t some other concern, I don’t see a problem with letting the nephew play with the kid as he would any other kid.
 
I just have to say, my home life was not ideal. I’m really grateful to the good people God saw fit to put in my path.

I hope you all will have the 9 year-old over and just show him kindness. Nothing extraordinary. Just be yourselves.
 
It’s a moot point.

A 9 year old is too young to take overnight trips with friends.

The other boy’s parents shouldn’t have a problem respecting that rule.
 
While a nine year old might be too young to take an overnight trip with friends, he won’t always be. Is a nine year old too young to sleep over at someone’s house? Should this be allowed? Would it be better to just be honest about the situation?
 
I am sure that the last topic on any 9 year old boy’s mind is lesbians! As long as his little friend’s parents take them on a grand day out and let them have fun, I don’t think the fact that they are both women will play on his mind!

His friend, the boy with the lesbian parents, is the one who will suffer and feel stigmatised if no other children apparently want to come over to his house. He’s done nothing wrong - he just happens to have a mother who is gay and in a gay relationship.I think there is a danger here of making an innocent child feel shameful and different: I bet his 2 mothers are quite used to discrimination and gossip and have learned to deal with it.

When your nephew is older, you can explain that as Christians, we can ‘love the sinner - hate the sin’. I would be uncomfortable if the ‘day out’ planned was a Gay Pride march, or a LGBT rally, or similar, but the sin here is not being born gay: it is acting on those impulses and unless they are given to spontaneous outbursts of public displays of affection (which is tricky for anyone trying to keep tabs on 2 lively 9 year odl boys too) then I would show these ladies and their son friendship and kindness and make them feel part of the local community.

9 years old is too young to be expected to understand the difference between being gay and having a homosexual relationship. It’s also too young to understand the difference between being straight and indulging in pre-marital or extra-marital sex (both of which are no better or worse than being an active homosexual)

If it were my child, I would encourge him to go and have a great day out, as long as I felt he was sensible enough and the boy and his parents were also sensible people and the trip out did not involve any kind of political agenda.
 
Rose71 said:
I am sure that the last topic on any 9 year old boy’s mind is lesbians! As long as his little friend’s parents take them on a grand day out and let them have fun, I don’t think the fact that they are both women will play on his mind!

His friend, the boy with the lesbian parents, is the one who will suffer and feel stigmatised if no other children apparently want to come over to his house. He’s done nothing wrong - he just happens to have a mother who is gay and in a gay relationship.I think there is a danger here of making an innocent child feel shameful and different: I bet his 2 mothers are quite used to discrimination and gossip and have learned to deal with it.

When your nephew is older, you can explain that as Christians, we can ‘love the sinner - hate the sin’. I would be uncomfortable if the ‘day out’ planned was a Gay Pride march, or a LGBT rally, or similar, but the sin here is not being born gay: it is acting on those impulses and unless they are given to spontaneous outbursts of public displays of affection (which is tricky for anyone trying to keep tabs on 2 lively 9 year odl boys too) then I would show these ladies and their son friendship and kindness and make them feel part of the local community.

9 years old is too young to be expected to understand the difference between being gay and having a homosexual relationship. It’s also too young to understand the difference between being straight and indulging in pre-marital or extra-marital sex (both of which are no better or worse than being an active homosexual)

If it were my child, I would encourge him to go and have a great day out, as long as I felt he was sensible enough and the boy and his parents were also sensible people and the trip out did not involve any kind of political agenda.
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I agree. As long as you would have no other issues in regard to the couple. We need to love and accept everyone. We cannot reach or change hearts if we don’t accept people. We can have conversations with our kids about what we accept as truth and what we don’t and leave the sorting our to God.
 
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