Please help with advice on preventing Scandal

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MarkS

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Hello Everyone,

I am looking for some advice on this situation and if there is anything that we can do.

A little background, me and my wife are faithful practicing Catholics and are the parents of 11 kids. The oldest is 15, the youngest 4 months. We are in CA and currently live with my Wife’s parents in their house, they have the house split into a separate area. They have been faithful Catholics their whole life and accept everything the Church teaches and have been good role models for the faith. Also, living with them is their 25 year old grandson, my nephew. Who is a non-practicing Agnostic.

The situation is he has had his girlfriend spend the night several times and she sleeps in his room with him. They also spend a lot of time alone together late at night in his room without supervision. What has also happened is that he has told his Grandma that nothing is going on and she firmly and fully believes him. Even though her whole life, with every single situation that is similar, she has been always opposed to this due to the scandal that it can cause. In a similar vein, when me and my wife were dating, I was never allowed to be alone with her to avoid the proximate occasion of sin.

Where this is causing a big rift in our family now is due to 2 points:
  1. We’ve brought up to her to please not allow this to continue any longer due to this is causing scandal with our children, setting a bad example and allowing something sinful to become a norm in the household. I am afraid as the kids grow older, they may think nothing is wrong if faced with a similar situation, due to the example they are being shown.
  2. Since we brought this up, it has caused a lot of grief directed towards us and we are being made out to be in the wrong and directed back towards us in a very bad way.
Does anyone have any insight or advice into this situation? Short of moving out, what can me and my wife do to protect our children?
 
How about simply telling the kids that Nephew does not believe as you do, and that he is not the authority and that furthermore you and their mom think that Nephew’s behavior is wrong and you will not tolerate any of your kids doing that under your roof.

Make it very clear where you stand and how you feel. You are the dad. Your words carry clout.

Your kids are going to have to go into the world someday and maybe live places like college dorms and group homes where they will see people doing all sorts of stuff. They might as well learn now that not everybody follows the rules they are being taught and that just because you see someone else doing it, doesn’t mean it is okay.
 
MarkS said:
Also, living with them is their 25 year old grandson, my nephew. Who is a non-practicing Agnostic.
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Off topic, but, wouldn’t he then be, by default, a Gnostic?

On topic, I agree with the bear.
 
We’ve done that and made it clear the wrongness of the situation. It has also hurt their relationship with their grandparents knowing that it is wrong and how they view them.
 
Unfortunately, because you are living in the grandparents’ house, you are kind of stuck with that. Might also be a good way for the kids to learn that adults who love them can have differences of opinion, but you are still the dad and what you say, goes.
 
The “math” he is likely doing is “if the parents died tomorrow, what would the children have to divide among them?” To an agnostic, you are the very definition of why abortion should exist, if he is taking you at face value. I would start there.
 
MarkS said:
A little background, me and my wife are faithful practicing Catholics and are the parents of 11 kids. The oldest is 15, the youngest 4 months. We are in CA and currently live with my Wife’s parents in their house, they have the house split into a separate area. They have been faithful Catholics their whole life and accept everything the Church teaches and have been good role models for the faith. Also, living with them is their 25 year old grandson, my nephew. Who is a non-practicing Agnostic.

The situation is he has had his girlfriend spend the night several times and she sleeps in his room with him. They also spend a lot of time alone together late at night in his room without supervision. What has also happened is that he has told his Grandma that nothing is going on and she firmly and fully believes him. Even though her whole life, with every single situation that is similar, she has been always opposed to this due to the scandal that it can cause. In a similar vein, when me and my wife were dating, I was never allowed to be alone with her to avoid the proximate occasion of sin.

Where this is causing a big rift in our family now is due to 2 points:

We’ve brought up to her to please not allow this to continue any longer due to this is causing scandal with our children, setting a bad example and allowing something sinful to become a norm in the household. I am afraid as the kids grow older, they may think nothing is wrong if faced with a similar situation, due to the example they are being shown.
Since we brought this up, it has caused a lot of grief directed towards us and we are being made out to be in the wrong and directed back towards us in a very bad way.
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The parents of your wife have opened their home to your entire family of 13 people?

And then in the midst of receiving such staggering generosity, you have raised an issue about the presence of another person in their home?

Whatever may or may not be happening relative to this young man – their grandson – and his girlfriend, the decision about who is staying under your in-laws roof belongs with your in-laws…alone. I could see making ONE delicate remark of concern about how this could be confusing to your children – but nothing more. And the gentle concern being raised to the parents by their daughter. It is not for you to demand anything.

You were in the wrong and it is little wonder to me that grief is being visited upon you for what you have done.

And it is even worse that your reaction and way of dealing with this has caused a problem in your children’s relationship to their grandparents because their grandparents have been heroically kind and generous…and it is through that lens that the grandchildren should be seeing their grandparents.
 
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MarkS said:
Since we brought this up, it has caused a lot of grief directed towards us and we are being made out to be in the wrong and directed back towards us in a very bad way.
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Duh. You are a guest in someone else’s home. Don’t like how they are running their home? Move out.
 
I would tend to disagree, MarkS has a valid point. He may not have much power or position to affect change at the onset, but we are called to do what we know is right.

I get reminded of the Nazi soldier who killed innocent civilians because he was ordered to though his conscious said otherwise.

MarkS … I feel your pain. In my opinion, you are doing right, for your own family, for your parents, and for your nephew to call this out and try to avoid scandal. Of course, there is the bulldozer way and the director way (cliche of vinegar and honey also works).

Because you are “stuck” in your situation, you can do what’s best for you and everyone in that situation. With love, charity, and kindness, affirm your faith and moral stand on the actions of your nephew. Instead of lashing out with “don’t dos” and “gotta dos”, lead your grandparents and nephew on a journey of faith that will bring them to the point in which you would be proud to call them catholics. It won’t take a day, or even 2 days, let’s look out through months and years as the time in journey. With each day of those months or years, having a reminder or encouragement about The Way. In this, you can find peace and comfort in the fact that you have made your position clear, everyone still loves each other, and that there is hope for your nephew to move closer to the truth and understanding of what is God’s love for us … because you are the agent that God is using to stir the souls of your grandparents and nephew!

Be at peace and persevere.
 
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and Kudos for 11! 11 that you have here on earth, admittedly there may be a few more that have already made it to heaven (by hope of God’s mercy)?

My brother only got to have 9, from 29 to 8 now, with 3 already in heaven.

I was a late marry-er, could only get 2 out … with 1 in heaven already … would have loved to have had 10! Once you get into those double digits, that’s rare!

“already in heaven” refers to the hope of God’s mercy to nurture the souls of the unborn through miscarriages.
 
You’re a guest in their home.
If you don’t like it so much, (for good reason) it’s still not your call as who lives there.

Find your own place. It’s high time you did.
 
Don_Ruggero said:
The parents of your wife have opened their home to your entire family of 13 people?

And then in the midst of receiving such staggering generosity, you have raised an issue about the presence of another person in their home?

Whatever may or may not be happening relative to this young man – their grandson – and his girlfriend, the decision about who is staying under your in-laws roof belongs with your in-laws…alone. I could see making ONE delicate remark of concern about how this could be confusing to your children – but nothing more. And the gentle concern being raised to the parents by their daughter. It is not for you to demand anything.

You were in the wrong and it is little wonder to me that grief is being visited upon you for what you have done.

And it is even worse that your reaction and way of dealing with this has caused a problem in your children’s relationship to their grandparents because their grandparents have been heroically kind and generous…and it is through that lens that the grandchildren should be seeing their grandparents.
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This is gold, and coming from a Priest, this advise is the advise you should be listening too.

Not a bunch of internet opinions.

Here is a classic saying from a Vicar- General I know

“ there isn’t a hay shed big enough to hold enough hay to feed all those hobby horses”
 
Not your house, not your rules.

And if I had opened my home to a son in law who then proceeded to tell me how to run my household, I would invite him to leave.
 
Have you thought off doing something to mend things with the nephew and his girlfriend - invite them to dinner out with your wife as a way to apologize, something like that?
Apologizing even when you think you did nothing wrong doesn’t contradict our Faith, Jesus said turn the other cheek and be wise as serpents. Sometimes giving up self-justification is like turning the other cheek.
You also don’t want your teens to remember this as the time when “dad got mad over nothing and ruined our happy life” either. This may steer them in the opposite direction of where you want them to go.
 
MarkS said:
We’ve done that and made it clear the wrongness of the situation. It has also hurt their relationship with their grandparents knowing that it is wrong and how they view them.
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From your post, the “wrongness of the situation” isn’t even apparent let alone clear.
 
MarkS said:
my wife are faithful practicing Catholics and are the parents of 11 kids. The oldest is 15, the youngest 4 months. We are in CA and currently live with my Wife’s parents in their house
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What is the reason you don’t live in your own house?
 
Honestly, I find it heart warming to see families who live in extended groups. Our modern idea of the self-isolated nuclear family is not exactly the model.
 
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