Please help with advice on preventing Scandal

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i understand, which is why i asked a neutrally worded question. I thought perhaps the OP was taking care of the parents in old age. But that’s why I asked, they could all live together in a house the OP owned and then the problem have a simple answer.
 
This person is a grown man who isn’t doing anything illegal and this isn’t your house. I understand wanting a good example for your children but you need to be realistic.
 
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This situation is a lesson to your kids about how you will treat them if they ever (gasp) step off the straight and narrow. If your child makes only one mistake, it could be a big one, let them see that you love people even when they sin or make choices that are contrary to the faith.
 
TheLittleLady said:
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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Yes, before we jump all over this guy, there may be some valid reasons for the parents wanting to have the extended family live with them, such as more time with the grandkids + having family there to look after them as they become older/ in poorer health. Also, some families do still believe in living in an extended family group. While it is perceived as generous for the parents to be sharing their home with the family of 11, there are likely other dimensions to it. It’s pretty flip to say “You don’t like it? Move!” when there may be a lot of reasons - economic, personal, involving the grandparents’ own welfare, etc. - why this is not possible or desirable in this situation where the daughter and son-in-law aren’t exactly millennials camping out in the basement.

I also think “my house, my rules” only goes so far when you have multiple generations living together for any reason. Obviously it would not be okay if the grandparents encouraged the kids to disobey their parents’ authority on the basis of “grandparents’ house, grandparents’ rules”. Obviously if the house is divided in half then the grandparents can have guests, etc. in “their half” and the son-in-law cannot police this activity, but son-in-law (and daughter) still have the authority over their own children.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
I also think “my house, my rules” only goes so far when you have multiple generations living together for any reason
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I do understand the nuance, hence my question, but I do think “my house, my rules” is the ultimate principle though. You can’t really expect non-Catholics to live to Catholic standards so sometimes it’s best to avoid assumptions and to exercise your blind eye.
 
This is a difficult situation.

My nephew is cohabitating, I parrotted back to my children what I was told which is similar to what you were told, Mark, that they live together as brother and sister. I don’t know if this is true or not. We don’t live in the same house though.

Then I told my kids that it’s still not ok to do this because there is the temptation of sin there, and we are called to live a chaste life until marriage.
 
stupidisasstupiddoes said:
You can’t really expect non-Catholics to live to Catholic standards
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Yeah, this is the crux of the problem. At some point kids (and adults) need to accept the fact that they are going to be living around people who are not necessarily following the “Catholic rules”. It is also possible that other people do not see the same “occasions of sin” that others do, for example regarding people of the opposite sex being in a room together for an extended time. The only “scandal” going on is in the mind of the beholder (society these days does not care anymore) and frankly, if the person is not his own kid or under his control, it’s not his business.
 
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My kids were never allowed to have guests pf the opposite sex in their rooms. Ever. But one of the reasons young adults moved out of their parent’s homes decades ago was because even as adults even with families they had to abide by mom and dads rule if they lived at home. This situation turns that upside down but in my house it is my rules It will be when I am the cranky old lady who has to have one of my kids come and live with me.
Yes the nephew and his girlfriend should not be doing this. No grandma and grandpa should not allow it. But this is the situation and the OP has limited options. He has said what needs to be said. Now he can move forward either trying to find a way to get along with the family (not their sin) or continue to look like the bad guy. He may just have to make peace with the fact that the kids are not in fact doing this under his roof.
 
I’m not a parent but I’ve been a child. If the kids have a huge doubt of the parent’s reaction in certain critical situations they will just keep it a secret. Which is the last a parent wants.
 
I know a good, solid, Catholic family where the college aged daughter had an abortion because she was afraid her parents would freak out if they knew she had sex.
 
Mary888 said:
I’m not a parent but I’ve been a child. If the kids have a huge doubt of the parent’s reaction in certain critical situations they will just keep it a secret. Which is the last a parent wants.
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In my opinion: Children should learn the value of a hypothetical question and parents should learn the value of a blind eye. There are things that a child doesn’t ask a parent about their own life and things a parent doesn’t need to know about a child’s life. parents are there to raise children, not re-live their own childhood through them.
 
I agree only for grownup children. I think till the age of consent (18) parents have a right to know what is happening and they must grow an environment where children can just tell them anything that bothers them.
stupidisasstupiddoes said:
not re-live their own childhood through them.
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I think this only applies when parents try to enforce their romanticized ideas of what a child should be doing, especially when they envision a happy life. It’s mostly composed of regrets the parents have not really even their honest documented opinion on the matter. But to try to find out if you teenage kid is doing drugs eg, is hardly a matter of the parent trying to reenact their own life unto the kid.
 
stupidisasstupiddoes said:
things a parent doesn’t need to know about a child’s life. parents are there to raise children, not re-live their own childhood through them.
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After the child becomes of legal age and moves out on his own, I agree with you.

If the child is underage and/or is living under the parents’ roof (or living on the parents’ dime if the kid is away at college), then the parents have a lot more right to know and be involved in what is going on.
 
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Sure, there’s a spectrum of things. I have my red lines that will not be crossed and drugs are one of them, but not everything is a red line and kids need to learn to make moral decisions themselves, not just what they can and can’t get away with when their parents monitor them.
 
I grew up around some very tightly controlled kids, fundamentalist protestant parents, not Catholic. I would say 1/21 is a success story, 3/21 are distinctively average and the rest are chronic underachievers in life who can’t open a packet of crisps without thinking twice about it. Then there’s 1 who went all the way off the rails. Those odds are appalling when compared to even the most average secular parents.
 
ConfusedLucy said:
In my experience they either rebel or remain childlike.
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Very accurate. Sadly the 1/21 that is a success story is an atheist now. He’s a very intelligent scientist working at literally the top universities in the world, think Sheldon Cooper with less autism and you’re not far off. He had faith as a child but it was forced on him and he never internalised it. By university his faith seemed to conflict with science and he threw the baby out with the bathwater and never looked back. Frankly he’s smarter than me, but I can hold a conversation with him. We spoke continuously for about 2 hours at Christmas in a very open and non-confrontational manner (e.g. origins of the universe, evolution, free will etc). What i find sad is that non of his perceived conflicts between religion and science are insurmountable, but there is a reconciliation process he needs to go through. I’ve been through that, but then i feel i chose my faith. He’s heard one side of the arguement (the atheist side) and stopped looking for answers.
 
It depends on what you mean by “tight control”.
I was probably more “tightly controlled” than most kids my age when I was a teenager simply because my parents expected me to come straight home from school, not be going out on school nights, not be dating anybody they didn’t personally approve, not be out “late” (defined by particular occasion), not to engage in sex/ drugs/ drink, not to read stuff they considered dirty (we actually had the most conflicts over that) and not to wear clothes that were too short, tight or revealing.

This doesn’t mean I was never allowed to go out or have fun with my friends, but it did mean that the parents were keeping an eye on what I did. They trusted me largely because I wasn’t one to push boundaries.

A huge number of kids when I was a teen, including Catholic kids, were pretty much going and doing what they pleased with few restrictions by the time they turned 16. Some of them grew out of it, some of them ended up pregnant/ addicted/ dead. I don’t feel like I missed anything by having watchful parents and it probably gave me a good excuse/ reason to avoid numerous activities I didn’t really want to do anyway, like go get drunk in the woods.
 
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