Dear Prudence: My Daughter is Forcing a Choice Between Her and Her Gay Brother

[minoanmiss]

My husband is turning 50. We love both our children equally. But our daughter has developed some pretty extreme views since marrying a Christian pastor, and she had become a big part of the family Christian values movement. She has given us four grandkids (all under 6), with a fifth on the way. We love the grandkids to bits, her husband not so much, but I don’t think he knows that. Our son is openly gay and dating a boy that we have known forever. My daughter had told us she won’t let her kids be around homosexuality and has not spoken to her brother since he came out. This breaks our hearts and hurts her brother so much, as they used to be so close as kids. He went to her wedding, came out shortly after that, and they have been on icy terms since. We normally do separate family dinners and two Christmases to appease our daughter, as we love our grandchildren dearly and they should not miss out on family love because of their parents’ attitudes. Our daughter and her husband know we don’t agree with them, but we just ignore the elephant in the room for the sake of the kids. I don’t think they know how strongly we disagree with them to try to keep the peace.

Well, until now. My husband and I have money, and we have decided you only live once so we might as well spend some of it. For his 50th, we are taking 50 friends and family members away for the weekend. (Not plane flights, just a two-hour drive from us.) We have booked out an entire place with a pool on a huge farm-style resort. We have 10 grand worth of alcohol ready to go, catering will be booked, and the invites are ready to send. It will be a whole weekend of family, friends, lots of food, and drinking. We love our son and his boyfriend, so they and the boyfriend’s parents are all invited.

But … my husband doesn’t want to invite our daughter. We love her and are close, but he feels she will make a fuss about so many of our LGBTQ friends being there and will try and get us to uninvite her brother for the sake of the children, so the kids can spend the birthday weekend with their granddad. My husband loves his daughter, but feels like he is being guilt-tripped and just doesn’t want to deal with it. He thinks she won’t even know about it as she is not on talking terms with anyone we are inviting. I share his attitude in that there is no way I’m kicking our son out of the weekend … but feel like we should at least invite them. They are still family. They still love my husband. They don’t really have many chances for a family weekend away, as being a stay-at-home mother and a pastor of a small church is not a huge income. I think they would like the weekend and I want my daughter to reconnect with her old friends. I feel disappointed that my husband is giving up. He says he doesn’t want to invite them, but is leaving the choice to send invitations up to me. So do I send them an invite? Or just leave it, and if it is ever mentioned by them, just explain we didn’t think they would be interested as her brother, his boyfriend, and his boyfriend’s family are all invited? Is it time we finally stop tiptoeing around this and take sides?

—Mother in the Middle

Dear Mother in the Middle,

If we’ve learned anything from prestige independent films of the last 30 years, it’s that a destination birthday weekend is a very attractive time and place to have a huge blowout over long-simmering tensions. The thing that would make this a less-than-compelling movie, however, is that your daughter and her husband are behaving in almost stereotypically villainous ways that don’t warrant the kid gloves with which you’ve been operating. First, the obvious truth: It is more than possible to be a Christian (and, yes, a Christian pastor) and be welcoming, loving, and supportive of LGBTQ+ people. Your daughter and SIL’s position is bigoted and also logistically confusing to me. They don’t want their kids around LGBTQ people, but why would there be kids under 6 at a birthday weekend with $10K worth of booze and what sounds like no other kids in the first place? It appears you’ve planned an adult party, so you could sidestep the objection by just hiring them a babysitter. Of course, that’s a Band-Aid for a wound that needs surgery. The bigger question is why do you think that it’s safe to invite your son, his boyfriend, and your other LGBTQ friends to a place where someone with such a virulently anti-gay stance is going to be making demands like the ones you mention in your letter? This has the makings of a truly miserable farm weekend and would probably be an exhausting movie.

I don’t think this is about taking sides. Your son and daughter don’t have separate but equal opinions on a complex issue; she has refused to speak to him and has forced the family to make special arrangements to see her and her kids while, from your letter, it doesn’t seem that your son has done or asked for anything. So the elephant isn’t in the room; there is nothing but elephant. The room is gone. If you insist on inviting your daughter and SIL to the party, you have to make it clear that you’re done with special treatment; you’re not uninviting your son, his boyfriend, or your other friends; and you expect at minimum cordiality. If they can’t do that, they’re empowered to decline the invite. Either way, it’s way past time for the conversation you need to have about how you’re going to move forward as a family. The status quo is untenable, and I think you know it. Your daughter and SIL may hold your grandchildren hostage as an attack on your son; that will hurt and it will be damaging to their children. But you have to see that they are already starting to do that damage. Have a tough conversation so you can start to fix the damage, and then the rest of you go off the farm and have a weekend that wouldn’t win awards for A24.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

But both sides are equally terrible, right?

[oursin]

Daughter's husband sounds like the elephant in the room here - she has 4 children under 6 and another one the way - is he in one of those 'breed like rabbits' sects? Is there a subtext that he is the reason for daughter having developed 'extreme views'? LW and husband sound like they can't actually stand him but feel they can't say that.

[heartexalted]

she has 4 children under 6 and another one the way - is he in one of those 'breed like rabbits' sects?

---

First of all, a hearty LOL! 🤣 for the "breed like rabbits" part, but on a more mundane note, were you thinking of the "Quiverfull" movement, in particular? (Just curious... 🧐)

[oursin]

That was probably in my mind!

[heavenscalyx]

I think that if the parents don't want to have a confrontation about the probably-abusive son-in-law and how much he's damaging their grandchildren by trying to cut his wife off from everyone she loves, perhaps instead of blowing everything up, a cheerful, "We're having a party for your father's birthday, but I understand that the people we're having a party with will make you uncomfortable, so maybe a quiet dinner at home with us later will be a better choice for you and the family," is more appropriate.

[jadelennox]

this is an excellent script.

[cimorene]

It sounds like the husband wants to just continue biting his tongue to maintain access to the children, but LW is uncomfortable not standing up for her son and what she believes is right. It might be better for her, psychologically, and maybe even for the rest of them, to confront the issue head on, but then again, it might drive their daughter further away; and even if her husband isn't physically or emotionally an abuser, the sect they've joined is a cult-type and inherently abusive authoritarian culture. As I understand it, the advice for loved ones lost to cults and the like is the same as for ones in abusive relationships - to simply remain available. Not that that precludes telling their daughter where they stand, I guess.

But perhaps then she needs to have a serious debate with her husband about their future course since a confrontation could cut them both off from the children...

[shirou]

It sounds like the husband wants to just continue biting his tongue to maintain access to the children, but LW is uncomfortable not standing up for her son and what she believes is right.

Huh. I had the opposite impression. LW wants to invite her daughter and son-in-law to the celebration weekend to maintain family peace, whereas her husband is ready to cut them from the invite list because of their treatment of LGBT people generally and LW's son specifically. It seems to me like the husband is advocating for the more confrontational route.

Boozy weekend of which I am mildly jealous aside, I sympathize with LW and her husband. They want to do right by their son and by their grandkids. They're in a tough spot.

[lethe1]

Huh. I had the opposite impression.

So did I. Husband is done tiptoeing around daughter's prejudices.