Usually there’s no reason to shield child from gay relative

Q: I have a 46-year-old sister involved in a lesbian relationship. She told our family she was a lesbian 13 years ago and we have supported her through five "committed" relationships that have since failed. She is now involved with a new woman whom we have not met. Because she lives a great distance away, we don't see each other but once a year and, yes, we have a close and honest relationship. I would like to visit her but don't believe I should expose my (6-year-old) son to her lifestyle at this stage in his life. How do you feel about this and how would you try to explain this delicate decision to her? -- S.P., Evergreen, Colo.

A: It's hard to know, in reading your letter, what "lifestyle" gives you moral pause and makes you decide to protect your son from what you believe are unhealthy influences. Is the issue that your sister is in a lesbian relationship? Or that she is a lesbian? Or that she is in a pattern of unstable relationships -- five committed relationships in 13 years, now in a sixth? Or, are the relationships more than merely unstable? Is there evidence that some or most of the relationships are destructive?

Oddly enough, those are four separate things.

You'd have my complete support in protecting your son from a family member's destructive relationship. I'd not bring my children to visit if my sister's partner/spouse (gay or straight) was openly derisive, threatening, violent or if the relationship was wrapped around addiction or other such insanity.

You'd have my complete support in not so much protecting but shielding your son from a family member's pattern of being in and out of "committed" relationships (gay or straight). Introducing a "love interest" to family and especially to children is a big deal. Including these people in significant family gatherings -- holidays, birthdays, vacations, bereavements -- connotes filial ties and reciprocal bonds. Parading relative strangers in and out of these ties and bonds is confusing to children.

It's why my children will never meet any of the women I date. Ever. Unless and until I was prepared to make and receive a significant commitment with a particular woman, and was convinced she understood the significance of those commitments particularly for my children but even for my wider family. Our family photo album will never contain a family photo with me and my date posed around my children. My children will never open Christmas presents or vacation with someone I'm dating. It's just too weird. Inappropriately intimate.

Are you protecting your son because your sister is in a lesbian relationship? Now my support for your decision depends on whether her being in such a relationship is itself evidence of instability or self-destruction. There exist, believe it or not, woman in lesbian relationships who are no more gay than I'm the pope. This in itself does not necessitate my moral judgment or action, but it might give pause for concern. If it was my sister, and I believed deeply that she was caught in a spin of serial, acting-out behavior, I'd reserve for myself the right to feel sad, and quite possibly to shield my younger children.

Are you protecting your son because your sister is gay? If so, here's where we would part ideological company. I would say that my family member's sexual orientation is an independent variable from that family member's qualities of relating to children. I don't think being gay is something you can "catch," nor do I think my children's experience of gay people must necessarily impede, damage or determine the outcome of my children's own psychosexual development.

If one of my sons someday tells me he's gay, it won't be because he attended his uncle's same-sex commitment ceremony.

The greater challenge for our children to navigate, I think, is their experience of our own anxiety about gay people.

So, if the issue is about your sister being gay ...

... when talking to your sister, I would encourage you, as a point of good familial politic, to make the whole thing about yourself -- "I'm anxious ... I'm confused ... I'm unsure of what to do" ... etc., as opposed to "Would love to see you but my son needs not to be exposed to your lifestyle."

If you deeply believe the latter on moral grounds, and feel the need to communicate it because "I'm being honest," I think we can rightly predict some degree of tension and estrangement, whether politely ignored or bitter and open.

Steven Kalas is behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling Wellness Center in Las Vegas and author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His column appears on Tuesdays and Sundays. Questions or comments can be e-mailed to skalas@reviewjournal.com