Evasive Relative Picks Wrong Target

Due to major obligations affecting my schedule, I will take a beak from blogging until Friday, May 29. I will appear sporadically on X/Twitter in the meantime.

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A recent Dear Abby column misses an essential point raised by a reader's alarming question.

The question comes from a couple who have wisely decided to keep their children away from a close relative who is also a sex offender. One of their mothers is upset about these parents "breaking up the family."

Here is Abby's answer:

The best way to move forward is to stick to your guns. This relative has shown he isn't to be trusted around children. Protecting your children is your job. Keeping the family together despite the fact that this person is a threat to them is not. You have nothing to feel guilty about.

This is all good, as far as it goes, but I would have added that the person "breaking up the family" is the sex offender, not the family members who now have to weigh how they will navigate any future family gatherings.

I can imagine that many people would dismiss this as a small matter, but it is not: Making such a judgment explicit will maintain the couple's resolve against the sickening pressure, so common in our predominately altruistic culture, to sweep that problem under the rug. Furthermore, having already gotten this point right in their own minds, it will be easier for the couple to shoot down any such suggestion in the future:

But this is faaaamilyyyyy!

[Insert name here] should have thought of this before getting involved in that filth.

The person who ruined things for that family was the person who committed that crime. Trying to pretend that the perpetrator was innocent, that life can go on as usual, or -- worst, that honoring a blood relationship is more important that the safety of one's own children -- helps no one.

-- CAV