I've posted a few times about the ILs, but this is completely unrelated.
We attend a smallish church, one of the "everyone knows everyone" types where many families have multiple generations there. In general, this isn't a problem. People tend to be close, and those without local (or healthy) biological family usually end up adopting grandparents/aunts/uncles/cousins.
However, this has led to very lax enforcing of nursery policies. People wander in and out of the nursery, because everyone knows all the kids. It's totally normal for grandma or uncle to pop in to say hi. I didn't care for it, but didn't make a fuss and just stayed in there with my kids during the service (they are clingy anyway, and the odds of making a getaway are slim). Until...
There's an older guy at church (70s, maybe?) who has been there forever. Unmarried, no kids. He has always made me vaguely uncomfortable, and he loves kids. Gets in their faces, gives them candy (without parental permission), etc. In general, acting like a boundary-stomping grandparent without actually being a grandparent. A lot of the families don't mind at all, and their kids call him "Uncle Steve". It bothers me, so we always did the polite-but-distant thing, intercepted anything he tried to give to the kids, and generally kept them out of his way.
My toddler is shy around men. He apparently took that as a personal affront and fixated on her. He would deliberately seek her out, and we would be a buffer, saying variations of, "If she doesn't want to say hi, she doesn't have to." "She's not comfortable, give her space." Irrtating, but not unmanageable, since she was never out of our sight, and we always stood up for her boundaries.
Until the Sunday he waltzed into the nursery, tried to coax her onto his lap while I was changing her baby sister, and then proceded to tell me after I got her the hell away from him that he specificially came down to spend time with her so that she could get used to him. RED FREAKING FLAGS EVERYWHERE. I went to church leadership.
They took it seriously, and agreed that his behavior was inappropriate, though everyone hopes that he's just clueless and boundary-stomping rather than an actual predator. (And I hope that too. But I'm not allowing that hope to change my behavior and put my kids at risk.) My husband has, with the full backing of the pastors, confronted him on his behavior and told him to leave our kids alone. Nursery policies have been rewritten to be much more strict, and the workers now actually know all the policies and know they need to enforce them 100%. (Because seriously, toss in one BSC relative and someone could end up kidnapped.)
Crap, that's a lot of background. Anyway. We thought things were handled. "Uncle Steve" was receptive to what my DH told him, apologized for making us uncomfortable, wasn't confrontational or defensive, and left us alone. The church took care of things on a policy level. All fixed, kids are safe, we're happy.
Then, after a month or two had passed, "Uncle Steve" went to my dad, who is one of the elders, asking him how he can fix things and restore a relationship with my family. This pisses me off and made my dad uncomfortable, because he separates his roles as "dad/grandpa" and "elder" and "Uncle Steve" was, in my opinion, trying to get him to go all patriarch-and-spiritual-authority to make my DH and I fix things. No. Just no. And my dad didn't play along, because he's not BSC, but he did pass along the content of the conversation to my DH.
As far as we're concerned, things ARE fixed. We pass him in the halls, we'll exchange polite-but-very-icy-hellos, but that's it. As long as he doesn't try to approach our kids, we're good. Other families can do what they like, but he's not someone I will be teaching my kids is a safe person, and we'll keep our distance.
I get that the ideal response to conflict, Biblically, is to confront the person, and when there is repentence, restore a relationship. But in this case, THERE WAS NO previous relationship. And this isn't your basic difference of opinion, this is him not being a safe person. So no, we're not--EVER--going to have a relationship with him.
He doesn't like that, and while I don't give a crap what he likes, I also really, really don't want to deal with any church drama if he starts whining to people about how we're not forgiving and not living in Christian fellowship with him. (Not sure if he would, but that would be the next card to play if he's really invested in this. Ugg.)
If he approaches my husband again, DH will reiterate all this. We're not backing down. We won't let him talk to/give things to our kids. Church leadership is aware of the situation, supports us, and has taken steps to make the nursery secure. Is there anything else we should be doing? I know there are no magic words to make boundary-stompers not boundary-stompers (and, worst case scenerio here, predators not predators), but I would like to ensure the safety of my kids without having to deal with drama, if at all possible.
Edited to fix a couple typos.
