The policy is wrong and hypocritical. Here's why:
If a disfellowshipped person happens to be a spouse, you can't divorce them except on the grounds of fornication. You are still obligated to perform the marital vows and eat with them and live with them. How close can you get? Bottom line is, getting disfellowshipped does not break the marital tie. But children come out of that marriage, so why is that tie broken, just out of convenience?
A further hypocrisy can be seen because members are told to avoid all contact. So you have parents ignoring their disfellowshipped children for years, until they get really old and need assistance. Then, the disfellowshipped child is expected and required to fulfill his obligations to his sickly parents and that might include moving in with them and lovingly assisting them. In that case, then its okay to suddenly talk to them and accept that assistance.
It doesn't make sense. If getting disfellowshipped doesn't break the marital tie, then it doesn't break any family tie. Further, children of disfellowshipped children need their grandparents and a sense of family, so not including them could damage them emotionally.
Plus this policy doesn't work. When I was growing up, there was a clear understanding that if you didn't get baptized, then you couldn't be disfellowshipped. So you have a case where you could have several children who never get baptized and only loosely follow the truth. The parent continues to speak to them and love them and associate with them at family gatherings. But the one or two who get baptized and then perhaps err in some way and get disfellowshipped, then they are out of the family and shunned. The parents can all the family over, including unbelieving relatives at a family gathering and not invite the person who is disfellowshipped. That thus disrupts natural family ties with the other relatives also.
Now this can be quite annoying and hurtful. Let me tell you of one personal experience. I was raised in the truth and several of my revelatives are in the truth. My mother's brother and his children are strong in the truth and they adore my mom and dad, their last uncle and aunt on his side of the family. But I'm living in the household, disfellowshipped, having left Hawaii to take care of my elderly parents. So that's great. but my two cousins who are in the truth wanted to give my parents a big anniversary party. But since they would naturally want to invite the witnesses, even though this was a family affair, I didn't get invited. I was very hurt and angry over it and thus didn't want to assist in any way. They had turned a family event into a witness event. Turns out, typical of witnesses, other family members (relatives) were not encouraged to come even though we have several cousins in town.
So it can be stressful. Right now, I can't stand anything relating to the WTS, even though some of the brothers are very nice and very supportive of my parents. My Mom can't walk and so has to use the wheelchair to go to the meetings. I used to take her there for the meetings. But now, I told my mom and dad I don't want to be anywhere near a Kingdom Hall. But they are old and dad can't drive nor has the strength to lift my mother, so now they can't really go to the meetings any more. I refuse to take them. But I dod help them hook up the phone at the nursing home so they can hear the meeting via conference call.
So sometimes it works both ways. I know my mother wants to go the meetings, but now she can't, unless the brothers arrange to take her.
But you know, they drew their line, and I'm drawing mine. Of course, the GB was "disfellowshipped" on November 10, 1992 anyway, so to me they are false prophets, so I'm not ashamed I'm "disfellowshipped" in the least.
This is just another reason the GB is called the "man of lawlessness."
