As some of you may know, I am polyamorous. I have two boyfriends, who both know about each other and are fine with the situation. One of them is married and has another girlfriend, both of whom he lives with. The other has had some flings but hasn't found anything else serious as of yet.
I recently told my parents about this. They don't really get it, but generally speaking they're supportive. Or so I thought. I was talking to them about being poly a few nights ago, and they asked what I would do if I had kids. Would I continue this lifestyle or would I settle down and be monogamous. I told them that I didn't see why having kids would change anything. My mom wasn't particularly happy with that answer, but my step-dad got very upset. He essentially told me that he thinks that that sort of environment is not appropriate to raise children in, and if I do have kids and continue that lifestyle, he will do everything in his power to protect my children from me. Essentially, he would have my kids taken away from me.
I think part of the issue here is that he has no idea what this would consist of. I don't know if he thinks I'd be having orgies in the house, in the room next to where my kids sleep or what. That wouldn't be the case. What my ideal is for having a family, is that I would like a household with more than two parents. So, if for example, my secondary boyfriend and I stayed together, and our primary relationships were still going strong, the four of us might get a house together. His girlfriend doesn't want to have children of her own because she has a lot of health problems and doesn't want to pass them on. But I think it would be a fantastic experience to grow up in a house with more than two parents. Some things kids feel comfortable talking about to one parents, other things to a different parent. Plus there's not going to be as much stress to find baby-sitters or day-care, and the more incomes a household has, the better off financially it will be.
I'm curious, what do you guys think? Do you think growing up in a household where you have more than two parents that love you and care for you is unhealthy? Immoral? Or do you think it has the potential to be a really great experience? I'm a big fan of the saying "It takes a village to raise a child." That's where a lot of these thoughts come from.
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Long story short, I agree with you. My only addendum would be that each parent needs to a) be a good role modal as a functional human adult, and b) have good interpersonal skills that they can pass on to the kids, both explicitly (by verbal teaching) and implicitly (by example in their interactions with other people around).
The problem is that multiple parents will only serve to confuse a child, or alienate them from their peers as they get older. When John or Jane tell their teacher they have 3 daddies and 4 mommies, questions are going to start, and your kid is going to be in the middle of it.
I look at it this way. If it's going to potentially harm your kid down the road, be ready to give it up if necessary. If you aren't willing to sacrifice yourself for your kid, you shouldn't have any.
As far as the "It takes a village" belief, I always read that as "I'm too pathetic to raise my own child". I'm married but my wife is pretty much the definition of a ****-poor parent, and our nearest family is about 3500 miles away. Granted she's only 3, but she's well mannered, behaved, intelligent, curious, and creative, so I'd say I've managed just fine without a village to do my job for me.
As far as your lifestyle, to each their own. If it's not hurting anyone else, **** what others think.
I look at it this way. If it's going to potentially harm your kid down the road, be ready to give it up if necessary. If you aren't willing to sacrifice yourself for your kid, you shouldn't have any.
As far as the "It takes a village" belief, I always read that as "I'm too pathetic to raise my own child". I'm married but my wife is pretty much the definition of a ****-poor parent, and our nearest family is about 3500 miles away. Granted she's only 3, but she's well mannered, behaved, intelligent, curious, and creative, so I'd say I've managed just fine without a village to do my job for me.
As far as your lifestyle, to each their own. If it's not hurting anyone else, **** what others think.
There was a long period when divorced and/or remarried parents were scandalous, weird, and not normal. Children of divorced parents felt super self-conscious. But I think that the world is a much better place for having made that transition to acceptance of divorce. Parents trapped in marriages living together where they loathe, despise or fear each other can be an extreme toxic poison.
I think children can live and thrive with adopted parents, step parents, homosexual parents, and poly parents. It's really more about how skillful the parents are as functional adult human beings. Kids get teased and ostracised for all sorts of stupid things. It's in the nature of children to go through a pecking order stage, and bullies will seize on ANY excuse to bully if they perceive a weakness in another child. It has nothing to do with the real rightness or wrongness of another child's name or situation.
The important thing is to teach children not to bully, and how to cope with being bullied, rather than removing everything that a child could possibly be bullied about.
Also kids are little learning machines, who take their queue from adults' emotional reactions to things. If parents are matter of fact and peaceful about telling their children early about being adopted, or being born through IVF or surrogacy, or any number of family histories, a kid can learn to navigate any sort of configuration. Parents just have to make sure they assure their children they will answer any questions they have, as children can come to wrong assumptions on their own when left with incomplete information.
Quite frankly, from a child's point of view, I don't think an average poly family would function better or worse than an average step family, where the number of mothers, fathers, and grandparents can accumulate quite stupendously. The child tends to develop special and unique relationships with each blood and step parent, aunt, uncle, granparent, cousin, etc.
Edited, Jan 20th 2012 6:29am by Aripyanfar
I think children can live and thrive with adopted parents, step parents, homosexual parents, and poly parents. It's really more about how skillful the parents are as functional adult human beings. Kids get teased and ostracised for all sorts of stupid things. It's in the nature of children to go through a pecking order stage, and bullies will seize on ANY excuse to bully if they perceive a weakness in another child. It has nothing to do with the real rightness or wrongness of another child's name or situation.
The important thing is to teach children not to bully, and how to cope with being bullied, rather than removing everything that a child could possibly be bullied about.
Also kids are little learning machines, who take their queue from adults' emotional reactions to things. If parents are matter of fact and peaceful about telling their children early about being adopted, or being born through IVF or surrogacy, or any number of family histories, a kid can learn to navigate any sort of configuration. Parents just have to make sure they assure their children they will answer any questions they have, as children can come to wrong assumptions on their own when left with incomplete information.
Quite frankly, from a child's point of view, I don't think an average poly family would function better or worse than an average step family, where the number of mothers, fathers, and grandparents can accumulate quite stupendously. The child tends to develop special and unique relationships with each blood and step parent, aunt, uncle, granparent, cousin, etc.
Edited, Jan 20th 2012 6:29am by Aripyanfar
I kind of agree with Raolan, on some points.
Will it confuse the kid? Probably not. If it's what the child has always known, and you and your companions are good parents, then I don't see any internal issues.
However, Raolan does have a good point about it raising some questions from other people. Our society is much more accepting than it once was, but that doesn't mean everyone is going to look at your situation with approval. There are going to be questions, whether it's the child's teachers, friends, other parents, etc. In a more extreme situation, such as your stepdad, it's possible people will fight to have your kids taken away, because they view that as an unfit situation for a child to be in.
I'm of the opinion that a family can be whatever the hell it wants, whether that's a same gendered couple, a polyamorous arrangement, or plain old mom and dad, as long as the child is raised well. It always needs to be the child first (but you knew that anyways).
tl;dr: I don't see it causing any internal problems - there's no reason something like that wouldn't work beautifully. But what do I know, I'm no child psychologist. However, you just need to be prepared, because something like that will raise eyebrows.
Will it confuse the kid? Probably not. If it's what the child has always known, and you and your companions are good parents, then I don't see any internal issues.
However, Raolan does have a good point about it raising some questions from other people. Our society is much more accepting than it once was, but that doesn't mean everyone is going to look at your situation with approval. There are going to be questions, whether it's the child's teachers, friends, other parents, etc. In a more extreme situation, such as your stepdad, it's possible people will fight to have your kids taken away, because they view that as an unfit situation for a child to be in.
I'm of the opinion that a family can be whatever the hell it wants, whether that's a same gendered couple, a polyamorous arrangement, or plain old mom and dad, as long as the child is raised well. It always needs to be the child first (but you knew that anyways).
tl;dr: I don't see it causing any internal problems - there's no reason something like that wouldn't work beautifully. But what do I know, I'm no child psychologist. However, you just need to be prepared, because something like that will raise eyebrows.
Aripyanfar wrote:
There was a long period when divorced and/or remarried parents were scandalous, weird, and not normal. Children of divorced parents felt super self-conscious. But I think that the world is a much better place for having made that transition to acceptance of divorce. Parents trapped in marriages living together where they loathe, despise or fear each other can be an extreme toxic poison.
Kind of off-topic, but I kind of think that our society is a little too accepting of divorce at the moment. While I agree wholeheartedly that two people who don't want to be together shouldn't stay together for the sake of the kids or anything (my own parents got a divorce when I was about 9), I do think that divorce is taken a bit too leniently nowadays. Marriage shouldn't be something that people say "oh, will if it doesn't work out, we can get a divorce later." It's still saying yes, you want to spend the rest of your life with this one person. Even if later on you realize that was a mistake, you should be going into something like that fully committed.
Some kids are going to learn from their parents to denigrate or be alienated from other children who have Muslim parents, or Atheist parents, or Religious parents, or poor parents, or rich parents, or immigrant parents, or mentally ill parents, or addicted parents, or Handicapped parents. Prejudice is a fact of life. All we can do is teach our own children to be as open minded as possible, and to try and judge individuals on their own merits, rather than their backgrounds.
Bullying today isn't what it was 20 years ago. With the always connected aspect of modern technology, bullying is much harder to walk away from. Bullying also has a life long affect and shapes the type of person you become, adding fuel to that fire because the parents aren't willing to make a sacrifice for their child is selfish.
"This is what I want so my kid has to suffer for it". Let that sink in for a bit.
As far as multiple parents go, people are individuals, and individuals have opinions. A child needs stability and consistency. So unless every parent involved is going to agree to set their personal opinions aside and agree on a single line of action to raise that child (something that's hard enough to do with two parents), then adding additional parents can be detrimental.
Although I feel that about 90% of today's parents are too damn stupid to have children, so my opinion on the matter may be a bit skewed.
"This is what I want so my kid has to suffer for it". Let that sink in for a bit.
As far as multiple parents go, people are individuals, and individuals have opinions. A child needs stability and consistency. So unless every parent involved is going to agree to set their personal opinions aside and agree on a single line of action to raise that child (something that's hard enough to do with two parents), then adding additional parents can be detrimental.
Although I feel that about 90% of today's parents are too damn stupid to have children, so my opinion on the matter may be a bit skewed.
My folks divorced when I was 6. It didn't take me long to figure out the "game" I could play with them. Dad and his wife on the weekends, mom and her husband on weekdays. Basically 2 sets of parents. Mom says no/dad says yes, etc.
Children will find the weak-link and exploit it for their benefit.
In no way am I pushing the "man+wife only" idea here. Just trying to point out with multiple adults playing parent, there will be conflict among them when it comes to saying yes/no, punishments/awards, etc. That would be something that I'd want to clear up before any young ones are produced. Some serious emotional hurt could be brought on all parties involved if not.
And yes, kids with just 2 parents have the same problem. But with 4+ "parents", can you see the potential for that same problem to get out of hand?
Just something to think on.
Children will find the weak-link and exploit it for their benefit.
In no way am I pushing the "man+wife only" idea here. Just trying to point out with multiple adults playing parent, there will be conflict among them when it comes to saying yes/no, punishments/awards, etc. That would be something that I'd want to clear up before any young ones are produced. Some serious emotional hurt could be brought on all parties involved if not.
And yes, kids with just 2 parents have the same problem. But with 4+ "parents", can you see the potential for that same problem to get out of hand?
Just something to think on.
Jophiel wrote:
Pack your own lunch and bring nothing but Pixie Stix and Pop Rocks and get your liberty on.
IDrownFish wrote:
I don't see it causing any internal problems - there's no reason something like that wouldn't work beautifully. But what do I know, I'm no child psychologist. However, you just need to be prepared, because something like that will raise eyebrows.
I think it's a concern about parental boundaries and understanding who is who. Does each of your boyfriends get an equal share in disciplining the children? How about their spouses? "This is John and he's 'Daddy #3' but his wife Carol is no one to you" Children do better with structure and I don't think the environment you describe really provides that. Even in the "village", kids understand that it's immediate parents first, then perhaps extended family, trusted adults, etc.
From a parenting level, it's hard enough to coordinate discipline between two parties and sound consistent. I can't even imagine the nightmare of discipline by committee between a group of people with varying blood ties to the child in question or the confusion that would cause. I don't think it's "immoral" as such but I think it's a whole hell of a lot more complicated than "You have three mommies and two daddies who love you -- yay!!"
I'm not using "discipline" here to just mean groundings or that sort of thing. I'm talking about the whole punishment/reward structure, decisions about what the child can/can't do, etc.
From a parenting level, it's hard enough to coordinate discipline between two parties and sound consistent. I can't even imagine the nightmare of discipline by committee between a group of people with varying blood ties to the child in question or the confusion that would cause. I don't think it's "immoral" as such but I think it's a whole hell of a lot more complicated than "You have three mommies and two daddies who love you -- yay!!"
I'm not using "discipline" here to just mean groundings or that sort of thing. I'm talking about the whole punishment/reward structure, decisions about what the child can/can't do, etc.
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
PigtailsOfDoom wrote:
I'm curious, what do you guys think? Do you think growing up in a household where you have more than two parents that love you and care for you is unhealthy? Immoral? Or do you think it has the potential to be a really great experience? I'm a big fan of the saying "It takes a village to raise a child." That's where a lot of these thoughts come from.
It is difficult enough to coordinate with just one other person when it comes to raising a kid. I'd like to say I can't imagine the nightmare of a having a half dozen other people putting in their two cents, but that's the grandparents' job and there's no bigger headache than dealing with two sets of culturally different old farts telling you what's what. And that many more people, ugh.
George Carlin wrote:
I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
I'm just going to echo the prevailing sentiment: nothing immoral about it, and it certainly has the potential to work just fine. It, like every parenting situation, would have its own particular hurdles and hangups. But I couldn't begin to speculate on whether the odds of a real issue are higher or lower than the average family unit.
lolgaxe wrote:
It is difficult enough to coordinate with just one other person when it comes to raising a kid. I'd like to say I can't imagine the nightmare of a having a half dozen other people putting in their two cents
I'm picturing something as simple as "I took two piano lessons and hate it, I want to quit".
So biological mom thinks kid should stick with it. Biological dad thinks kid should get to quit. Satellite "parents" A & B thinks "stick with it" but Satellite "parent C thinks quit. Is biological dad "outvoted"? Should there be any circumstance where the non-biological parents get to overrule the biological parents? If not, they're not really parents, are they? More like glorified aunts and uncles who mom happens to fuck. Even in a traditional step-parenting situation, which can get hairy enough when the "this is my kid" emotions run high, you at least realize that you're taking pretty well defined slots and the two of you are hopefully equal co-partners. Again, I don't think it's innately immoral, just not easy and not necessarily better than the norm.
That said, the chance of Pigtail's step-father successfully removing the hypothetical kids over this is about nil. Courts are notoriously loathe to remove kids from their biological parents, sometimes to a fault. Unless there's evidence that the children are being actively abused or neglected, I don't see them being removed on account of too many adults living in the same household.
Edited, Jan 20th 2012 8:58am by Jophiel
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
The biggest issue as I see is getting all adults to agree on, like, everything. One of the most important aspects of two adults raising children is they absolutely have to present a united front. So many problems stem from kids not getting clear and consistent discipline or reward and/or pitting parents against each other.
Alma wrote:
I lost my post
IDrownFish wrote:
Kind of off-topic, but I kind of think that our society is a little too accepting of divorce at the moment. While I agree wholeheartedly that two people who don't want to be together shouldn't stay together for the sake of the kids or anything (my own parents got a divorce when I was about 9), I do think that divorce is taken a bit too leniently nowadays. Marriage shouldn't be something that people say "oh, will if it doesn't work out, we can get a divorce later." It's still saying yes, you want to spend the rest of your life with this one person. Even if later on you realize that was a mistake, you should be going into something like that fully committed.
I think the problem is more people take marriage less seriously, the willingness to divorce so quickly is a result. But I don't really seeing that changing anytime soon, so arguing that is kind of pointless really.
As to the original question, I think Joph hit the nail on the head. Defining the roles is a must to give the child structure. Without that you could be in for some big problems. If you can define that and have everyone living together agree on it, then it could be a positive environment for the kid.
I think your step-dad's concerns likely go back to his own hang-ups. I can only speculate, but he's probably viewing it as some sort of hippy-commune or cult. He probably views it as a dangerous environment for a kid, maybe fearing that the child may be abused or some such. We used to hear a lot of stories about that back in the 70s and 80s. Of course you never heard of the ones that were cool and functioned as intentioned, but I digress. He sees your relationship as some sort of deviant behavior, so he figured further deviant behavior is inevitable.
I doubt your step-dad would have any legal authority to take your children from you unless they were in a dangerous environment. Really without that, he wouldn't have a leg to stand on. It's unfortunate he feels that way, perhaps with time he'll come around.
Some people are like slinkies, they aren't really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.
Joph and Elinda have it nailed down.
It won't just be difficult it will be damn near impossible to raise a child with consistent discipline/reward structures. My wife does daycare out of our home and I can tell you most parents can't maintain this with just 2 of them let alone coordinating and agreeing with 4 or 5 people.
Daughter asks mom for a chocolate, mom says no so she asks dad, dad knows to check with mom before saying yes because he knows the game. Dad's not going to check with 5 people so in a 5 parent situation daughter basically has free reign to do whatever she wants (someone is going to say yes and she'll figure out who those people are for a given situation very quickly). No values, no discipline. Not because of bad parenting but simply due to the impossibility of managing these simple but important parenting decisions amongst 5 people.
In a split parent situation this isn't much of a problem. The child may have different rules at different houses (Dad gives me ice cream, mom doesn't) but it's separated into different households so the rules within each household are still consistent, (Mom and step dad don't let me have ice cream so there's an expected consistent boundary when I'm at that house).
Raising children doesn't work as a democracy. You can't have a family meeting every time a decision needs to be made, two parents can generally manage to communicate enough to manage, five just wouldn't work.
So that leaves you with 2 parents and satellite relationships around them. This isn't necessarily a problem as long as you're aware that you're making the decision to teach your child that it's ok to have intimate relationships with multiple concurrent partners with the understanding that when they grow up they most likely will be in what are expected by their partners to be monogamous relationships.
It won't just be difficult it will be damn near impossible to raise a child with consistent discipline/reward structures. My wife does daycare out of our home and I can tell you most parents can't maintain this with just 2 of them let alone coordinating and agreeing with 4 or 5 people.
Daughter asks mom for a chocolate, mom says no so she asks dad, dad knows to check with mom before saying yes because he knows the game. Dad's not going to check with 5 people so in a 5 parent situation daughter basically has free reign to do whatever she wants (someone is going to say yes and she'll figure out who those people are for a given situation very quickly). No values, no discipline. Not because of bad parenting but simply due to the impossibility of managing these simple but important parenting decisions amongst 5 people.
In a split parent situation this isn't much of a problem. The child may have different rules at different houses (Dad gives me ice cream, mom doesn't) but it's separated into different households so the rules within each household are still consistent, (Mom and step dad don't let me have ice cream so there's an expected consistent boundary when I'm at that house).
Raising children doesn't work as a democracy. You can't have a family meeting every time a decision needs to be made, two parents can generally manage to communicate enough to manage, five just wouldn't work.
So that leaves you with 2 parents and satellite relationships around them. This isn't necessarily a problem as long as you're aware that you're making the decision to teach your child that it's ok to have intimate relationships with multiple concurrent partners with the understanding that when they grow up they most likely will be in what are expected by their partners to be monogamous relationships.
PigtailsOfDoom wrote:
I'm curious, what do you guys think? Do you think growing up in a household where you have more than two parents that love you and care for you is unhealthy? Immoral? Or do you think it has the potential to be a really great experience? I'm a big fan of the saying "It takes a village to raise a child." That's where a lot of these thoughts come from.
This has more or less been said 20 different ways already, but that's never stopped me before. Kids are raised in all variety of households by extended families, grandparents, with cousins, shared households, etc. they are all quite capable of turning out alright. It'll depend more on the character of the people you are with than anything else, IMO. Expect not-normal living conditions to cause them trouble with their peers, at least from time to time. But, as long as they have good people around them to rely on they'll probably be fine.
That monster in the mirror, he just might be you. -Grover
Quote:
So that leaves you with 2 parents and satellite relationships around them. This isn't necessarily a problem as long as you're aware that you're making the decision to teach your child that it's ok to have intimate relationships with multiple concurrent partners with the understanding that when they grow up they most likely will be in what are expected by their partners to be monogamous relationships.
I think this is a little ridiculous. I don't think any child is even going to be aware of, or even care about, who's sleeping with who at any given point in time. This probably wouldn't even become a factor till around age 8 or so. I'm not expert, just spitballing. The full ramifications probably wouldn't set into their mind until 11 or 12. By that time, you can have a sit down and explain that your lifestyle is a little different than the norm, and what have you.
Just because kids see something, doesn't mean they automatically think they have to do it as well. Most kids who grow up in a same sex household don't automatically become gay because that's how they were raised. And just because a kid grows up in a polywhatcumacallit household, doesn't mean they will adopt it as a lifestyle. They will likley be a little broader minded, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Some people are like slinkies, they aren't really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.
♫ My polyamorous friend,
You've got me in a mess of trouble again...♫
Edited, Jan 20th 2012 12:36pm by Eske
You've got me in a mess of trouble again...♫
Edited, Jan 20th 2012 12:36pm by Eske
I'm really annoyed at myself for reading that to the tune of My Little Pony.
George Carlin wrote:
I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
I don't have that issue since I don't get off on cartoons for six year old girls.
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
You don't need the cartoons?
George Carlin wrote:
I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
You do?
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
It helps.
George Carlin wrote:
I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
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