Poly & Kids

[Zoe&Wash]

A friend of mine is in a poly-triad - 2 girls, 1 guy. The other 2 are formally married and the three of them share a house together. The married couple has 2 beautiful little girls (I forget their ages, but they're around 7 & 4, I think). My friend just gave birth to her first child - a boy.

When my friend sent out an email announcing she and her guy were celebrating their latest anniversary, she pointed out that some of her friends very much disapprove of their relationship. She said that she really didn't care whether they approved or not, but that she and her family were all very happy together and their relationship works very well for them.

Personally, Wash & I wish them all the best in the world. But until her email, I never really thought about how it would affect their lives outside of their family group. And, most especially, how it might affect their children.


So here's my question - and it's mostly aimed at poly families that have children.

How hard is this lifestyle on the kids? I'm talking about everything - the kid's psychological & emotional situation, the kid's friends, dealing with friends' families, schools, doctors, etc., etc., etc.

I don't think I can even imagine how hard it must be to deal with all of that. So how do you do it?

- Z

[gatorvol64]

Z,

None of us have small children so, I'm not sure how much help I can be. The five boys we have between us range from 17-23. The youngest, 17 (mine and Gator's) has had a really difficult time. Neither of our boys actually approve but are dealing quite well is seems. They like Tech and Kitten so I figure that helps.


From what I can tell, not many poly families are openly poly to many people. Especially those who have been divorced. There is the chance that the other spouse will sue for custody on some grounds related to their poly lifestyle.

Vol

[Zoe&Wash]

Thanks for responding, Vol.

Divorce isn't an issue for this group, and hopefully it never will be!

And at least your kids are old enough to understand somewhat, whether they can fully appreciate or approve of the situation or not.

I'm not sure how open they are in their vanilla lives. I only know what I'm getting in emails from her and I never really thought about it that much until her son was born and she remarked about her anniversary. That got me thinking.

I really don't want to pry too much and have her think I'm criticizing their relationship. I'm not.

But as a parent, I guess I'm just thinking about the troubles kids have dealing with their own sense of self and how a lifestyle like this could impact their relationships with their young friends, not to mention how the living situation (whether being poly is out in the open or not) could affect how the kids' friends' parents perceive things - particularly regarding play dates and the like.

I guess, in some ways, it's not that much different from "Heather Has Two Mommies", but gay lifestyles have gained a great deal of acceptance over the past couple of decades especially. Poly? Not so much.

Z

[Vjklander]

With all the crap in the world today, I suppose there are worse things than having 3 loving parents ....

[K&JIntimates]

K and I live in a poly like situation. K's sister lives with us and has done so for the past five years. Granted, we don't have some of the same issues like this family you describe does since I'm (obviously) not having sex with my SIL....uhhh yuck! Still, she has a daughter that is 10 months younger than our oldest. We've run into issues with people on the outside looking in not knowing the specifics of our relationship.

When we lived overseas many thought we were one man, two women with children shared between us. This didn't change how they interacted with us and were surprised to learn that it was just a situation where we are an extended family who lives together.

This last year was the first time we've had 'issues' with our kids. The kids are now both in public school and there is a lot of confusion in their classrooms and with their classmates because they refer to each other as brother and sister even though they are cousins. Some of the other kids have made fun of the fact that they are so close like accusing them of being boyfriend/girlfriend (mind you they are 6 & 7). We've had times where the teachers told us about arguments erupting from our kids when other kids try to force the cousin issue. Our kids look at each other like siblings, it's how we've (the 3 of us) have raised them.

The worst instance we've had is with my SIL's daughter. She came home from school all upset because some of the other children told her that she didn't have a father and the she was 'weird' for having two mothers. In this little girl's eyes her uncle is her father (her biological father isn't in the picture but once or twice a year...maybe) and she has 'mommies'. She was very upset when others were trying to 'fix' her view of how a family was. All of us, including my MIL had to sit down with all the kids and explain to them that family is family and it isn't up to others to judge how our family should be. Love has no boundaries, just because she (the little girl) didn't come from my body didn't make her less of my daughter. Her Father is the man who protects, provides, plays, and teaches her the things she'll need to know growing up, just because she calls this man 'Uncle' means nothing. (I'll get off my soapbox now.)

Because my Husband and I raise all our children equally and refer to all of them as 'our kids' we run into misunderstandings with others over who the second woman is in our house and how that dynamic works. It gets complicated but we've never lost a friend just because my SIL lives with us.

[avid]

This is an interesting subject, and fortunately, one that hasn't touched us too much.

We are a MFM triad. My husband of 14 years and I have 3 kids, two of whom live at home (9 and 11). My partner has blended his family with ours, and his 20yo daughter lives with us.

My 9yo daughter, just today, made a statement something like, "Mom, our family is weird, isn't it? I mean, I have 2 dads".

I simply responded, "Yep, we're weird".

My kids have come up with the two dads thing themselves. We didn't put that on them, and we don't make a deal about it.

I think the reason it's no big deal is because we have a diverse community that we belong to, and very close friends of ours are lesbians who are getting married in a couple of weeks (and they asked me to make their cake!). My girls understand, because we believe it, that families come in all shapes and sizes, and family is what you make it.

We also homeschool, so they don't have to deal with any school issues.

Now, all that being said, for those who I prefer not to have too much knowledge of our life, we simply say that my partner is my business partner. Which he is.