Swingers with kids - Question.

[dirtwr04]

Hi everyone. I have a question for you out there that have kids.

1) Has your lifestyle choice ever been discovered by your kids or adult kids or parents?

2) If yes, how did you handle the situation, and if the discovery was by kids what were the ages of the kids?

3) If this has not happened to you, how would you handle the above situation if it did?

4) Are there any of you that would choose to tell your kids vs having them find out not by your choice?

Have fun and stay safe.

Dirtwr04

[DaveNSheila]

Hello and Welcome to the board. I know you have posted and probably missed when you did your intro. First ? Has your lifestyle choice ever been discovered by your kids? Yes. Adult kids? N/A Parents? sort of. D's yes I told them.. S's yes her kids told her, but we were able to cover it up a bit. 2. We told them we are out to meet people to be able to have fun and relax and unwind. 12,14. They found out after we signed up on Swing Lifestyle. They saw the screen before we could bring it down. They asked we told them and that was it. One handles it better than the other. 3 N/A 4. we rather tell them than they find out some other way. We opted to tell them when they saw one of the sites on the screen. D

[northindycpl]

We have younger kids (9,6,5) and they don't know yet. They haven't really 'found out' because it really is something outside their scope of understanding. We do everything that we can to make sure that we are discreet as possible. I don't imagine that they will find out any time soon, but if they did we would answer the questions they ask. At some point I would image that we would tell them, but I see no need to get into graphic detail or let them know anymore than what they ask.

Our kids are incredible, though. They love the fact that Mr. Indy and I are so in love and we are happy. Most of their friend's parents are divorced, so they find a lot of security in our marriage. I don't think they would be upset that we were in the lifestyle, but I would image that they will have a lot of questions.

Our parents don't know, and I again, I would answer their questions but I would volunteer the information. I have a pretty good feeling that friends of my parents swing, and I am always shocked that I haven't run into them yet.

I think I am more worried that our parents will find out, as I think my father will ask me a bunch of embarrassing questions.

[VegasLee]

Since we tend to be pretty high profile in the Lifestyle our "adult" aged kids know that we are in the Lifestyle. I used to host a radio show here in Vegas that dealt with the lifestyle. There has been many articles in papers and magizines and we have been on T.V. so it was not something that we could hide even if we wanted to.

Our eleven year old a couple of weeks ago came into the living room and explained to us that "I know what that Red Rooster club is that you work at." I asked her what it was and she told me "it is an adult club that kids can not go to." She did not ask anymore so with her being eleven I did not feel the need to go any further with it at this time. She does know that we have many good friends that treat her well and also tend to give hugs and kisses to us but since she has been brought up around that she feels it is normal.

One of our older kids does not feel we lead the "right" lifestyle but does not bad mouth us. He and his wife just does not hang with us either. He allows us to lead our life and them theirs. The rest of the kids talk to us about it at times.

Two of the older daughters have shown up at the Club once or twice unannounced to us. In a way it was funny because we handled it much better then they did. They tried to sneak around the club for a bit before they finally knew for sure that we knew they where there and they came over to us and talked. We told them to have a good time. Neither of them stayed long.

We have always done our best to make sure that the kids at any age could talk to us about anything and that they seem to do. We do not require them to live our life or accept it but they are all good enough to allow us to live our life without being our judge.

It is nice having the openess and honesty with our kids. Keeps life simple.

[fun_pairTX]

Our oldest (24) knows, he and his wife dabble in the lifestyle themselves. No one else has a clue, we keep that aspect of our lives under the radar.

[dirtwr04]

Wow am I glad I asked those questions. Thank you all for your generosity and candor in sharing your experiences with me and the board. I hope to read many more posts on this topic as it seems their are many variations of how things are handled. Each response has been very interesting to me. There are so many variables...

Thank you again. Stay Safe and Stay Happy!

Dirtwr04

[BiDrywallChick]

Originally Posted by dirtwr04

Hi everyone. I have a question for you out there that have kids.

1) Has your lifestyle choice ever been discovered by your kids or adult kids or parents?

2) If yes, how did you handle the situation, and if the discovery was by kids what were the ages of the kids?

3) If this has not happened to you, how would you handle the above situation if it did?

4) Are there any of you that would choose to tell your kids vs having them find out not by your choice?

Have fun and stay safe.



Dirtwr04

1) Our parents and extended family all knows for the most part since we lived in a poly relationship for quite a few years. For the most part, most of the family just acts like they have no clue that we swing. It isnt hard since we arent on the news for getting busy in the mcdonalds playland with another couple after clubbing Our children are still all young ( 7,6,5) and really dont give a rats butt what we do as long as there is spounge bob and candy.

2) How did we react when the family found out. Like it wasnt a big deal. We told them. Granted we didnt do it at Thanksgiving Dinner ( although I wanted to) to see who would choak on their turkey. We warmed them up to it by talking about poly lifestyle vs swinging ect ect. Everyone was pretty relaxed about the whole thing. Those who didnt approve said so.. those who didnt care said so. that in general was the end. The nastiness didnt come until we had a really mental partner that made a whole lot of things public and damaged not only our but the familiy' reputation. Thats a whole 'nother bag of crap though.

3) Since my kids are still young, we havent had a talk about swinging. I will answer all their questions honestly and with age appropriate explainations. The kids already know that we are different from most families because for the longest time ( we are talking years) they had a daddy and 2 mommies who all lived together. Since we do not bring swing partners to the house ( with one exception) they dont have a clue as to that side of our life. They dont need to. They need the innocence of childhood and coming of age to be as uncomplicated as it can be.

4) I am a firm believer that kids need to hear about things like this from the parents. Not from grandma's bridge partners trying to pump the kids for information. Sometimes, it doesnt happen that way. Kids grow up faster than we parents what to admit. We tend to shelter them longer than they need to because we are scared of our own mortality. Anyway, my kids will get told by the both of us, just like we have done everything else. As the time comes... right now, the next conversation is why you should not flush 30000 babywipes down the toilet.

[rntsvo]

1) Has your lifestyle choice ever been discovered by your kids or adult kids or parents?

Our kids have no idea about your lifestyle choice they are still very young (5 year old and 17 month old), no our parents do not know. We do not plan on them knowing either.

2) If yes, how did you handle the situation, and if the discovery was by kids what were the ages of the kids?

Has not happened yet

3) If this has not happened to you, how would you handle the above situation if it did?
I don't think we will ever let my kids find out about the lifestyle. If they do find out some how then we will try explain to them best we can. This is just something I don't think our family or kids need know about.


4) Are there any of you that would choose to tell your kids vs having them find out not by your choice?

If I think it comes to a time we need to tell them then we will. I'd rather them find out from us then some other way

[CandTinLorainCo]

Very good question Dirtwr04... wasquite interesting reading some of the response to this topic as we are new also and wondered from time to time how to address this very topic.

-C

[wedday]

Well my sister knows. She and I have been to a couple of parties in the past but she is the only one who knows. My child dosent know and I dont see a readon that she should.

[twoplayful2]

We wouldn't be telling anyone but if they found out we'd answer questions honestly, at least if the kids were old enough by then. Otherwise we'd cover it up

I can sympathize with D&S who's kids saw the proof on the computer. Our kids usually go to bed too late for me to get that much privacy at the computer, then even when they are in bed there's the chance they're going to wake up and wander in. I actually have a little rear-view mirror at my desk (I hate being snuck up on even if I'm "innocent") and I still keep one finger on ALT and another on TAB when I'm on those types of sites so I can make a quick getaway. I also go as far as clearing the history or P/W protecting my comp so they can't get on or at least aren't going to stumble across sites.

[Sweet_Candy]

We try to be discrete in front of the kids due to their ages. When they are mature enough we will tell them. If your running WinXP, set up a password to login, enable screensaver password as well. The little ones don't have permission to use this pc. If you must share then set up a vanilla profile for all others excluding yourself. Switching profiles is extremly easy and you need not close what you were doing in your profile.

[NaughtyKitten]

Dirtwr04,

I've been thinking about how to respond to this one. We have 3 children, 2 of them teenage boys. They are just figuring out sex and relationships. It is a fragile time in their lives.

No. Our kids and our parents do not know. I do not plan on ever telling them. This is a personal decision between hubby and I. It is not a lifestyle for everyone. I would never be an advocate for it. It needs to be something you come to together not something someone convinces you of. If they found out I would cover it up or explain it away as best I could. Being a writer I can make up a good believable story. Maybe when my kids are adults we may have a discussion but only if they ask. After all, how many of you really want to know about your parents' sex lives? I hear my kids saying EWWWW!

The only way that I can see discussing swinging with my children is in the context of discussing marriage and infidelity. We may add that some people don't "cheat" they agree to have other partners. That is how I have always handled the questions about religion. We (I and hubby) believe this, but others believe this. It is a choice based on deeply personal feelings. We de-personalize issues like this so they can make their own choices.

As far as the parents go. They have enough things to judge us about. I don't need to give them anymore fuel for the fire! Besides, I don't think my dad would appreciate the mental picture that would conjure up for him. Knowing your little girl is having sex with her hubby is one thing but with multiple people would be quite another. He knows and accepts that I had sex before marriage (got pregnant @ 19) but this would be hard for him to handle, I think.

Lastly, and this is my real issue, I don't see any compelling reason to tell either the parents or kids.

[twoplayful2]

Originally Posted by NaughtyKitten

It needs to be something you come to together not something someone convinces you of.

Totally agree with that and think it's a good answer for a lot of questions you see in this forum, like "should we get our vanilla friends involved?", "should there be more TV shows/specials out there advertising the lifestyle?", etc, etc. It's a very good point for people to think about, although I don't think anyone here is thinking about convincing their family members to get into the lifestyle lol.

After reading more posts and thinking a little more about this, I think it would just have to depend on the situation and which family member it was. If it were her mom who somehow found out we'd probably come clean with her. If it were my mom or her dad (all parents involved are divorced, of course), forget it. No matter how obvious it was depending on exactly what he/she found out, we'd still give a story and be fine with whether they choose to believe, not believe and drop it anyway, or whatever. If it were our kids then it would depend on what they found out, how old they were and what kind of conversations we've had with them to that point. They'd have to be adult kids by then for sure, and I think we both hope that we'd have the type of relationship with them that we can comfortably, or maybe even somewhat uncomfortably, talk to them about those types of things.

I seriously wonder if her mom is suspicious anyway lol. We're always sneaking off, not always getting our story straight, coming back extremely late when she's over watching the kids. We're also just a lot more open and wild than the average married couple just in general life, which she thinks is great but I'm sure it adds to the curiousity factor as well.

[vysper]

Originally Posted by dirtwr04

Hi everyone. I have a question for you out there that have kids.

1) Has your lifestyle choice ever been discovered by your kids or adult kids or parents?

2) If yes, how did you handle the situation, and if the discovery was by kids what were the ages of the kids?

3) If this has not happened to you, how would you handle the above situation if it did?

4) Are there any of you that would choose to tell your kids vs having them find out not by your choice?

Have fun and stay safe.

Dirtwr04

Good questions and some good answers/info from other posters

1.) Not yet. However, my best friend of 21 years was over one weekend and the three of us got a bit caught up in the moment (we were a bit noisy). The next day my 10 yr old (now 12) asked about the noise he heard and I just told him we stayed up late and were just talking and laughing and having a good ol' time. I decided after that the only way we were going to do that in our house again was if the kidlets went to my parents' for the weekend

2.) n/a

3.) I would like it to be us (my husband and I) who tell our children about our lifestyle. At this point, I think it would be a bit much even for my 12 yr old, though we have discussed porn (he had been doing some surfing of his own ) and had a very indepth discussion with him about sex because of it. Not sure what age I think it's appropriate to tell your children. I guess that's a personal call because we all know our children best and can gauge better when they are ready to know something like that, but I do think it is definitely closer to adulthood. I definitely don't want them finding out from someone else.

4.) Guess I answered that above

and I still keep one finger on ALT and another on TAB when I'm on those types of sites so I can make a quick getaway.

Thank you for this very valuable tip My husband and I like to look at porn on the computer together, late at night, but there is always that chance that someone will walk in, so we are constantly looking over our shoulders. This will help