continued....
Repeat of what I said before-these are people who make these decisions and like all people-they have their own prejudices and issues. Hell we still have men fighting against the prejudices that say children should always be with the mother in custodial court-God forbid one of those men be poly also-damn near to a guarantee loss for them at that point.
I do agree that out-poly's need to be educating the judges, lawyers, social workers, psychologists etc. But how do we put that into effect?
that is interesting. it is certainly the situation here in the UK but i had understood from others than it wasn't in the US. do you know what a US citizen would be able to do should an individual social worker not adhere to that standard? perhaps the folk on this board who seem to believe otherwise are basing that view on individual experiences of individual social workers rather than knowledge of the overall professional standards. it would certainly be interesting to know what a person's rights would be in cases of bad practise and what protection is in place for them.
You can keep going back to court as often as you want-on your own dime if you don't like the decision. BUT you can't easily get a new judge. In custody situations the judge decides if there is cause for a new judge to take over the case. You can ask-but they can choose to deny (happens a lot).
Also-you can request a new social worker to do the case IF you live in an area where there are enough for that to happen. Where I live-there are only two who deal with custodial stuff like that.... and they are friends. Not much hope there. You can hire a private custody investigator on your own dime, but again-the judge CAN (and often do) choose not to take the CI's suggestions-most often to the detriment of the family.
There really isn't any GOOD protection in place.
Our state laws say that the goal is to keep the child in the home of the bio-parent (even so far as if the bioparent does drug rehab and has 10 days clean they can regain the children). But this doesn't actually help in most cases-because the most common cases are between two bio-parents. There is no preference STATED for that-though it seems to favor the woman most commonly-and it's my understanding from volunteer work in this field-that our state is the most liberal in custody decisions and most OFTEN rules in favor of the father-but the fathers still are the minority overall here.
In our case (stepson)we would be dealing with another bio-parent who is single. So no help there.
As for the baby-it would be grandparents-no real risk of losing the child-but high risk of drama, stress, loss of money and general upheaval for the WHOLE family if they started shit-and as I've said-they've already seriously considered it.
While there is perhaps no current threat to Redpepper's son..there is certainly the possibility of that changing based on the ideas and misinterpretations of those around us.
Ditto. I was under that same impression with RP's son, and the same is true in our case.
if someone wants to make a malicious allegation against you they will, regardless of the word(s) you or any other person uses to describe your or their sex and/or love lives.
This may be true in theory-but not always in reality. In fact in regards to our parents-they love and adore their grandchildren. In general they have no reason, and would not choose to take us to court to remove those children from our care. HOWEVER-if they at any point were to come to the belief that our lifestyle was in anyway endangering their beloved grandchildren-they would immediately take action in court to remove the children from our care-which is basically where things stand with RP. Her parents love their grandchild-and they FEAR what they don't believe is the Unknown-because they believe they DO KNOW that these "risky behaviors" are occuring to their grandchild-because they don't understand what "polyamory" means in their daughters life and therefore-in their love and desire to protect their grandchild from harm their is GREAT risk of them making moves that they would not NORMALLY take against their child on behalf of that child and his welfare.
What is "reasonable risk" for a person to take on their own-is simply NOT reasonable risk when a child is included. Therefore as parents who practice poly-we have a greater risk. We aren't only exposing OURSELVES-but also innocent children who have not choosen to be poly (or mono) at this time. Our FIRST job is to protect them and their interests-promoting a lifestyle right comes somewhere down the list of responsibilities.
As someone else said-a LONG TERM goal is to change the dynamic to allow for no prejudice. But short term-we have to work within the TRUTH of the society we are in.
I would LOVE to fight for the rights of ALL KINDS of people. But if doing so puts my child at risk-I can't do so. They don't deserve to have their lives torn apart for my choices. When they are old enough to make their own choices-then I regain the freedom to fight those battles...
redpepper and mono, i'd also like to ask - is it that you don't think or want certain behaviours to be part of poly because you don't yourselves approve of those behaviours, or only because you think it is the best tactic to protect your family? is it both? or just the second?
Again-not Mono-or RP. But for me, it's a matter of facing reality when protecting my children. I don't (think I've said this before) care much how the word gets defined-but would like it defined clearly enough for the random mono people to understand it-so I can say "yes that describes us" or "no it doesn't".
Sadly, I do admit to having prejudices and a tendency to judge. I am working on this because I truly understand that what others do does not affect what I have or do.
The only way I see is to not claim to be anything but in a multi-partner relationship.
I don't expect everyone to get over all prejudices. For those (including myself in some areas) it will just be a case of keeping their mouth shut.
If only more people would keep their mouths shut.
That would be awesome. In the meantime-we all have prejudices we have to work to find them inside of ourselves and then eradicate them. But this is an ongoing effort-not a "getting it all done today" thing.
I feel I am stuck between a rock and a hard place at the moment with all this. Perhaps it is better if I don't talk about it on here. Maybe, but I am hoping that by doing so there will be some understanding between everyone, possibly at my expense. So be it I guess.
Hopefully not at your expense. Hopefully to everyone's clearer understanding and deeper thoughtfulness.
My instinct as a mother says, fuck all of you, my bond with my son is threatened. I can tell you now, no mother will now to anyone when their childs safety is threatened. It may seem that way, but, just between you and me, I am pretending and playing mainstream in order to protect my son. I would do ANYTHING including destroying a term I believe in to do that. The term/word/definition of poly means nothing to me where he is concerned. If I can use it and make it so others coming up behind me can use it as a respectable word in the eyes of society , I will do so.
Very reasonably so. I think it makes perfect sense. "mama bears" don't ask questions-they simply protect. That's what they are designed to do. Don't feel guilty about that.
Its not the same when a child is involved in polyamorous relationships .
No, no its not. It's not the same in ANY dynamic when child is involved. There are MANY activities that people participate in EVERY DAY in societies the world over that are JUST FINE when a child is not involved. But when a child is involved it requires a bit more "fine tuning". I think this is part of what we are running up against. Example-it's ok to have a drink in your own home with or without children present. Not ok to have a drunken kegger with children present. Likewise it's ok to have a poly relationship that has positive impact on children (like having a third who cares for the child as their own) but when you have a number of random people coming through a revolving door-well that's not going to fly so well as it increases the risks for the child exponentially.
Please be patient. I am finding my feet within all this along with realizing that my own BLOOD is a threat. I have never experienced this before and we are definitely working towards establishing ourselves so that we can fight back if need be. I can PM you with those details as I don't feel comfortable posting them, but until that happens I am unable to accept and trust others to the extent that I would want them to help. Its a pride thing and a time for me to pull my family together. Just incase.
I can tell you this my friend, when we get organized and we find out about what will happen in court I will be fighting tooth and nail if it means our protection and others including those who live poly differently. I would welcome any help then. Until then, please let me quietly prepare. I will use the term for poly that will protect us until I feel safe.
There are many who will happily back you (and ourselves) when the time comes. Even from a distance RP. I hope you know that you aren't alone in your fight. I KNOW it feels like it (because it so often does for me as well) but you aren't alone and you won't be alone. The "silent" and "invisible" friends are here and happy to do all that we can to support you, be it appearing in person or just sending a small email or text that says "we're thinking of you and we love you".
XO