What about the Kids?

OMG Kevin youre killing me with your speed :D nice job on that ... :D


I think I get the tactic ...Overwhelm him :D...it wont work.

You realize that I turned 1 of your pages into 3 and you turned my 3 into 5 :D

And by the way some of my good point seem to be edited out ...whats up with that. :D
 
Pretty much. I was really thinking, "I wasted all that time on that bitch," but I did not swipe it across the keyboard. I suppose my true feelings are coming out now. Or I am just being hateful.

I bet you took something away from the church. Even if it was run and never look back. A year on and I cannot name one positive thing I took from 12 years. How is that even possible?

Forgiving myself? That really will be the day. I roll my eyes every time my therapist asks if I have taken any steps towards forgiving myself. The answer was no the previous session. The answer is no in that session. Ten times out of ten, it will be no the following week, too. Forgiveness? Not even in sight. I would not blame her if she did not forgive me. Once someone shows you who they are, believe them, right?
 
I've been involved in a few discussions about parenting in a poly family at meets and conventions and I've heard a range of experiences. One thing that stuck with me was when a guy said that it's foolish to underestimate the impact having poly parents has on the child. Even when it's a healthy and positive environment. He gave the example of having to home school his children because they were getting a hard time at school from kids, parents and teachers. They didn't get to play with local children.

It wasn't as if they suffered for this in the long term: they had cousins and other friend's children to play with and have gone onto to succeed academically and secure their careers they desired. But, the choices their parents made did impose limitations on their children. Times have changed and I suspect a cosmopolitan city might be a less hostile environment for a poly family, but I thought it was an interesting point to consider.
 
FullofLove1052: As a daughter to parents who haven't always done the best job, there is always time to change and grow. Your daughter may or may not forgive you someday, but you have no idea how valuable it is to be able to admit you made mistakes and atone for them. You don't have to live with guilt your whole life. That can introduce a different emotional power dynamic that isn't healthy for either of you either. My mother and I never got along while I was growing up, but she and I have a much better relationship now. My father and I are still trying to learn and may never make it. My mother is willing to admit when she is wrong and my father is not. It does make a difference.



On the Karen Ruskin things, I have a few thoughts I'd like to add.

1) Ruskin is very obviously anti-poly and from the style of her writing generally deals with ailing mono couples who might be using poly as a band-aid or solution to their relationship problems. It seems unlikely that established poly folk, whether ailing or not, will be coming to her practice for relationship advice because she makes it clear she doesn't think it is a viable relationship style. I know that I would not think of her as a first resource if I needed any counseling or therapy in my poly relationships. Now I can't know this for sure, but if I had to guess based on the way she talks about it, she mostly deals with people who are already dealing with immature and unhealthy interpersonal dynamics who somehow think that opening up their relationship will solve the problems. I highly doubt Ruskin has provided therapy to longer-standing poly folk who reached that decision either prior to their relationship starting or after a long time of consensual and healthy deliberation of what was right for them and their relationship.

2) Ruskin is one doctor. There are many out there and not all share her opinion. In my local community there are a number of counselors and therapists who work with poly folk and are trying to spread awareness about how to properly counsel poly people. It is in its infancy, but it is growing, just like KAP (Kink Aware Professionals) is growing to help those in power exchange, BDSM, or other types of kink relationships while keeping those relationships intact instead of demonizing them.

3) If there are effective and useful ways to counsel poly people, Ruskin does not indicate any interest in learning them. She has already decided that poly destroys relationships. I wonder how much time she has actually spent counseling poly people in a paradigm that supports their decisions and teaches them to navigate poly relationships before she decided to give it all up. I can't know for sure, but I get the feeling she never really approached this with an open mind and interested attitude in order to know for sure it doesn't work. So the poly people that do end up in her practice probably will fail at their relationships because she isn't giving them the type of counseling they need! I wonder how many of her failures might have been successes with more poly aware and experienced therapists who don't just throw the entire idea under the bus as a default.
 
The funny thing is my kids don't give a damn what others think of them. Especially Moose my 11 yo. He has a profound stutter. He has come leaps and bounds with his speech. You now have to be paying attention to notice it. Kids would try to tease him it would roll off his back like water. He isn't bothered. He is very eloquent when explaining our family to friends. Actually his friends are jealous. My kids get to do a lot of things their friends don't. Moose is the most unbulliable kid I have ever met. Squirrel my 7 yo is following his brother example but will Moose will mentally out smart his peers Squirrel is my physical one.

Kids will always find something to pick on others for the key is to teach your kids not to fall into the trap of feeding the bully's power. Bullies feed off weakness.
 
Re (from dingedheart):
"And by the way some of my good points seem to be edited out ... what's up with that."

I don't know. What points did you have in mind? Restate them and I'll try to give them a fair shake.

You do realize that we're talking about a five-post post here, right? Surely you didn't expect me to retain *every* one of your points. Often I let a point go because I actually agree with it so it doesn't seem to need a lot of attention. But if you feel shortchanged, I'll try to rectify that.

It does concern me that if the discussion becomes too cumbersome, it will discourage people from reading (and participating in) this thread. Since I think the subject matter is of epic importance, I hope that won't happen. So again, let's try to stick to the key, on-topic points. Minor tangents here and there are fine as long as they don't make other readers roll their eyes and move on to an easier thread. Kind of political of me to look at that way I know.

Re: the contest to see who can overwhelm whom with the longest multi-posts ... is one I actually expect to lose. I am trying to give your concerns a fair shake but I have to say, it's getting harder and harder for me to scrounge up the time, and I know others have a lot more on their plate than I do. Let's not have that contest here okay? Let's keep this thread attractive and doable for newcomers (and oldcomers alike). Just my request. Do it for the kids man.

@ FullofLove1052 ... in my view you did gain a few significant things from your 12 years of poly. I think you ended up with a new and enhanced appreciation for your marriage, as well as a new and enhanced appreciation for the time you get to spend with your kids. I even think it's a cool thing that you learned that monogamy's not so bad after all. I always hate it when poly zealots preach that we're *all* supposed to be poly/non-monogamous. Come on guys, people aren't a bunch of clones.

@ MightyMax ... good perspective; poly must always be understood to impose certain difficulties on the kids ... perhaps most of all in areas where it's, "Keep it a secret, or expose the kids to the persecution of their classmates." Not that it's impossible to compensate for that, but it is a factor that has to be considered.

Having said that, I like what Dagferi said about it ...

@ MusicalRose ... thanks for your remarks on Dr. Ruskin, always feels nice to have someone in my corner (and you've good independent reason to be there in my opinion).

A word or two more about doctors and therapists, and trusting their credentials. I have a little personal experience with that.

Last year I had a dental appointment in Albuquerque (several months before my move to Washington State). My regular dentist wasn't available that day, so the "new guy" checked out my teeth. He found, like, seven cavities. And he was adamant about that.

Now, I can't remember when (if there ever was a time) I ever had more than one or two cavities at an appointment. About half the time I have zero. So seven? Really? and this is after I'd been doing better about brushing (and flossing) for the previous year.

Well jeezh, who says I have any business questioning this guy? He has massive college degrees; I am a lowly undergrad. He has a good-looking, friendly, comfortable, thriving business. Obviously he knows what he's doing. Doesn't he?

Well fixing cavities isn't free and my V's not exactly made out of money. Not to mention the time and trouble (that damned needle!) to go to multiple filling sessions. I just couldn't bring myself to trust this guy.

So we waited. After our move to Olympia was completed, we sought out a new local dentist (and found one). It had been several months so heck, if I had seven cavities before I must have ten by now! With much trepidation I entered the new dentist's office.

So what did *this* qualified professional find in my mouth? I'll tell you. One cavity. One. And not even one of the garden variety cavities the other guy had found. This was an unusual internal type of cavity; I think the word they used for it was recidivism. It's when your adult tooth starts acting like a baby tooth and starts preparing itself to loosen and fall out. To correct the problem, I had to see a specialist who did a root canal, then a gum incision to lift away a bit of gum and drill/fill the external damage under the gum, then he replaced the flap of gum and secured it with a few stitches. I see him again tomorrow to make sure I've healed up okay.

Well, I don't know which highly-qualified expert (dentist) was wrong, but either one of them was wrong, or both of them were wrong. So yeah, I have learned to have some mistrust of experts with way more knowledge and practice than me.

Heck, my mom even concluded (in later years) that she had picked a "bad dentist" for her kids. He certainly didn't do a good job at straightening my crooked teeth, and he wasn't a guy I'd say had "the soft touch." So again, just because someone's a highly-trained professional doesn't mean you should automatically trust them to have the right answers.

As for psychologists and their ilk, I've had some real "winners" in my day. Completely off-base diagnoses and harmful treatment. In the early days of my poly V, Snowbunny and I went to see a therapist for help with our dyad relationship with each other. Well that therapist, after refusing to see her and me in concert, proceeded to (try to) play us against each other, leading us down the path toward a break-up. And this was when we were already down and struggling. We were lucky we figured out what she was doing before too much damage was done. Obviously she did not have an objective viewpoint of polyamory -- in spite of her fancy degrees and (how many?) years of experience.

I even had a hellish experience with the nurse who was in charge of the Alzheimer's unit my wife was once staying in. This nurse made a BFD out of how many years (20 might have been the actual figure) she'd been in charge at that institution. But she wasn't a warm, fuzzy, or even helpful type, and she ended up clashing horns with me and greatly limiting (almost eliminating altogether) the visits I was allowed to have there with my wife. Bzzzt! Another ding against a highly-qualified professional.

No, I can't just take Dr. Ruskin at her word, no matter how many accolades and decades of experience she has. I need specific evidence (anecdotal at the very least -- preferably verifiable anecdotes) of the claims she's making, especially when other psychologists/psychiatrists disagree with her general view and when we have seen right here on this thread that poly parents can indeed successfully raise their offspring. No expert is above being human. All experts are capable of accumulating a subjective view about things. It's been demonstrated multiple times in my life at least.

---

Re: http://www.nomblog.com/39494/ ... a worthy exception to the "good news about kids and poly" -- though Jennifer Johnson's plight was built not from polyamory but from a tangle of divorce and remarriage.

The one quote that really troubled me in the article was:
"Since I lived under the [five-parent] family structure they advocate, I will sometimes ask [activists]: 'Would you trade childhoods with me?' They either say no or they don’t reply."

Who are these advocates anyway? and why aren't they putting their money where their mouth is? I can't think of any particular reason why I'd have minded having five parents -- unless one or more of them were jerks. Heck, active Mormon families are so tightly woven that one's aunts and uncles might as well be one's additional mothers and fathers. The church part of that dynamic wasn't so hot, but the family part was rather enjoyable.
 
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Just wanted to add a thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread so far -- yes even dinged, you rascal. I hope I haven't been too much of a thread Nazi or anything like that. The truth is I've been helped and edified by everything y'all have said, and I don't mind long/tangential posts at all; heck I'm more guilty of them than anyone. Tangents can be so much fun.

I really am concerned about the welfare of all kids, which is one reason why I value this thread so much and would love to make it ten times bigger if I could. When I did that five-post post, I was worried the mods were gonna reprove me and say, "Uh Kevin, there's a reason why posts have a length limit. Please don't sneak around that limit so much." Which would have made me sad because I (secretly) like obscenely long posts. Especially when I write them.

What can we do to advance the cause of kids in polyamorous homes? One thing I like about Polyamorous Percolations, my old stomping grounds, is that they have a Children of Poly board -- a board just for discussing how kids should be treated and taken care of in a poly environment. It's a wonderful board, with tons of threads on all kinds of particular subjects. Sooo ... all you mods and admins out there: any chance we could create such a board on this forum? It would be a worthy cause, and I'd like to think it'd soon get filled with worthwhile stuff.

In any case, I've really liked reading and writing on this thread, so -- thanks, everyone.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
I for one would LOVE a board devoted to raising kids in a poly relationship. While I think at this exact moment we have got it all handled. I doubt that it will always be like that.

And the fact of the matter is that children change a relationship simply by there existence. And I have a very difficult time relating to advice from people who don't have any children, because they don't really seem to understand that you can't just drop everything when you have kids to care for too. And caring for your partners is more complicated by kids as well lol! I make no bones about the fact that there is no way on earth my relationship with my boyfriend would work as well as it does if he hadn't always wanted kids. And wasn't extremely family oriented. No we don't get a lot of "alone time" we get a lot of family time lol as my daughter is always there. And it works for us. And we all love it! Weather were a family of four or three depends on the time of day, and day of the week. But we love it, and no one is unhappy with the arrangement. But there may come a time when this changes and again it's easier to discuss problems like that with people who have kids or are in relationships that involve kids.
 
Go HelloSweety, you are doing it right. :)

Re: a "kids board" ... it has struck me that perhaps a board full of relatively short threads will attract more activity than a single super-long thread. I know when I look at a thread title and it has hundreds of posts in it, I tend to think, "Ugh," and look for some other thread title whose size doesn't seem so daunting.

And besides, such a board would also encourage the division of the very broad subject of "Kids and Poly in General" into many specialized subjects -- "When to Tell the Kids about Your Polyness" for instance, which could easily constitute its own thread -- as could "How to Deal with Child Protective Services," "How to Shield Your Kids from the Perils of NRE," "When Should a Third Partner Be Considered a Third Parent," "A Thread Just for Poly Parenting Success Stories," "A Thread Just for Poly Parenting Horror Stories," and on and on.

I'd like to note that one of the reasons I'm not a parent is because I think I'd make a terrible parent. I'm too spoiled, for one thing. I have emotional issues. I depend on a rigid schedule that orbits around my personal hobbies/interests. I taught piano for many years and I feel I can say with confidence that I like kids a lot, but more in the way a grandparent does -- you know, a grandparent who gets to visit the kids for an hour or so while they're pleasant to be around, and then gets to go home (to a quiet, restful home) while the parents take over the not-so-fun elements of living with their child.

Well, if I can't be a good parent, at least I can instigate a thread that might help/encourage those who are parents, don't you think? :eek:
 
Again sorry but my schedule doesn't allow the time to discuss the many points you made, however id like to look at some broad thoughts related to whats been posted.

Unless I missed it the general consensus is Dr. Ruskin is A) wrong .... B) bias or A) bias and thus B) wrong
Not very much was said or " studies " or hard evidence provided to prove that she wrong. No evidence to prove she bias. That said you list all the success stories.

Kevin says:
Oh my. Let me count the ways.

bookbug
Inyourendo
KerryRen
KC43
Dagferi
SlowPoly
Bluebird
Magdlyn
HelloSweety

All of the above are cases where it looks to me like the kids (did or) are doing just fine. Maybe not even always perfect. But certainly up to the standards of any healthy monogamous household. Not quite the type of thing you could compare to an alcoholic home, is it?

Let me get this straight ....this is your hard evidence. The words and opinions of anonymous people on an advocacy forum . No Bias there. No face to face ...no seeing family interactions ...not meeting the kids in question...interesting standard or ( double standard )

Because of the variety of ways people can enter into such a dynamic and ages in which children are made aware all play important roles ....and all may have a different fall out path.

Lets talk about success. Do the people on the aforementioned list think because their children were born and raised into such a dynamic and dont know anything different /kept home schooled (cloistered ) and they appear happy then its a success ? Versus an mid childhood intro and transition. " kids ...family meeting ...mom's discover she bi and were going to open up our marriage and date other people" and depending upon the reaction from that and how long it lasts again its counted as a success.


As Ry pointed out how many people do time splits and leave the spouse and kids to go be with the other lovers. How can it not effect the kids ....I cant imagine how you can spin this?

this is from RP Blog http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3421




Old 08-09-2010, 06:27 AM
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So I made my Mono a pie last night in my panties He was pleased. I was glad to treat him as he has been so supportive. It was damned good pie too!

I felt sad all night however. I had that same tug of pain when I left the house to go to my OH. Said goodbye to the boy and kissed Nerdist. *pang* will it ever fucking go away?! Its the same one when I say goodbye to Mono at the front door of the house I share with Nerdist and the boy. *pang* everytime. Its become almost a torture.

This morning I came home to Nerdist still in bed, he hadn't slept. I tried to convince him to stay at home but he wouldn't. We had a quiet morning in which the boy got very upset when Nerdist asked if I was okay. I am just sad. That's all, sad, but we ended the conversation quickly when the boy got upset.

My tersiary is in the middle of a terrible divorce. He asked me last night to take pictures of him and I in play off my fetlife. Not why, just asked. So I did it. He identifies as a dom now and she as a sub. It made me wonder what is going on and what she might be using against him. He is trying to remove his fetlife account too.

I wrote my tersiary this morning to ask if I can rent her room. Just for once or twice a month. I asked if I could take a holiday in it for a couple of days to try it out. I'm waiting to hear what he says. He needs the money, so I hope to work something out and get at least one need met; my need for space in my own room. I could take my painting stuff and make it my studio. I haven't been able to go to mine since coming out to my parents. Its in their house and just sitting there. I don't want to intrude and certainly don't feel creative and safe there. Things are going well with them, but it would be pushing it for me to feel safe just yet.

Trying to figure out how to get my need met of having my family all in one place so I don't get that *pang* anymore. That will be more difficult I think.


And this ...... the kid is upset by the arguments and added drama

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Thanks to both of you.

I don't read really, due to my dyslexia, but I will do some searching and see what its about. thanks M

I haven't given up on the idea of a holiday at your place gemini. I just don't know yet. I'm trying the full van experience first. I was saying to PN this morning that its great to have a break but I require a lifestyle change. It really has nothing to do with Mono although he offers me some respite at the OH and his presence in my life has prolonged the trapped feeling I've had; made it feel less. PN seems to think that it does have something to do with him, but I have been talking about not feeling like I have a space for me for years.

We talked again on the way to work. I am so close to the surface with this. My emotions overwhelm immediately. Our boy spends the whole time telling us to stop talking. How do I teach him that its important that everyone has a chance to talk bout their needs and sometimes people get upset while having a need to talk? My parents spent my whole childhood trying to belittle my need to talk about needs due to the passion have and feel when I do. Now as an adult I am the same way and am made to stop talking by my son. Talk about reliving a trauma. I keep reminding him that we all need to talk, but he's too young to know more than that I think. I understand he thinks I'm angry and it scares him. I'm scary when angry. There is no doubt about that!

I asked PN if he understood what I have been saying. I feel so unheard. He wanted to know AGAIN what I mean by space. I've been over it and over it. I got him to think about empathizing and what I have been saying. I'm trying to get him to do the leg work. He said he would try to get out of the house once a week, as he hardly ever goes out. I am sorry to say, but I just saw that as an insult at this point. That and false promises. I have been disappointed so often before, I just don't believe it. He's promised that before even. I guess one thing is he got what I have suggested as far as changing our living situation. I told him I would have to rent a bachelor suite if it doesn't change.
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And in an emergency or nightmare as in Ry's daughters case she wasnt there ...how many of those do you need before it leaves a scar. A scar that a seemly happy kid carries around unnoticed.


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I was at Mono's house last night, my OH (other home). PN called me at about 7 and told me that the boy had cut his head having stood up and hit it on the cupboard door in the kitchen. He was bleeding all over and scared. PN wanted to know what he should do about a bandaid as they wouldn't stick to his hair. I suggested a compress and that he wear his touque to bed for the night to keep it on. I suggested that he talk to Derby as she is a nurse. When I got off the phone I texted Derby and she called PN. She told him to wake him up at 10 to see if he was okay and didn't have a concussion. She agreed that he shouldn't have a shower to wash blood off but should wait until morning and pat it off with a wet cloth.

After the emergency was over I crumbled inside... as I do in emergencies. I had asked over and over if I should come home but PN and the boy kept saying no. I HATE being across the city in these situations. I HATE it. IT tears me up inside and I feel like a horrible mother. Very irresponsible to be away when my boy needs me.

This is one of the reasons that I have been advocating for Mono to move in. In a couple of weeks I will be just downstairs and can come up as soon as something happen. I will feel much better about that.
__________________

I have no idea if Rp views her poly experience and dynamic and childrearing as a success...I do know she's went through a lot with her husband and extended family which she kindly chronicled for us but some of the things in the article seem to have occurred in her situation. I invite her to comment here as to how she sees it now vs then.


The next question would be how do we define failure ?

Poly is tried and family ripped apart ?

kids losing or not having a relationship with parents ?


Shall we list the seemly happy poly dynamics that ended in divorce.

Vodkafan

Carma

ispolyfome

Runbabyrun

Kindpod

Braveryseeker

Polylicious http://www.polyamory.com/forum/member.php?u=20666

Wetnips http://www.polyamory.com/forum/member.php?u=54350
 
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Lets talk about success. Do the people on the aforementioned list think because their children were born and raised into such a dynamic and dont know anything different /kept home schooled (cloistered ) and they appear happy then its a success ? Versus an mid childhood intro and transition. " kids ...family meeting ...mom's discover she bi and were going to open up our marriage and date other people" and depending upon the reaction from that and how long it lasts again its counted as a success.

My kids attend *GASP* PUBLIC SCHOOL. They play sports and are involved in the community organizations. We are out. Murf and Butch BOTH attend kids events and are introduced as who they are.

Murf has only been in my life almost three years. My boys have only had him around since they were in 3rd grade and Kindergarten. They haven't batted an eye. My 11 yo had a 96.4% grade point average for the year and a 100% grade point average in spelling. My youngest was above average.

Their teachers, coaches, and scout leaders all inform me of what WONDERFUL, SWEET, and WELL ROUNDED kids I have. They are happy and bubbly, have more of a social life than I do.

So I am hiding my kids away from the real world? My kids are not successful?

If an emergency would happen Butch would handle it like I would take the kid to the ER if he needed it. Just like I have SEVERAL times when Butch has been away. So far this year I have taken Moose in for a broken foot from football and Squirrel in for doing a header off the bed and hitting his head on my dresser and needing stitches.
 
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My kids are home schooled-but you would be hard pressed to say they are hidden from the world.
Alaska's home school system operates more like a private school. They participate in school functions with other kids enrolled in the program (enrollment is upwards of 3000).
They are in sports and music classes, they participate in neighborhood activities and two attend church activities (different churches). Go to summer camps etc.
Additionally many of their friends are in the public school system and because I was a local business owner & involved in community works such as starting a prom for the home school groups in our area-attended yearly by between 80-130 students the last 7 years running, we are reasonably well-known in our community.
Additionally; because of the age gap (23, 18,17,14,7) the oldest ones OBVIOUSLY were not raised when we came to poly 5 years ago.


HOWEVER; there was no big "coming out" about me being bi-they all knew I was bi and knew my exgirlfriend who remains a family friend.
The big "coming out" was acknowledging that as we had always said, love can be shared with more than one person and we were doing so.

The kids reactions were "uh huh-can we go play". Pretty much disinterested.

I'm not motivated to go do the research to get you pro/con info from legit sources. But you can go to damn near any college library online and do a search.
There's VERY LITTLE peer reviewed research on anything to do with poly or open marriage. I've done the searches for class.
But you can look.
;)
 
Shall we list the seemly happy poly dynamics that ended in divorce.

How about one that included divorce, but in which divorce did not end the happy poly dynamic, but improved it?

Do the people on the aforementioned list think because their children were born and raised into such a dynamic and dont know anything different /kept home schooled (cloistered ) and they appear happy then its a success ?

Homeschooled is not cloistered. It's just not institutionally age-segregated. It can be very sheltering. But it doesn't seem likely that you could shelter kids from the concept of monogamy. Most poly kids probably know something different from their own experience, in that most of their friends have mono households. I knew all about divorced families despite having married parents well into my teens.

But you have a point about when and how to measure success. We all carry our childhoods into our adulthood. And for many, many people, childhood experiences turn out to have affected us far more than anyone noticed at the time. This is not unique to poly. But having had parents who practiced polyamory is surely an easy target for anyone hunting for childhood harms.
 
As Ry pointed out how many people do time splits and leave the spouse and kids to go be with the other lovers. How can it not effect the kids ....I cant imagine how you can spin this?

People also have more than full-time jobs, travel for work, and send kids to camp or even boarding school. Not all kids and parents spend the same amount of time together. And if you count it up, and what's being done in that time (not just homework, meals, and sleeping, for instance), there's probably huge variation. In poly and mono and divorced and single-parent-never-two-parent households.


Also, I can't believe I bothered to respond to a couple decent points for discussion you brought up. Your post is a horrid jumble of unattributed quotes and lack of transitions between quoted material and your own contributions. Use the frickin formatting functions, or lose readers.
 
Re (from dingedheart):
"Unless I missed it the general consensus is Dr. Ruskin is A) wrong ... B) biased or A) biased and thus B) wrong."

I don't know how the others feel, but I see a subtle difference between biased and wrong. A biased person can be right -- by serendipity, so to say. But, if a person is biased, then it becomes more difficult to know whether they're right or not. That's my perception at any rate.

And it may be worth adding that we are almost certainly all biased in various ways. We try to approach the truth in spite of that, but we have to assume that we can't get it right in every area.

I'll even say that I don't *know* that Dr. Ruskin is biased (let alone wrong). I am going by perception, guesswork, and speculation -- and I'm probably biased.

What I'm largely driving at is that I think the jury is still out as far as whether poly is good or bad (and to what extent or in how many cases) for the kids. This thread contains evidence that points both ways, and none of the evidence is conclusive. So no I don't have hard evidence ... just anecdotal material that doesn't all point in the same direction.

Yes, Polyamory.com is an advocacy forum. We tend to favor polyamory here. But we also tend to attract the "poly failure stories" -- the people who are struggling and can't (on their own) seem to figure out how to make it work. Successful polyamorists will be less likely to seek out a forum (for help). So, perhaps we are observing forces pulling in two directions: one in the direction of favoring poly as a principle, the other in the direction of attracting the poly horror stories. I don't know which force wins the greater percentage.

As far as I know I haven't had any live exposure to the kids who live in polyamorous homes. By far the biggest chunk of my poly experience lies with my internet forum interactions. [shrug] Hard, conclusive evidence? Hell to the no. I think we all have to fall back on guesswork at the end of the day, especially those (like me) who don't even have any kids. It's not the standard I would prefer, but it's the only one I can easily access at this time.

There are many shapes and sizes of (so-called) success stories and various parents have various (usually complex) criteria for determining if it's a success. This can moderate the way the rest of us perceive those stories.

Re: the problem of time loss due to spending time with other partners ... is a valid concern and one I hope we'll continue to address. Logically speaking, it seems to me that if you want to spend time with a poly partner *without* subtracting from the time you spend with your kids, then you'll have to subtract time from some other area. Your spouse, your career, your hobbies, your "me" time, your sleep time, something.

Re: redpepper's sitch ... that does add some perspective to the subject as a whole, so thanks for posting it. I can see that redpepper was really struggling with some things (Was this recent or awhile ago?). The main thorn in her side seems to be having two different partners living in two different homes. Was she ever able to get everyone living together in the same domicile?

Re: how do we define failure ... ah now you bring out the tough questions. As you yourself said, some kids from alcholic homes manage to grow up and do just fine as adults, so a child turning out okay isn't necessarily a sign that the parents did a good job. On the other hand, perfectly good and healthy homes have managed to produce children who grew up to be awful people, so a "failed child" doesn't prove that the parents were failures, either.

It seems reassuring if the kids (while they're young and living at home) seem to be generally happy and/or contented most of the time. But I can't prove that the seeming happiness isn't just a cover.

One of the strongest proofs we might want to tap into is to interview an adult who grew up in a poly home and ask that adult if xe feels like hir parents did a good job. Kids that turn out awful seem to have the redeeming quality of knowing if it wasn't their parents' fault, and kids that turn out great seem to have the wisdom to know if they came from a screwed-up home. So again, we need more testimony from poly kids who are now adults, and alas that kind of testimony is (as yet) hard to come by. Perhaps the moral of the story is that we just don't know whether poly helps or hurts the kids -- at least we don't know that at this time.

Re: poly tried and family ripped apart ... on first glance looks like failure, but on second glance there's always the chance that the family in question was either going to fall apart anyway, or (God forbid) even needed to fall apart. Some homes do if they're dysfunctional enough.

But certainly in many cases a family ripped apart by poly tidal forces is a sign of poly failure. We really have to examine each case individually and judge it by its own merits.

Re: kids losing (or missing out on) their relationship with one or both parent/s ... is a bad sign. I can't think of any exception off the top of my head where that wouldn't be a "failure signal."

Re: cases that ended in divorce ... that's a pretty substantial list of people. Are any of them still active here, and if they are would they be willing to post on this thread? I suppose not; someone who felt like poly had failed them might not feel much like on visiting Polyamory.com anymore. Which is a shame as I would like to hear those people's voices.

@ Dagferi, LovingRadiance, SlowPoly ... there's nothing specific I wanted to add right at this moment, I just wanted to acknoweldge your new posts and say a thank you. Y'all made some really good points, I think.
 
My kids stay home with Butch when he happens to be off work the same days as Murf. Otherwise they and the Rottweiler travel with me to the house with Murf.

Once every 6 was their weekends line up. And one or two other days a month. Other than that my kids are with me.
 
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