Polyamorous with small kids?

Sara the frisky viking

Sara the frisky viking

New member
Hi everyone,

So I’m married to a great guy I’ve been with over two decades now. We’re in our thirties.
We’ve always been very open and sexually experimental. In recent years that’s expanded to have more of a romantic angle, with some encounters getting more of a romantic dating vibe - mostly with singles, but once also with a couple.

Here’s the thing though. We’ve always kept it very private because we have small kids. One woman and the couple stayed over for longer and ate with the entire family and played with the kids with us - but always with us lying about our relation to them. “They’re just our friends” we’d say and then keep any affection to when the kids were sound asleep. This dynamic has kept us from being truly poly, because how can’t actually do that privately.. how do you guys handle this sort of thing? I feel like it’s a lot more complicated than single moms and dads dating new people. How much should one keep from one’s kids?
 
Hello Sara the frisky viking,

I think it is fine to be discreet around your kids, while they are still young. As they get older, I think you might have to tell them that you are polyamorous. Kids are good at picking up on things, and while they may not notice at first, in their older years they may wonder why Mom and Dad have all these "friends," and what their true relation with these friends is. Also there is the question of whether you will ask your kids to keep it a secret. Kids are not always great at keeping secrets, and it might not be fair to ask them to do that anyway. The day may come when your kids tell their teacher, "My mom has two boyfriends, my dad and one other guy." Just throwing that out there as an example. Poly and kids make for a complicated proposition, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

Regards,
Kevin T.
 
Swinging/casual sex partners/fwbs ARE friends. It isn't lying to your kids to only tell or show them the age appropriate parts of your friendships.

Now if you're having another full, romantic relationship.. Why not be honest? It isn't really different than a single parent dating. If they're close enough to introduce to your kids, then your kids are gonna figure it out that there's more affection there than typical friendships.

I've been with both partners since before I had a kid. She's being raised with a dad and a bonus adult. Not parent, not friend, family but no specific role or title. She loves it. We've never had issues with friends or schools or anything.
 
It looks like you started your blog last year and it's all about "threesomes." Are you the female partner in a swinging couple, and you and your partner/husband want to transition to polyamory?
 
Magdlyn said:
It looks like you started your blog last year and it's all about "threesomes." Are you the female partner in a swinging couple, and you and your partner/husband want to transition to polyamory?
Click to expand...
Hi Magdlyn,

Not exactly. I’d also say the blog has more than just that, but yeah some posts are about threesomes. That’s usually where people’s exploration into open sexuality starts. That’s also where ours started. We try to expand on the blog continuously, albeit with a bit of a break the past couple of months. My husband is currently writing a piece on negotiating relationship rules in ENM.

We don’t really do labels though. We’ve tried swinging, we’ve tried ENM, we’ve tried having semi-romantic / warm sexual relationships, we’ve tried exploring together and apart. We’ve explored a lot when it comes to the purely sexual territory, but not so much on the romantic side. So that’s what we want to learn more about.
 
Hi Sara the frisky viking,

Swinging, ENM, semi-romantic/warm sexual relationships, and full-on polyamory, all involve questions of what and how much to tell the kids. I think it boils down to questions of what is age-appropriate, as well as down to what a child in question is likely to pick up on anyway. You can tell a child that you are in a loving/romantic relationship with someone, without mentioning sex (which that child might be too young for, anyway). Kids of any age can hear about romance, Disney (with its romantic movies for kids) knows that for example.

Just some thoughts,
Kevin T.
 
Sara the frisky viking said:
Hi Magdlyn,

Not exactly. I’d also say the blog has more than just that, but yeah some posts are about threesomes. That’s usually where people’s exploration into open sexuality starts. That’s also where ours started. We try to expand on the blog continuously, albeit with a bit of a break the past couple of months. My husband is currently writing a piece on negotiating relationship rules in ENM.

We don’t really do labels though. We’ve tried swinging, we’ve tried ENM, we’ve tried having semi-romantic / warm sexual relationships, we’ve tried exploring together and apart. We’ve explored a lot when it comes to the purely sexual territory, but not so much on the romantic side. So that’s what we want to learn more about.
Click to expand...
OK, fair enough. It sounds like you have a lot of sex partners coming through your house, some once, some a few times. How old are your kids? It won't be long until they notice the signs of sexual attraction, the flirting, the intimate touches, hear the noises in the night, etc. This will probably start around age 6 or 7, if not before...
 
Magdlyn said:
OK, fair enough. It sounds like you have a lot of sex partners coming through your house, some once, some a few times. How old are your kids? It won't be long until they notice the signs of sexual attraction, the flirting, the intimate touches, hear the noises in the night, etc. This will probably start around age 6 or 7, if not before...
Click to expand...
One-night stands usually don’t get to go to our house. It’s mostly more regular people who we see over months or years.
Also our house is quite big and spaced out, so there’s no sound pollution 😉 That said, yeah they’ll eventually figure it out if we keep going.
 
Sara the frisky viking said:
One-night stands usually don’t get to go to our house. It’s mostly more regular people who we see over months or years.
Also our house is quite big and spaced out, so there’s no sound pollution 😉 That said, yeah they’ll eventually figure it out if we keep going.
Click to expand...
You'd be surprised at how stealthy some kids are lol
 
Hi Sara! This gets discussed on the forum fairly often and a lot of different people have different approaches - a couple threads I remember participating in are here and here.

Anyway, I've been non-mono since before my kid was born, and moved from more group oriented and casual play to romantic relationships when MiniMe was about a year and a half. Here's my take on it:
  1. Kids will figure shit out, earlier than you think. (My *three year old* understood, at the time, that Knight's girlfriend had a very different relationship with him than with me, while we presented it to him as a friendship in both cases.)
  2. Given #1, I've never tried to hide my long term relationships, because my kid trusting me not to lie to him is more important to me than the possible consequences *I* might have faced by him knowing.
    • This did get me outed to my inlaws so clearly there are consequences.
    • Due to the other circumstances of my life (career, income, location) I am not particularly invested in hiding my polyamory from the world at large, nor am I overly concerned about things like CPS or custody disputes. Other people have other circumstances and other calculations to make.
    • I'm definitely more stringent about the not lying to kid thing than many people - we didn't even try and say Santa was real - so I recognize others' priorities might be different on this for that reason as well.
  3. I do rather recommend at least having *some* idea that a relationship will be long term before introduction to kids - I am very very thankful that my one worst breakup, which was a whole disintegration of a quad with another couple who also had children and we all hung out with the kids a lot, was before MiniMe was old enough to really miss them more than a little (he doesn't remember them now, or so he says). I have no idea what the other couple told their (older) kids and was very careful not to introduce Artist to MiniMe until we had been together for probably 6 months, maybe closer to a year. Same for Joan.
  4. If you are going to make your partners part of your life in a way that your partners know about, let your kid(s) set the pace and dynamics of their relationship with them - that's not really any different than divorced parent dating, maybe a bit easier if there's no sense of replacement of a beloved parent with a new partner. But they may not instantly (or ever) bond, so don't force it. Hell, the one concern my kid has ever had about Joan living with us was that he didn't want a third adult around telling him what to do...
 
Sara the frisky viking said:
One-night stands usually don’t get to go to our house. It’s mostly more regular people who we see over months or years.
Also our house is quite big and spaced out, so there’s no sound pollution 😉 That said, yeah they’ll eventually figure it out if we keep going.
Click to expand...
I've been taking a look at your blog. You guys have quite the adventurous sex life. Maybe it's polyamory, maybe it's just swinging, sex parties, orgies, etc.

This is a board for polyamory. Generally, most of the regulars are not swingers, do not have a huge turnover of sex partners, especially if they are settled down with kids. I asked what ages your kids were and you didn't answer. Before you know it, they are going to notice that Mom and Dad have all these so-called friends who ... do things ... in the bedroom after they are in bed and supposed to be sleeping. Around age 11, kids' biorhythms start to change, they start to fall asleep later. Teenagers are well-known to stay up late.

How comfortable are you with knowing that your kids will suspect things? They'll figure it out if you don't just come out and tell them that Greta, Clara, Ann, Carl, Finn and Viggo are more than friends. This might gross them out. You know, kids are grossed out by the idea of their parents having sex just with each other, much less with a bunch of people. lol Sooner or later, I think you should explain to them that Mom and Dad practice ethical non-monogamy and have sex with other people on a regular basis. Otherwise, the kids will definitely go to their friends and try to figure it out themselves, and maybe get some wrong ideas.

So, what to tell the kids, and when? Like with any sex education, keep it simple and at their level. Tell them the minimum. Let them know they can ask you questions whenever they need to.

Are you going to address this topic on your blog? You do not have permission to quote anyone here word-for-word.
 
icesong said:
Hi Sara! This gets discussed on the forum fairly often and a lot of different people have different approaches - a couple threads I remember participating in are here and here.

Anyway, I've been non-mono since before my kid was born, and moved from more group oriented and casual play to romantic relationships when MiniMe was about a year and a half. Here's my take on it:
  1. Kids will figure shit out, earlier than you think. (My *three year old* understood, at the time, that Knight's girlfriend had a very different relationship with him than with me, while we presented it to him as a friendship in both cases.)
  2. Given #1, I've never tried to hide my long term relationships, because my kid trusting me not to lie to him is more important to me than the possible consequences *I* might have faced by him knowing.
    • This did get me outed to my inlaws so clearly there are consequences.
    • Due to the other circumstances of my life (career, income, location) I am not particularly invested in hiding my polyamory from the world at large, nor am I overly concerned about things like CPS or custody disputes. Other people have other circumstances and other calculations to make.
    • I'm definitely more stringent about the not lying to kid thing than many people - we didn't even try and say Santa was real - so I recognize others' priorities might be different on this for that reason as well.
  3. I do rather recommend at least having *some* idea that a relationship will be long term before introduction to kids - I am very very thankful that my one worst breakup, which was a whole disintegration of a quad with another couple who also had children and we all hung out with the kids a lot, was before MiniMe was old enough to really miss them more than a little (he doesn't remember them now, or so he says). I have no idea what the other couple told their (older) kids and was very careful not to introduce Artist to MiniMe until we had been together for probably 6 months, maybe closer to a year. Same for Joan.
  4. If you are going to make your partners part of your life in a way that your partners know about, let your kid(s) set the pace and dynamics of their relationship with them - that's not really any different than divorced parent dating, maybe a bit easier if there's no sense of replacement of a beloved parent with a new partner. But they may not instantly (or ever) bond, so don't force it. Hell, the one concern my kid has ever had about Joan living with us was that he didn't want a third adult around telling him what to do...
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing your experience. You bring up a lot of good points. I’ll have to think about what the right approach is for us.
 
Magdlyn said:
I've been taking a look at your blog. You guys have quite the adventurous sex life. Maybe it's polyamory, maybe it's just swinging, sex parties, orgies, etc.

This is a board for polyamory. Generally, most of the regulars are not swingers, do not have a huge turnover of sex partners, especially if they are settled down with kids. I asked what ages your kids were and you didn't answer. Before you know it, they are going to notice that Mom and Dad have all these so-called friends who ... do things ... in the bedroom after they are in bed and supposed to be sleeping. Around age 11, kids' biorhythms start to change, they start to fall asleep later. Teenagers are well-known to stay up late.

How comfortable are you with knowing that your kids will suspect things? They'll figure it out if you don't just come out and tell them that Greta, Clara, Ann, Carl, Finn and Viggo are more than friends. This might gross them out. You know, kids are grossed out by the idea of their parents having sex just with each other, much less with a bunch of people. lol Sooner or later, I think you should explain to them that Mom and Dad practice ethical non-monogamy and have sex with other people on a regular basis. Otherwise, the kids will definitely go to their friends and try to figure it out themselves, and maybe get some wrong ideas.

So, what to tell the kids, and when? Like with any sex education, keep it simple and at their level. Tell them the minimum. Let them know they can ask you questions whenever they need to.

Are you going to address this topic on your blog? You do not have permission to quote anyone here word-for-word.
Click to expand...
We don’t really subscribe to labels. I’m sure we’re more poly than most normal people, but we’re also more ENM than a lot of people who’ve just had the odd threesome at a college party. I don’t think any of these concepts are mutually exclusive though.

The reason I didn’t answer what their ages are is simply because I think that’s too private to share. But suffice to say, as stated initially, they’re small. So any covert activities in the same building as them will obviously have an expiration date. Probably sooner rather than later.

I don’t know if I’ll write about this subject in the future. Maybe. If I do I’d of course be writing it from my own perspective and not quote anyone. No worries. At the end of the day I’d want to have a personal insight on it though to want to write about it. I mostly just want to learn different perspectives and ways of living.
 
This was about small kids and didn't seem to relate as much to that older thread. Thanks for linking it here though.
 
As I recall Ry’s kids were raised from birth inside a poly dynamic and the parental rights granted to her partner caused her husband Matt to reevaluate his wanting to continue in the marriage. It gives a prospective of “ young “ kids growing up inside that environment and in the one case how a high school kids pushed back against an article posted by one of our members ( gorgeouskitten) . I’m not sure how old she was when her parent opened their marriage but definitely her step sister was born into it. I think your thread gives such wide range of a opinion and prospective to inform people on what the possible future holds as their kids grow up.
 
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