Children and Polyamory: Merged Threads, General Discussion

I wasn't "supposed" to be able to have children either (uterine and ovarian cysts which would prevent a healthy pregnancy). And N was told in college that he was most likely sterile (low sperm count). I believe I lost a pregnancy as a teen. I was so scared and stupid I never confirmed it conclusively, but my GYN feels strongly it is so. My son (OUR son, N and I) was supposed to be a fraternal twin, according to all the info we have from early in the pregnancy. I nearly lost him three times. I'm now about two weeks away from having what, by all accounts, will be our healthy baby girl, despite a rough pregnancy fraught with sickness. Both were conceived accidentally; this one while on birth control. I really believe if it's meant to happen, it will. And, if not, there is no shortage of children out there in need of a loving home. :)
 
XYZ123 said:
And, if not, there is no shortage of children out there in need of a loving home. :)
Click to expand...

But then, nor is there the "abundance" of them that is marketed to us. That's more fiction than fact.

-------------------
Speaking from experience, many human individuals become convinced that they cannot have children, only to find later that they can/could. I have found the fertility prognosis of many physicians (especially practicing medicine in the USA) to be almost entirely useless. And a lot of anxiety in this area ends up being needless. Good luck on your journey.
 
greenearthal said:
But then, nor is there the "abundance" of them that is marketed to us. That's more fiction than fact.
Click to expand...
Yes and no. There are a lot. It's just a matter of how many hoops the system forces you to jump through, and whether those hoops are set on fire.

-------------------
greenearthal said:
Speaking from experience, many human individuals become convinced that they can not have children, only to find later that they can/could. I have found the fertility prognosis of many physicians (especially practicing medicine in the USA) to be almost entirely useless. And a lot of anxiety in this area ends up being needless.
Click to expand...
Very true. And the worry all too often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Couples try for years, go through procedures, give up, and then finally conceive naturally once the pressure to do so is off.
 
I find this an interesting thread and I am torn by it. On one hand, I am concerned for you, as your third (I don't know what term you use-- this woman in your life), seems to want to take on a role in child rearing that is bigger than you feel comfortable with. On the other hand, she seems to just be simply excited for you, and the prospect of having a baby in her life that she can simply admire, cuddle with and then hand back to you when it starts to cry.

You and your husband are doing this together, and that might be a threat to her, as she is not a part of it. Since she has already had a child, she might be thinking that she can feel a part of it by telling you how she raised her kids and how she can help. There is nothing wrong in that. She should be expressing her concerns, really, but perhaps they have not surfaced as such yet. Perhaps you could ask her if that is what is happening for her.

I would think that you would also feel a bit threatened, as you are the one who will get huge, have hormonal changes, feel like building a nest for your baby, all insular and self-absorbed. This means your husband will go through what I believe all daddies do, that is, feel left out. His role will change in your life and he will have the responsibility to be the meal cooker, the house cleaner, the money maker, the foot rubber, the get up in the night to change diaper guy. All those fun things that seem thrust upon men that have no connection physically to baby when it is in the womb. It's quite a shock, and some men just whine and complain about it, and go and seek a hot chick to give them some much-needed attention. This woman could very well become a bigger part of his life than you feel comfortable with.

Lots of talking ahead and lots of growing to do, just as much as growing a baby. I hope you have a very solid relationship before getting into babies. You will need it.
 
I have functionally lived in a poly family for the last 19 years. I didn't know it was called poly and it wasn't always SEXUAL.

My best friend (whom I call my sister) and I raised my oldest daughter for the 1st 6 years. My daughter calls her "auntie," but their relationship is that of mother and daughter, just as our relationship is.

A variety of boyfriends (and my daughter's father) were in and out of our lives, and all participated in some way, but Em and I were primary in the decision-making process. (Obviously, legally it was just me, but functionally it was equal.)

I married when my daughter was 6, and he had a 2-year old boy. We had a son together. Em lived with us and continued to be a primary caretaker of our children. (Neither of us was or is sexually active with her and she lives with us now, as well.) She held more of a true auntie role with my stepson, but with the new baby she was just as much a second mom as she had been with my oldest.

Years went by... our youngest was 7 and we had another little girl. She is biologically mine and C's, but she is FUNCTIONALLY Maca's and mine. Maca IS Daddy and I am Mommy. Em is auntie and her role is very much a typical auntie role, not a mother role. C has an uncle role, but she (as with all the kids except my oldest) call him by his given name, with a "IE" added to the end. The oldest did always call him her uncle. He has pretty close to equal say in the daily kids' lives, but MAJOR decisions remain only Maca's and mine. Em also has pretty close to equal say in the kids' daily lives, but MAJOR decisions remain solely Maca and mine.

So, can it work? Yes, it can. But you need to sit down and discuss with your husband first WHAT is it EACH of you expect to happen and then find the agreed-upon middle ground. After you two are on the same page, you need to talk to her and find out what SHE is hoping her role will be with the kid(s). Try to take a serious look at her desires to see if they will benefit you. If they will, great. If not, then it's time to set ground rules.

By the way, you likely will have to do the same thing with the grandparents, as well. So you may as well use this as practice! :)
 
Raising Children In Poly Families?

I would like to hear how those of you who practice poly and also have children have raised your kids in this format. At some point in my life, I hope to have children of my own, or to be in a relationship where my partners have children. But I would like to know what the success of failure rate of this is, and how raising kids in a poly framework home is different than in a mono home.
 
I haven't figured this one out, yet. But I want children, hands down, no doubt. I'm 31, so time's ticking and my biological clock is L-O-U-D!

Both the people in my life know that I want children and they would make wonderful auntie and uncle. But I don't see either of them wanting to be direct co-parents with me.

The two main things that need to be in place before I have children, as I see it, are money and energy. I would be an amazing mother, I think, but I am not financially stable enough yet, and don't have a large enough home for kids. I also need breaks because of chronic low energy.

I've thought about lots of scenarios. I've had very unsuccessful relationships and have started rethinking the whole conventional scene of living with a man, getting pregnant, and having kids together. I could easily live with a platonic friend who also wants children and would be interested in helping out with things like cooking and putting the kids to bed. Having a roommate/platonic friend would help a lot with rent/heating costs. My lovers would be involved too, but not necessarily as Mommy and Daddy.

I'm not sure if this is what you were after with your questions, but this is where I'm at with parenting in my life. I would also love to hear how others do it.
 
I have a slightly different parenting tale than most, but I'll gladly share it here.

My own kids are all adults now. My youngest will be 21 in just a couple of weeks. However, I've had custody of my oldest granddaughter, who is now 11, for over 3 years, and I've recently gained custody of my 8-year old grandson, and 3-yr old boy/girl twin grandchildren.

Without the love and support of my poly family, there is no way that I could do this as a 45-year old single mom/gramma.

While the change in my circumstances has caused us to put plans on hold to have the entire family under one roof, we are in truth a single, rather large family. Having so many adults around to be a consistent part of the kids' lives has been such a benefit for them. They all adore their grownups, and as things unfold, special relationships are blooming between individual kids and adults.

The 3 year old girl can be quite a handful, but she's taken a shine to Rosevett's boyfriend, M, and when the rest of us are at wits' end with her, he has a way with her that calms her down.

Another bonus is the availability of other adults for some of the logistics; Rosevett and M watched the kids so R and I could get away for our one-year anniversary. In what other world would my boyfriend's other girlfriend and her other boyfriend babysit so that could happen? :D
The guys have also watched the kids so that Rosevett and I could have our Girls' Nights Out.

The young adults in our family are wonderfully accepting of all the members and have also become a huge part of the little ones' lives.
Rosevett's daughter and her boyfriend took the kids out for the afternoon to get pumpkins for Halloween, and to the playground, so that the other adults could have some quiet time to catch up. My daughter and her boyfriend help out in many ways, and even my son has stepped up to the plate when I need him.

I'm not sure the littler ones grasps the "who's who" in our configuration, though the oldest granddaughter does. They all just know that this is our family, and they love being around them.

We are far enough away physically that picking kids up at school or handling medical appointments really isn't an issue, but the local folks are becoming accustomed to seeing a variety of configurations of our family in attendance at sporting or school events and I've not yet heard a negative word.

I am totally out at work, and include the 3 other adults in as many work events as I can. Since many of my coworkers are also parents in our school district, that means they know of the situation and I've yet to see any negative impact on the kids from it.

As for my grown children, well, my daughter describes our relationship this way: My mom's boyfriend has another girlfriend who has another boyfriend and they all hang out together.

As long as I'm happy (and I am!) my kids are happy, and that is a wonderful thing.
 
My kids have always lived in a "poly family," though it was often not a sexual-poly dynamic. My sister has lived with us most of their lives. The last 7 years or so, GG has lived with us.

We "came out" as poly this September. All of the kids living with us are privy to this information. So is the rest of our extended family.

Honestly, the kids reactions were... non-existent. They didn't care one way or another who was sleeping with whom. They already had all of us in their lives. They already accept all of us as family (they've always called GG "uncle") and they already knew he was our youngest child's bio-father, as he was the sperm donor that allowed her to exist!

We've found that life is ALWAYS easier for the kids with more of us here. They KNOW they can count on ANY of the 4 of us. So if Mom or Dad aren't available, it's ok; they have Auntie or their Uncle.

Ours are 18, 13, 9, and 2 years, and have lived in this type of environment their whole lives. Though, as I said, we were not always open about who was sleeping where.
 
LovingRadiance said:
We've found that life is ALWAYS easier for the kids with more of us here. They KNOW they can count on ANY of the 4 of us. So if Mom or Dad isn't available, it's ok, they have Auntie or Uncle.
Click to expand...

As I sat reading this thread with my 21-yr old daughter, she said, 'Yeah, this paragraph rings true.' My children, 21 & 19, have lived in a poly family for over for 4 years, technically knowledgeable about 'poly' for the last 2 or 3, and have always loved my past partners as father figures that have never left their lives. We are blessed.

I'll share that my daughter has chosen monogamy, or is wired as monogamous (not sure which).
 
Last edited:
We would like to have children. I actually just had a baby 4 months ago that was born still. I would like to try again, though the idea of it terrifies me at the moment.

We had decided to always be honest with our children about our life, no secrets. R and C would be involved in the upbringing of any child, regardless of who the father was. However, the children would know who Dad was, but would have extra uncles and maybe aunts.

I am paranoid because of my own abusive past about the chance of my future children being hurt, and so I will have to have a lot of trust in any adults we have in our childrens' lives.

Jools
 
I have a 6-year old. Much of his life is threaded through my stories and in sharing my life on here, especially in the spring, when I first came on here, and in our recent coming-out threads, if you care to look.

In a nutshell, we went through discussing how to approach Mono staying over, me not being home at night sometimes, what to do about sleeping arrangements whilst camping, and most recently, about the threat of him being taken away, and my parents accusing Mono of mistreating him.

It's been an interesting ride, but now has settled into something like Rosevett talks about, but on a smaller scale.

My boy knows that Mono is family and has asked that he be. He has welcomed him with loving arms and cherishes his presence in his life. Mono looks after him often, picks him up at school, watches cartoons with him in the morning, makes his food, showers him down before bed, all the stuff a parent would do. He does stuff with him that neither his Dad nor I are interested in and my boy LOVES that! :D It makes me very happy. They have plans together, and if I spend too much time "hogging" Mono, I get into trouble.

I love that Mono leaves disciplining and decisions up to us. He discusses strategies when need be, but always respects that he is our child and it's our choice how things will be done. Mono has a 16-year old daughter, so his experience has been invaluable.

I can't say enough that the more love a child gets, the better. Spoiling them with more loving grown ups around them is by far the best that they can have. Why would we not want to give our kids the best? :D
 
Last edited:
In our main poly relationship years ago, our significant other had three kids, and we had one. She often babysat for us, and I walked her youngest to school every morning. I was there to meet the kids when they got home from school, and we watched TV or played games together. I read stories to all four of them every night. It was one big happy family. :)

I have to concur with the others that more adults makes for a better environment for the kids. There is more support, more love, etc. When it came to decisions, we made judgment calls about our one, and she made the decisions for her three. It ran pretty smoothly. Her kids' father was often over and we got along great with him. All in all, it was very harmonious. Too bad it didn't last forever. :(

Today, we still have a few honorary aunts and uncles. The kids know which aunts/uncles are related to them, and which are not. Some are here in town with us, and get together for holidays, while others just call on the phone or send gifts & cards to the kids. To them, it is really no different than having regular aunts and uncles. They know that some are Mommy's friends or Daddy's friends, or both. :)
 
Sweetheart said:
Today, we still have a few honorary aunts and uncles. The kids know which aunts/uncles are related to them, and which are not. Some are here in town with us, and get together for holidays, while others just call on the phone or send gifts and cards to the kids. To them, it is really no different than having regular aunts and uncles. They know that some are Mommy's friends or Daddy's friends, or both.
Click to expand...

Same here. Our kids (well, not Trin, she's only 2) know which ones are bio, step, adopted or just "friends" who were "so good at that job they got promoted," as we say. They know that GG is my boyfriend. But they aren't going to say "Hey, Mom's bf..." Our oldest called him "nuncle" for years. She was not quite 2 when he came into the picture, but at that time he wasn't my bf, either. He was "just a friend." Now she calls him by his first name with a "Y" added. For some reason our family has this thing about adding "Y," as in the sound "ee" to the end of every "special person's" name.

The younger kids flip between calling him the same thing she does, and calling him Uncle, except the baby, who calls him "my (first name+y)," which is adorable.

I think that kids are much more accepting in general, and in a way, more self-centered. They want to be loved. They know it feels good from anyone. So they just want more and more and more. They aren't as choosy about WHO they get it from, maybe because there isn't a sexual aspect to it, so some of the risks that come into play with us as adults aren't there for them, or maybe because they aren't as aware of the risks that are there. Not sure... interesting thought.
 
I don't have kids, and don't plan to, but my guy has three kids with his wife. They just knew me as "Miss C" (we live in the South and all adult women are Miss Firstname, to be polite). I went on some family outings with them, babysat, spent time at their home, and they knew I was one of the adults who was "responsible," but we just didn't discuss the actual facts of poly.

Then again, they are 12, 10, and 5, and the 12-year old has developmental/social issues that impact his understanding of relationships.

Maybe if we had stayed together as the kids got older and developed more of an understanding, or had questions, it would have been more of an issue. For us, it generally wasn't.
 
Primary/Secondary Partnerships and Kids

I have to admit that I'm still slightly taken aback by how this question comes about, both because it so oddly echoes my personal experience and because it's actually NOT born of my own head.

A few days ago, at a party for a mutual friend, this lady I know and like started chatting about polyamory. The conversation was very natural and enjoyable, though afterwards I wondered why she decided to chat with ME about this... Is there "Poly-Dar"?

Among other things, she mentioned children. She's old enough to be worrying about her biological clock and complications surrounding said clock. Until recently, she'd never considered having children. He partner never seemed to be a person she'd have children with, and she didn't see herself doing it alone.

But now that they're exploring poly, she's suddenly finding herself asking these questions, and it's become nagging for her.

My answer, even included in my introduction, has always been childless or childfree, but as my range of partners is opening up, I realize there are scenarios where I might very well feel the love and commitment that are the foundation of the security to have kids.

Please don't take that last line the wrong way. I love, and am committed to my wife. But... I don't know... There's a sense there, that's all.

I don't want to close this thread off, but I would like to highlight that I am asking a specific question about how children relate to certain types of poly dynamics, specifically primary/secondary dynamics.

Does anybody have any experience with this dynamic and the introduction of kids? I suppose I'm looking for a success story, but I'd like insight in any form it may come in. I'm also going to beg for forgiveness, since I've not actually asked a question, but this forum is full of smart folk and I trust you guys will toss out your reflections on the subject. :)
 
NOT being snarky, but would you define what YOU mean by secondary? I've noticed that there are some different interpretations. I may have an answer for you, but want to be sure I'm on par with what you are trying to say first.
 
I'm not actually sure how I personally define it.

I share everything with my wife except for sex. She's my best friend, my emotional companion, someone who shares my life goals. We're financially bonded, and this seems especially relevant to this question given its nature. I LIVE with my wife. I don't live with anybody else. I suppose that loose definition is what I mean by primary.

I don't have fuck buddies. I love everyone that I love the same. My love for one doesn't come before my love for the other, but I share certain aspects with one, my wife/primary, more than I do with others.

Does that make sense?
 
It does make sense.

Here is my story (very short version, but you can find more by looking through my first posts).

I am married (10 years). I have a boyfriend who also lives with us. I've been friends with him for nearly 17 years. I have a daughter (18 years) and my husband has a son (13 years) who we raise together, whose other parents are primarily uninvolved in the children's lives. My husband and I also have a son (9 years) and we are raising our daughter (2 1/2 years). The daughter is biologically the child of me and my boyfriend, but we had her by way of artificial insemination prior to him being my boyfriend.

All of the kids, extended family, etc., know the details of biology for our children, but all the children know Maca and me as Mom and Dad. They all call my bf by his given name. So, by some accounts, my bf would be my secondary. We've lived together as a family unit for years, and my sister who also lives with us. We function as a family of four adults, but there are many details that are primarily shared by Maca and me (ownership of the property, legal parenting rights for all the children, etc.).

So, in many ways my sister and BF are secondaries, and yet, ESPECIALLY for the kids' sake, they function as additional primaries when it comes to raising them (making rules, upholding rules, helping with rides, homework, scheduling, etc.). Both are listed as emergency contacts for the kids on all paperwork. All four of us are capable of caring for any and all of the kids at any time, and the kids are confident and comfortable with that.

So, I guess, from that point, maybe a more specific question would give me an idea of what information you are looking for.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top