What about the Kids?

[Dickdomin]

For your 16 year old

My kids don't cook. (Nor do I, most of the time; I'm abysmal at it.) And my 16-year-old is a girl who is on the autism spectrum, and can't even cope with having one of her grandparents "invade" our home, let alone someone she barely knows. Home is her safe space where she doesn't have to deal with any humans other than the ones who also live here, which is another reason for the agreement Hubby and I made.

Cooking is something in our DNA. All things have a learning curve especially if you did not have a mother who was a chef.

Got the house and know autism is even tough to do out of the house.
But try whole family dinner restaurant.

There are two programs I know of to help with this unique brain formation,they are: mybodyzbetter.com and a woman Akile Bahart, or something like this.

Both work in brain coordination and using both brain and visualization, to reorder the information within the subconscious.

I did not see mention of her autism, for put it out of my mind. I urge you to get these two different programs. Your daughter can actually have a quite normal life.

I do wish you the best of luck, and once again my apologies for having presumed an answer.

DM

 

[kdt26417]

Re (from Emmy37):

"A house with all of us living under one roof is in the works so we can have a space that is ours together instead of Sweet Lady's house and Bud's house. The back and forth is not something any of us want to continue having to do long term. The kids are all on board with the idea of living under one roof."

This sounds like a good idea to me.

 

[KC43]

Dick, my daughter already has a "normal" life, whatever normal means. She's an honors student at a competitive high school, where she's studying veterinary medicine alongside the normal high school stuff. She has friends, a social life, and a wicked sense of humor.

She just doesn't like to have people invading her space, and to her, our home is her space. And since I feel the same way, I don't have a problem with that.

Cooking... I don't know which gene that supposedly lies on, but I guess I don't have it. My children *choose* not to cook. I don't cook much because when I try, things come out completely inedible. I have a handful of things I can make, and that's it.

We don't need to do a family dinner. My daughters have met S2. His sons have met me. He and I have made plans to take my 16-year-old and his 9-year-old hiking next spring, because they both enjoy it. (My 19-year-old doesn't want to go; his 6-year-old is more severely autistic than my daughter and on hikes ends up needing to be carried most of the way. S2 and I felt it would be nice for the 9-year-old to have some time away from his brother doing something fun, and 16-year-old specifically asked if we would take her hiking.)

My daughter's issue with me not being home is that it's a change to the routine that she's used to, and also because she tends toward very black-and-white thinking, and in her version of the universe, parents don't have lives of their own, they only exist to raise their children and do what the children want/need. This is partly because of her autism and partly because she's 16, and we don't let it impact what we do.

Her attitude makes me feel guilty for leaving, and that makes it more difficult to deal with, but that doesn't mean she's in control of what I do, and she has been told in so many words by me and by her bio-dad that I do have the right to go out and spend time with people, and that she doesn't always have the right to know where I'm going and why.

 

[kdt26417]

That would be a case where poly does *not* get sacrificed on the altar of the kids. Just pointing out that such cases do exist ...

 

[Dagferi]

As someone who works in veterinary medicine if your daughter has issues with personal space vet medicine IS SO NOT the profession for her.

Clients hug us.. we have to physically touch each other all the time to accomplish surgeries, safe restraint.. etc clients expect you to at theur beck and call.

Handling peoples feelings and etc are apart of the job. People call us horrible things all the time when we will not treat for free or something goes wrong.

We are the number one profession for suicide.

 

[kdt26417]

Oh, man. Doesn't sound like an easy profession to go into.

Is it any easier if you're caring for larger animals like horses and stuff? Just curious.

 

[Dagferi]

Horse people are worse. I can honestly say that as one.. most vets won't do large animals.

Large animal clients don't pay their bills and you have to chase them down. Plus they don't want to pay a vets cost. My Dr no longer will see large animal clients.

Oh and it is an industry full of women especially techs. Most hospitals are no better a high school full of mean girls. My current hospital is the first in over a decade in practice that I deal with no drama between staff. I love it ! But it is a rarity.

Google veterinary compassion fatigue. It is a career field with a high high burnout rate.

Most kids think it is all about helping and playing with animals. It is not. For example I spent Tuesday and Wednesday dealing with a puppy hit by car. All she knew was it hurt and we were touching her. She had a crushed elbow and leg. Was in shock. Imagine 5 hours of a puppy screaming in pain for hours upon hours. Then dealing with her owner who refused to take the pup to a specialist that we wanted to refer him on to for surgery. Because it cost too much. The ass ran over his own dog. He "thought she would move"

 

[kdt26417]

Jeezh man, that's crazy.

That's an awful story about that puppy. I can't believe people can be so mean to their own animals.

I wonder how zoos handle their veterinary needs. That must be quite complicated (and expensive).

Obviously we're off-topic, but as thread originator I hereby say it's okay. I'm sure we'll get back on-topic soon enough. (If not I'll start a new thread I promise.)

 

[Dagferi]

I worked for a zoo in Illinois. My dual major was zoology and veterinary tech. I have a BS not the standard 2 yr degree other cvt's have. We had an in house clinic. But getting into a zoo clinic you have to have connections.

I only left because Butch got a job offer out of state.

I do more than a human nurse. In fact I am more equal to a nurse practitioner or a physicans assistant skill wise. BUT vet medicine pays one third of what human medicine does.

So mamas don't let your kids work in veterinary medicine.

 

[kdt26417]

Sounds like a zoo is a pretty sweet gig.

"Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be veterinarians ..."

 

[Dickdomin]

For your daughter

My kids don't cook. (Nor do I, most of the time; I'm abysmal at it.) And my 16-year-old is a girl who is on the autism spectrum, and can't even cope with having one of her grandparents "invade" our home, let alone someone she barely knows. Home is her safe space where she doesn't have to deal with any humans other than the ones who also live here, which is another reason for the agreement Hubby and I made.

Cooking is something in our DNA. All things have a learning curve especially if you did not have a mother who was a chef.

Got the house and know autism is even tough to do out of the house.
But try whole family dinner restaurant.

There are two programs I know of to help with this unique brain formation,they are: mybodyzbetter.com and a woman Akile Bahart, or something like this.

Both work in brain coordination and using both brain and visualization, to reorder the information within the subconscious.

I did not see mention of her autism, for put it out of my mind. I urge you to get these two different programs. Your daughter can actually have a quite normal life.

I do wish you the best of luck, and once again my apologies for having presumed an answer.

DM

 

[Dickdomin]

Dick, my daughter already has a "normal" life, whatever normal means.

My daughter's issue with me not being home is that it's a change to the routine that she's used to, and also because she tends toward very black-and-white thinking, and in her version of the universe, parents don't have lives of their own, they only exist to raise their children and do what the children want/need. This is partly because of her autism and partly because she's 16, and we don't let it impact what we do.

First, sorry I think this woman' san me is Akhile Bahrat and the other program is mybodyzbetter.com

Being an honors student and having friends does not make your daughter "normal" a word of you read enough of my writing I am not a big fan of. Having been around autistic children amongst others, I know parents carry guilt, which I suspect is trying to defend both yourself and your daughter from an attack that does not exist.

Those two programs are about brain and body flexibility and cohesion. Bahrat works extensively with the autistic and her work with them is stunning. Everyone in your household will benefit, not just your daughter.

Having a black and white POV is a part of that spectrum.

If she had an even healthier mind, who would be wrong and whom would be wronged.?

 

[Dickdomin]

Circle of Friends

We seem to have found a happy place with almost all of the kids. The only one we're still trying to really figure out is the youngest. He's 3 and has had Bud as the stay at home parent since he was an infant so it's harder on him when Bud leaves to go to Sweet Lady's house. He loves when she comes here and refuses to let her leave. He sits on her feet or grabs her legs so she can't walk out the door. It's kinda cute how much he loves her. But as we all know each of the relationships needs to be given it's own time so she can't always be here. Well she can because she's always welcome. She has her own home & kids that need her so she does have to spend time there too.

All of the older kids go back & forth freely between houses. There have been nights one of mine doesn't like what I'm making for dinner or wants to spend time with either Sweet Lady or her kids so they go to her house and vice versa with her kids. Sweet Lady's kids are 19, 16 and 13 years old. My and Bud's kids are 12, 10, 7 and 3 years old.

A house with all of us living under one roof is in the works so we can have a space that is ours together instead of Sweet Lady's house and Bud's house. The back & forth is not something any of us want to continue having to do long term. The kids are all on board with the idea of living under one roof.

If all goes as planned there will be two more little ones added in the future. Bud and I would like to have one more. He & Sweet Lady are also talking about having one in the future but there are some things that have to be taken care of first before that could be a possibility.

Larger house? I've seen four and five families ( I recommend you go for 12 families, core emotional pair bonds with satellites. This gives a financial stability and if you actually incorporate adds tax advantages that are like getting a thirty percent boost in disposable income.

Living space has common areas, smaller places for more intimate gathers (so like a livingroom but allowing more privacy) sleeping spaces even more segregated. The ones that seemed to work best was kids having there own area. Houses I've seen done like this were old New England farms where the extended building were expanded and refinished as work and dwelling space. Huge open style kitchen with professional appliances, large easy to us cutting and prep spaces, large dinning are set up like a restaurant so it felt more intimate and allowed more small group dining feel. We tend to prefer between 6-12 people.

I hope these are useful things for you to think about. The concept is called A Circle of Friends. Consult and attorney and an accountant on how it works legally. I encourage you to look at incorporating, which is a marriage contract of sorts. The families to do not have to meld perfectly. They will fit together in different ways, in some cases two kids or different adults bonding over an interest, sharing cooking and growing food (this can provide 100% of your fruits and vegetables! work split and done 30 minutes pre day, gives an additional income from organic food sales (great job for you young adults and even the little kids to run)) this is another 20% boost and if you have the stomach raise goats and rabbits for meat. Fish farming small scale is great and becomes economically possible when you reach this larger number.

You end up with fresh organic meat, milk, cheese, yogurt and all fruits and vegetables. Add less driving and shopping, traded instead for something you can do outdoors with your kids. When you have 24 adults plus 12 kids you are getting 90 man hours a week only doing it 30 minutes per day, five days a week. I consider that to be a major win cost each individual only 2.5 hours of effort a week they have free, organic food plus a small income and place for kids to learn about business.

Think Big.

DM

 

[KC43]

Dick, I'm offended that you seem to believe I have no clue how to parent and help the child I've raised for 16 years. Aside from being her mother, which means I KNOW HER, I have a background as a special education teacher and several years of experience working with kids on the autism spectrum. My daughter excels in her school and social life, and there's no more adverse effect on our family life from her autism than there is from the fact that she's 16. And I have no guilt about her diagnosis, nor am I trying to "protect her from attacks". You don't know her, you don't know me, so I would appreciate it if you would stop shoving your beliefs and judgment down my throat. I brought up only her anger about me not being home when she thinks I should be, which was not a request for someone to tell me that anyone can cook (I can't; show me the DNA strand with the "cooking gene") or for someone to tell me how to "fix" my daughter.

Dagferi, thank you for your perspective on being a veterinarian. My daughter's been studying the field for several years now, and one component of her school's program is learning how to deal with some of the issues you've raised here. At her level (grade 11), they're working with animals and their owners as part of their classes, and she's also done a brief internship with a veterinarian near her dad. She's known all along that it isn't only about playing with animals and that she will encounter animals who are suffering; she actually wants to specialize in veterinary oncology. And I've always taught my kids that they can follow their dreams and take on the career they want, but that if it doesn't work out, it's never too late to find a new path. She might struggle and find that it's not for her, but for now, it's the career she's wanted since she's nine, so I'm encouraging her to give it a go.

When I referred to her having a "safe space," I didn't mean any "this is my bubble, don't touch me" type of thing; I meant a physical space (primarily our apartment in general, her bedroom in particular) that is hers, where she can have things set up as she needs them, and where the only people she has to interact with are her family, and that only if she chooses to do so. While she doesn't like to be touched, she accepts that most people don't know that, and because she doesn't want to be identified as autistic--she prefers to be identified by her name, not her diagnosis--she'll take handshakes, hugs, etc. from people who aren't aware that she doesn't enjoy those things.

 

[Dickdomin]

Dick, I'm offended that you seem to believe I have no clue how to parent and help the child I've raised for 16 years.

I certainly was not offering what I thought was a statement that you did not know your daughter. I could not imagine a parent not in those curcuma
Stances. I offered merely two technologies which I feel all of you,mShe especially could benefit from. I know parents with exceptional children seek wide and far. I would not in a million years imagine you have not.

Quite to the contrary. You might want to re set your indignation meter, I believe it seems a bit calibrated to the overly sensitive side, at least relative to me.

I shall sit in the corner.mi have said everything I had to say.

 

[Ravenscroft]

At the root post, Kevin mentions a few articles wherein polyamory is painted as "a bad influence on the children."

Firstly, Karen Ruskin is an idiot. Let's face it: she makes a living from promising to "fix" broken people -- when you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail. She touts monogamy as vastly preferable to nonmonogamy... yet is self-blinded to the fact that almost all the failing/failed relationships in her clientele are monogamous. She deftly avoids applying similar criteria to all situations. And she's one of those people who lays out all sorts of judgmental dogma, then blithely says, "I'm not judging."

A subhead in one of her articles (which does NOT focus on damage to impressionable kiddies) is typically "unbiased":

Throwaway, disloyal, impulsive, entitled culture – The creation of a multiple-mate mentality/culture

But it's the two articles from Mommyish.com that really made me laught. (Well, actually, they're letters, & from anonymous sources at that.) Am I the only adult that remembers how teenagers are verifiably insane? It's clear that polyamory is "a topic that sells," because I'd readily wager that it'd be easy to find impassioned essays to fit ANY heading of I Hate That My Parents Are

• polyamorous
• Wiccan
• Catholic
• Adventists
• Republicans
• Democrats
• atheists
• musicians
• gay
• mixed-race
• poor
• farmers
• anime fans

Any deviance from the mythic "normal" can be trotted out as a negative, & there'll be abundant oh-woe-is-me tales from teens.

 

[kdt26417]

Hmmm, intuitively it does seem that there are a lot of teens out there who are upset about a lot of things. I know I was when I was a teen. Still I hesitate to dismiss a teen's writings out of hand, I'd at least want to give them a fair hearing.

Re:

"Karen Ruskin is an idiot."

LOL, she does seem to have an axe to grind. Plus I feel like she's been given a free pass due to her professional title ("doctor"). She's still human, she can still make mistakes.

Re:

"She touts monogamy as vastly preferable to nonmonogamy ... yet is self-blinded to the fact that almost all the failing/failed relationships in her clientele *are monogamous.*"

Kind of like missing the forest for the trees ...

 

[Spork]

Any time I worry that my poly lifestyle might not be good for my kids, in particular my moody and sensitive and troubled 14 year old, I remember the hell that was life in my ex's household and how "staying with their father for the kids' sake" eventually led to absolute disaster. The fact that I tried so hard to set aside my selfish "happiness" and stay until I just couldn't stay no more meant that they got to watch him fall apart, violently.

People used to say to me that if I wasn't happy, I should leave. I used to sniff and scoff at that. How selfish! How entitled! What makes this person think that there is greener grass on the other side of the fence?? At least I was with the devil I knew. Being silly and happy and doing things for yourself was for some kind of mythical, rich, childfree people. The best we can do is find space for moments of occasional joy and try to be generally content, and the fact that my partner is miserable always need not prevent that.

Besides. Surely polyamory is filled with constant explosions of emotional drama and hissyfits. More people equals more drama, right? How can I keep the peace, how can I maintain control, over more than one person at a time?

Well...

It's amazing what simply choosing better partners will accomplish. And it continues to amaze me that I've managed to find not one, but FOUR "winners"...people whose lives aren't train wrecks, who have stable lives more or less and a direction in which they're headed, who aren't slaves to any serious addictions, who are just all around reasonable and generally ~DRAMA FREE.~

Does this mean that all of my sons' problems have been solved? Well, no. Turns out we still have our challenges... My partners, as child-free folk, are used to being able to have explicit adult activities in their homes. When they have me visit, they want at least the opportunity for sex to exist. Which means we're really not spending that much time with them around my kids. I'm hoping that as the weather improves we'll all do more outdoor activities together. But in recent weeks, I confess to having left my 14 year old home alone more than I really like. I know what he's doing (what game he's playing, what shows he's watching, what books he's reading, and what songs he's practicing on his viola.) I know that he is able to feed himself and our cat, and that he enjoys some of the freedom and the taste of independence. But I've got a gut-deep urge to "mother" him and to feel guilty as to whether I'm being neglectful.

But again...contrasted with life in a household full of crazy, where he hid in his room from his father almost always, I think that this is still an improvement.

One thing that bugs the hell out of me about people who judge poly parents, is the assumptions about what poly relationships even look like. Like the assumption that we are by default talking about a married couple with kids that is opening up, or two families combining into one household. At this point as a solo-poly single parent, the effect of my partners in my son's life is fairly limited.

 

[Ravenscroft]

I figure that children are scarred by all sorts of stuff. It's wonky to pick out ONE component of an egregious case, then declare the elimination of THAT to be The Cure For Society.

A troubled teen was raised in a Wiccan/nudist/communal family? AHA!!!!!

A troubled teen was raised in a quiet Lutheran, suburban, upper-middle family? No need to look closer -- blame heavy metal!! rap !! MTV!! porn!! Facebook!! video games!! the schools!! gluten!!
________________

Anyway, what's the alternative to kids getting scars & bruises & callouses (real & emotional)?

You can wall them off from the world. Protect them 24/7 from the tiniest discomfort. Teach them about society in a calm, objective, neutral way.

And never let them out.

 

[kdt26417]

@ Spork ... sounds to me like you are going about things the right way.

@ Ravenscroft ... OMG yes, must protect them from gluten.