[QUOTE=Walter Windchill]
I consider the promiscuity of parents to be inherintly unstable and wrong for the children. It’s glib to say that the nuclear family has an abusie and alcoholic parent and that the kids are loved and cared for in the open marriage. I would be willing to bet that the open marriages have a statistically high correlation to drug use and abuse, for that matter. I don’t have a cite for that, but my experience and intuition tells me that people who are wanton sluts in front of their kids won’t be otherwise really clean and sober individuals.
[/QUOTE]
I did not say that all Nuclear families have an alcoholic parent, I am implying however that Kids are better off with 3 caring parents then 2 normal ones where one is an alcoholic. I doubt most open marriage parents are meth addicts, so I doubt they could possible be worse than Meth or other hard drug addicted parents.
Keep it simple, Nuclear family with two loving, unaddicted parents is better for kids than an family with three parents and at least you have room for debate. But when you make the leap to Open Marriage as bad as Addicted parents, you sound crazy and small minded.
[QUOTE=What Exit?]
I find a strange pit thread with one post, I compose a longish reply and find out the OP is comparing the real major problems of an addict family to “open marriages”.
Christ on a stick, even if you do not approve of Open Marriages, how can you think they equate to parents who are not even capable of taking decent care of there kids. Fuck you Windchill for this fucked up logic and Fuck me for posting without previewing. Not much on this board makes me angry, but you appear to be a complete shit head and idiot. What are you thinking. If the kids are loved and cared for in a non-nuclear family, they are probably a lot better off than in a perfect little fifties nuclear family with that has an abusive or alcoholic parent. They have to be better off than a family where both parents are more worried about there next fix than their kids.
Fuck you Walter Windchill,
JIM
On Preview: Mods please do not lock this thread, let this Op answer the questions he has now put out there.
[/QUOTE]
I think your previous post was most appropriate. It goes a long way to point out that drug addiction is rather different than a sexual lifestyle choice. My guess is that the OP has no experience with either and so really doesn’t understand.
I agree, keep the thread open. Let’s talk about it.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
Would this condemnation of slutty behavior apply as well to polygamous Mormons, who’s distaste for chemical forms of recreation is legendary?
[/QUOTE]
No, I don’t support polygamy, although I consider it a different issue. Polygamy creates a big family, but one presumes wives don’t come and go at the whim of the father. Not that I would know. Heck, I’ve never even met a polygamist.
[QUOTE=Walter Windchill]
To be more specific, I’m pitting the glib notion that kids are fine in these “poly” marriages and the notion that it’s cute to see 8-year-olds with “polydates,” acting out their parents’ dysfunctional behaviors.
Frankly, if there’s no kids involved, I don’t care. But when you push this as a normal lifestyle for kids, you’ve found the old conservative in my liberal heart. Sorry, but there’s just no way it’s a good idea. Foster kids are messed up because of instability… one home after another. An endless series of “daddy’s girlfriends” and “mommy’s boyfriends” is also a very unstable life. I taught for many years, and I know kids. One thing kids need more than iPods and Xboxes is a stable, predictable home life.
[/QUOTE]
Now you are making a reasonable debate at least, I might even agree with you, at least in context of American Society, being from outside the normal could stink.
Do you wish to retract the comments comparing them to meth addicts, or do you stand by them?
[QUOTE=What Exit?]
I did not say that all Nuclear families have an alcoholic parent, I am implying however that Kids are better off with 3 caring parents then 2 normal ones where one is an alcoholic. I doubt most open marriage parents are meth addicts, so I doubt they could possible be worse than Meth or other hard drug addicted parents.
Keep it simple, Nuclear family with two loving, unaddicted parents is better for kids than an family with three parents and at least you have room for debate. But when you make the leap to Open Marriage as bad as Addicted parents, you sound crazy and small minded.
Jim
[/QUOTE]
My sense from the thread I am parodying is not three parents, but an endless series of “friends” that come and go.
I stand by my instinct that open marriages have a high correlation to drug abuse and bad parenting. Call it small minded, I call it experienced. In my experience, sleeping around and drinking, for example, go hand in hand.
[QUOTE=Walter Windchill]
To be more specific, I’m pitting the glib notion that kids are fine in these “poly” marriages and the notion that it’s cute to see 8-year-olds with “polydates,” acting out their parents’ dysfunctional behaviors.
[/QUOTE]
You do understand our confusion, don’t you, when you title your thread “Meth addicts with kids”? Why don’t open a threada bout “poly” marriages and post a link in the MPSIMS thread? That’s a good fellow.
The best way to bring this thread to a mod’s attention is via email.
Based on the Windchill study of teaching high school English for over a decade, and getting to know kids and learning about their families and seeing how kids flourish in some environments and flounder in others.
[QUOTE=Walter Windchill]
One thing kids need more than iPods and Xboxes is a stable, predictable home life.
[/QUOTE]
Yup. Tho I would emphasize that “safe” is better than predictable. And if that stable, safe home life has one mom and two dads, what’s the problem?
The purpose of a family is to provide for the proper raising of kids. In this country, the “ideal” is one man, one woman to do the parenting. That doesn’t mean its the only way. And that model falls flat on its face plenty of times, far too often for anyone to tout it as the naturally ‘superior’ method.
I still think that a stable, safe home life with 3 or more ‘parents’ is likely to be superior to one with one man and one woman, where one or both are substance abusers. And I’ve worked with kids, parents, addicts, felons, prostitutes, and corporate attorneys for 25 years in my role as a physician to know that using a broad brush to paint anyone who falls outside of the box as incapable of being a good parent is just wrong.
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
You do understand our confusion, don’t you, when you title your thread “Meth addicts with kids”? Why don’t open a threada bout “poly” marriages and post a link in the MPSIMS thread? That’s a good fellow.
The best way to bring this thread to a mod’s attention is via email.
[/QUOTE]
Well, what’s done is done. Maybe next time I’ll be more to the point, but I was trying to be funny and make a point.
[QUOTE=Walter Windchill]
To be more specific, I’m pitting the glib notion that kids are fine in these “poly” marriages and the notion that it’s cute to see 8-year-olds with “polydates,” acting out their parents’ dysfunctional behaviors.
Frankly, if there’s no kids involved, I don’t care. But when you push this as a normal lifestyle for kids, you’ve found the old conservative in my liberal heart. Sorry, but there’s just no way it’s a good idea. Foster kids are messed up because of instability… one home after another. An endless series of “daddy’s girlfriends” and “mommy’s boyfriends” is also a very unstable life. I taught for many years, and I know kids. One thing kids need more than iPods and Xboxes is a stable, predictable home life.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, I agree with you. I do wish you had simply made your point instead of making an outrageous comparison. There is a very big difference between “mommy’s boyfriends” and “my mommy has not come home for two days now”
[QUOTE=Walter Windchill]
Based on the Windchill study of teaching high school English for over a decade, and getting to know kids and learning about their families and seeing how kids flourish in some environments and flounder in others.
[/QUOTE]
Your Op was deceitful, short and merely a setup. I gave an honest and thoughtful answer and found out you were comparing Meth addicts to a situation I know nothing about.
Maybe you are correct, but in the end, you are just pulling ideas out of your ass and by common sense seems too extreme.
I know of one family were the Mother was dumb but very caring, the biological father is a alcoholic and a pothead and the Mother’s lover was another pothead. For 6 month they shared a trailer with the two kids and the kids survived this and in fact were doing better than normal as three incomes were supporting them instead of just one. I have no idea how the kids are doing now, the oldest should be graduating High School. I still see the Biological father occasionally; he has been in and out of jail for missing child support payments.
The problems this family has are tied to addiction, not lifestyle.
[QUOTE=Walter Windchill]
No, I don’t support polygamy, although I consider it a different issue. Polygamy creates a big family, but one presumes wives don’t come and go at the whim of the father. Not that I would know. Heck, I’ve never even met a polygamist.
[/QUOTE]
The situations described in the Poly thread were a lot more similar to that (simply with no additional paperwork involved) than to your own description of Poly.
Many women throughout history have gotten married for economic or political reasons to men that they knew would “fool around” and considered themselves blessed when the husband just kept one lover. People make all kinds of marriage arrangements which the law doesn’t cover nor intend to cover. Fidelity is a big point with me… actually, trust is the point with me. I’d rather have a husband who has a lover and know her, and maybe share my house with her, than have a husband who goes on lots of one night stands and doesn’t tell me. The second one is a lot more common and a lot more likely to give me something I didn’t want to catch.
[QUOTE=Walter Windchill]
Please lock the thread.
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, Walter Windchill, I am not going to close this thread for now because you got responses you’re not happy with, particularly given your continued participation. For now the thread will remain open.
I have seen other people not like the way threads go, and request they be locked. Is there a standard that is followed to decide when to lock and when not to, or is it the whim of passing administrator? Just curious.
I any case, the thread has calmed down considerably and we’ve gone nearly five minutes without anyone telling me to “fuck off,” so I guess it can stay open. I had no idea the OP would be so confusing/deceitful/upsetting the way it is phrased.
[QUOTE=Walter Windchill]
Based on the Windchill study of teaching high school English for over a decade, and getting to know kids and learning about their families and seeing how kids flourish in some environments and flounder in others.
[/QUOTE]
How many polyamarous families did you teach the children of then?
[QUOTE=Walter Windchill]
My sense from the thread I am parodying is not three parents, but an endless series of “friends” that come and go.
[/quote]
Oh, come off it. How the heck do you expect my kid to sense the difference between my “friend” Tina, whom I’ve never slept with and never will, and my “friend” John, whom I’ve known for three years and slept with twice? Or are you of the opinion that a married person should have no friends of the opposite sex? OK, so what if I were bi? How would my kid know whether I was going out with my friend Judy to have sex at her place or go get coffee?
No one is “paraded” around the kids. I don’t ask my kid to “Go get Mama a condom, Sweetie, she’s havin’ fun tonight!” The stream - such as it is, more of a trickle, really - is “endless” only because this marriage works for us and we don’t see it ending anytime soon.
I already agreed with madmonk28 in the other thread that “introducing a revolving door of adults into the house-hold and maintaining a sexualized home-life undermine the child’s emotional development.” I also pointed out that I don’t know, personally, anyone who does this. If I did, I’d be just as upset with them as you are.
Perhaps. I really don’t know about any correlation or not. I do know that I personally am fairly well respected on this board in parenting threads, and it’s only when a poly thread comes up that I’m suddenly The Weirdo. (Well, OK, a couple of religous threads, too, I suppose, since I’m of a nonmainstream faith.) Find me a parenting question that I haven’t answered appropriately and with good feedback. Go on, just one. I have no doubts at all that I am a great mom, so your statement about correlation means nothing to me.
Oh, and as for my bemusement with her cute “polydate”, anyone with half a firing neuron could see that it is total projection on my part. The girl was doing this before she even knew that a poly “lifestyle” existed - how was she “acting out her confusion” before the “confusion” ever existed? She was a kid, playing with other kids and calling two of the boys her “boyfriends”. I brought it up merely because the OP asked if kids of polys are likely to be poly themselves. I said even there that one never knows.
She’s been seen by mental health experts, by the way, as part of the treatment of her mentally disturbed older sister (who’s illness has nothing to do with this, before you go down that road), and she’s just fine. No “confusion”, no shame, no upset. She thinks it’s pretty cool that she has three adults to look out for her, do stuff for her and love her. She’s a great kid. I think I’ll trust the professional opinion of her therapists over some bigot on a message board who’s never even met her, thanks.
