Sorry, I didn’t mean to ignore this, but I’m not sure how to answer how a hypothetical family who doesn’t do things like my family might do things. Um, perhaps they’d try to be real quiet so the kid wouldn’t wake up? Perhaps they’d try to convince him they were just talking? (Jeez, I remember doing that shit when I was a teenager in my parents’ house!) Maybe they’d take that opportunity to let the kid know that Bernadette was more than a friend? Maybe they’d jump out a window and go beat up some drunk ninjas. I have no idea. I think these are all terrible ideas. I don’t know anyone dumb enough to have a lover over for sex when their kids don’t know they’re poly. As you point out, that’s just asking for an awkward scene and hurt feelings.
Or, to throw DtC a bone, if I was that kid, I might be devastated.
Huh? I thought you said that you WERE talking about “fucking strangers in swingers’ clubs” and “going out whoring every weekend” and “going down on strangers every Saturday night”, and however else you want to describe swinging.
My point is that WhyNot and other people here are talking about a different kind of extramarital sexual relationship, so when you fret about the potential trauma of parental swinging, you’re essentially talking past the issue at hand.
By the way, do you really think that whether these other sexual partners are “friends” or strangers is really going to mean anything to a kid who accidentally finds out about it. Do you really think they’re going to say, “oh, it’s Mr and Mrs Thompson from the bridge club. You had me going there for a second, I thought you were banging complete strangers?”
To me the shock would simply be in finding out that their parents’ relationship is not what they thought it was and perhaps (in the child’s mind) not as safe as they thought it was. I believe that would be more traumatic than growing up in a poly family where all the roles and relationships are already known. It can’t help but pull a rug out from underneath them to discover that they’ve always had a false perception of their family dynamics.
To throw you one back, it sounds like you’re being as responsible as you possibly can (I like the use of the term “firewall”) and trying very hard to avoid that moment of shock and trauma I’m talking about but I hope you’ve rehearsed what you’re going to say if it ever comes out accidentally.
(If he makes it to adulthood, I think he’ll be past the period where his emotional vulnerability would be at its peak. We probably all find out stuff about our parents after we’re grown that would have killed us to know when we were kids.)
Thanks for the bone back, but now I’m even more confused. Am I a swinging slut, or as responsible as I can possibly be? Or both?
See, this is the thing I don’t think you’re getting. But I’ll try one more time:
My parents were in a poly relationship I knew nothing about while growing up. When I was 14 (just six months older than my son is now), one of my dad’s girlfriends spilled the beans. I was shocked. I was surprised. I was even “a little freaked out”. I was not devastated. I did not turn into a cutter, or drink like a fish. I did not feel like the rug was pulled out from under me. I did not feel that my family was no longer “safe”. I did not feel that I had always had a false perception of my family dynamics.
Might some kids suffer? Yep, sure. Kids can get fucked up over just about anything. I knew I guy once in therapy because his dad didn’t molest him, but molested all his brothers. Poor guy thought his dad didn’t love him as much. My best friend feels incredibly guilty because she grew up in a happy home with both parents, but most of her friends were from divorced homes. I know quite a few people who were way messed up because of things you and I would think are ridiculous and bizarre. So, sure, I’m willing to admit that someone might be fucked up because their parents were poly. Especially the folks who actually *are *having anonymous sex with strangers every Saturday night or bringing a revolving cast of lovers into the home. I’ve said that at least twice in each thread.
But you keep making these absolutist statements which just aren’t true. I, and a dozen other grown kids of polys I know, have not suffered because of our parents’ polyness. This isn’t some vague idea I have based on my biases. This is based on observation and conversation with real people.
Well, I definitely agree with you that you would be very shocked if you had found yourself in such a situation, judging from your reactions as posted in this thread. Something that inspires descriptors like “slut”, “pussy hound”, “whoring”, “emotional betrayal”, “a kick in the balls”, “going down on strangers”, “horseshit rationalizations” and so forth is obviously something that you consider profoundly, traumatically negative.
But I can’t say for certain how WhyNot’s kid or any other individual kid would feel about it. Nor do I see why it should be less acceptable than other things that parents do for their own fulfillment that carry a slight risk of traumatic consequences for their kids.
WhyNot, I’m taking this to mean that if you were brought up by a mother and father and you find out that they had an alternate lifestyle it would be shocking, yes.
I ‘think’ that in your case with your parents divorced and your father already with a new wife and living with a group of people it might not of come as such a shock as in an Ozzie & Harriet type family. Maybe you were more open to the idea.
That’s my take, and I’ll stay out of it. I don’t want to get in the way of Kimstu snarking at Dio as he/she seems to be enjoying it so much to let an actual discussion get in the way.
Very possible. I guess, unless we can reverse the polarity of the port compressor coil and turn this message board into a time machine, we’ll never know. C’est la vie!
Right. You can’t say for certain, therefore you should give it no consideration at all and operate as if there will never be any consequences. What a brilliant approach to parenting. :rolleyes:
Really? Where did I say that? On the contrary, I’m sure that if I were a parent and were considering any type of activity that might carry a slight risk of traumatic consequences to my child(ren), I would think about it very carefully.
But I see no reason to get more upset and concerned about activities that involve sex (as long as they’re pursued responsibly and discreetly) than about other types of activities that might also involve some slight risk. Heck, think of that poor “Crocodile Hunter” guy who just left his young child(ren) fatherless after a fatal stingray bite during filming. Would it have occurred to us to criticize him for risking his children’s happiness on his dangerous activities? There are lots of things that parents do for their own enjoyment or fulfillment, sexual or otherwise, that could possibly end up damaging their children emotionally.
Thanks dear, I think it’s so admirable of you to stick to actual discussion instead of succumbing to the impulse to snark.
Sreve Irwin’s death, while tragic and traumatic, does not also impose the element of shame that would go along with discovering that one’s parent’s had a secret life of sexual promiscuity.
This sounds as though you’re arguing that the trauma caused by the actual death of a parent is preferable to, or less damaging than, feeling shamed about your parents’ unconventional sex life.
Remember, we’re not talking here, AFAICT, about parents doing something they’re genuinely ashamed of or consider morally wrong. We’re only talking about parents who participate, in a responsible and discreet way within the context of a stable and loving marriage and family, in some kind of sexual relationship that is different from conventional monogamy. Does it really seem to you that knowing such a thing about one’s parents would be a worse experience than having one of them die?
Give me a fucking break. You’re introducing a much different and severe kind of trauma. It’s a stupid comparison. By that standards, any behavior which doesn’t carry a risk of volent death is A-ok. It’s possible to cause emotional pain without dying, you know.
Do you even have any kids? Do you actually know anything about being a parent?
Your welcome sweet cheeks. Try it sometime. Maybe then you won’t bore the everloving shit out of everyone. It’s like watching a yappy dog biting at someone’s heels.
I’m not claiming that the two are comparable—in fact, I was rather startled when I thought that that’s what you were claiming. I’m simply pointing out that there are many different risks that parents choose to run, for their own satisfaction, that could potentially cause trauma for their children. After all, you asked:
And my point is that there are lots of different “hobbies” and other activities that parents pursue that involve a non-zero risk of emotional trauma for the children. Don’t we accept that as an inevitable aspect of balancing parenthood with personal satisfaction? Why should we impose a standard of zero risk when the parental activity in question is sexual, and not for other kinds of activities?
Where did you get that idea? I certainly never claimed that unconventional sexual behavior is automatically A-okay merely because it’s likely to be less traumatic than violent death. As I noted above, any type of behavior that risks having severe emotional consequences for one’s child(ren) should be thought about very carefully.
I don’t think you’re paying attention to what I’m actually saying at all.
See? If you were paying attention to what I was saying, you’d have seen from my previous post that I don’t. You know, the part where I said “if I were a parent”.
Thanks for the tip; I will take your posts as my model and study them carefully to learn your secret of non-snarkiness.
So, in other words, it’s fine for parents to persue interests which could conceivably damage their children under certain circumstances as long as no one’s DIRTY FILTHY DISGUSTING SEX ORGANS are involved.
Right? Or are you the only one allowed to deal in absolutes?
I never said it was fine for parents to take other kinds of risks, but ONE of the risks they can avoid is engaging in behavior which has the potential to make the children themselves feel shamed and humiliated.
Dio, what did your parents do to you? Or is it some kind of sexual trauma? You clearly have personal issues fueling your irrational ranting on this subject.
