One more time. I’m not saying don’t have multiple partners, I’m saying don’t hide partners.
Kids find out their families aren’t what they thought they were all the time. Sex is none of their business, but if you choose to share the information, that’s fine. People find out the have more or less money than they thought, that people in the family have done things, are going to do things, etc. Life is change. It’s full of surprised. This is a ridiculous expectation of what a family is or should be.
But you think if a parent has partners that exist only for sex, that should be hidden. Forget the married part, let’s make it even simpler. Say there’s a single dad who leaves the kid with a sitter, goes out, picks somebody up, and brings that somebody home for fun & exercise. The somebody is gone by the time the kid comes home. The relationship is about (safe, responsible) sex, and nothing more.
Why does the kid have to meet the somebody?
For the record. I haven’t said this.
It’s none of my child’s business who I’m having sex with if I don’t want to share that information. No one’s business but the people I’m in sexual relationships with.
I don’t think the fact that other partners exist should be hidden. The kids don’t necessarily have to meet every one of them.
They don’t, but the child would not have been led to any expectation that the father is restricting his sexual relationships to one person in this case.
If you’re misleading your children into thinking you lead a totally different lifestyle than what you’re really leading, you’re setting yourself up for trouble.
Anyone who says it’s none of their family’s business who they have sex with is so far from my idea of what a “family” is, we might as well be speaking a different language.
So lets say you are a divorced dad with custody. You engage in serial monogomy - but - honestly, your relationships tend to be on the short term side. In fact, some people believe you are something of a slut. However, you do practice discretion - your sex life is pretty restricted to “when kid is at Mom’s” or “when kid is having an overnight at friends.”
What’s the difference?
How about if its Mom with custody? Does that change things?
How about if there is no discretion - if custodial parent lets “boy toy of the week” spend the night when the kid is home?
I’m trying to figure out exactly what is so distructive? Mom being a “slut.” Mom and Dad not engaging in an exclusive relationship? The kids knowing? The kids not knowing?
Okay, so…
- If you’re poly, it’s okay, because the kids know the third (or fourth, or fifth) and understand the family dynamic.
- If you’re a swinger it’s not ok, because um … well, since swinging doesn’t effect the actual family dynamic at all, I’m not exactly sure what the issue is.
- If you’re a swinger it’s okay as long as the kids know the partners because you don’t hide it.
Also, “swinging” = “mom is a slut [and/or] father is a pussy hound.”
I think Dio is missing a lot of points. seeing as the issue has obviously fucked up his ability to merge black and white into various shades of grey.
No, and no one has said this at all.
No one said this.
…was said to a poly person about her lifestyle, but
No one in this thread thinks this way from what I can see.
So it’s totally moral and shouldn’t be illegal, but it’s not a profession a parent should go into because…??
Again, what does this have to do with swinging, which you insist is what you’re talking about?
I think that perhaps you can have a heaping share of “delusional” yourself, there, sweetums. “Divorce really isn’t that big of a deal anymore.” snort
How you live a life with children in which you never do anything which might cause them any emotional trauma is beyond me; I’ve never met any parent that perfect.
If you’re only saying, “You should consider the possible reactions of your children when you opt to have/continue this lifestyle,” I think everyone agrees with you and that everyone who has an “alternative” marriage does, indeed, think about the emotional health of their children. I think they just don’t see it as being automatically emotionally DEVASTATING.
Putting the morality of the issue aside (which I’m sure I have a very different opinion about), I have to agree with you, Diogenes. I think that kids are much more invested in their perception of their home life than people give them credit for. I doubt it matters much what kind of home life or culture they grow up in…whether it be the one man/one woman variety, a gay couple, a multi-adult situation, or whatever. What kids DON’T want, IMO, are surprises or sudden information that is going to severely shake up what they have always “known” about their family. It is not uncommon, as I think everyone will agree, that kids of divorced families worry that their dad or mom will stop loving THEM someday, because they project the situation between the parents onto themselves, or they don’t quite get the emotional difference between the various relationships. They have trusted in the parents’ relationship, and it is a betrayal of sorts when they find that this trust is violated. If a child has the idea that his or her parents live in a monogamous relationship, and then finds out that it has basically been a lie the entire time, I can see this having devastating consequences. Not because they can’t handle the concept per se, but because it is not what they have always thought to be true. Not to mention all the questions about where the parents’ true loyalties lie, and why they need to get emotional satisfaction outside of the family, and how this might affect the children in the future. I can see it being very destablizing and scary for a kid.
So you are a widower. Is it your grown kids business who you have sex with? Your mother is divorced. Is it your business who she has sex with? You are going through some impotence issues. Is it your kids business that you and your wife aren’t having sex? Your wife really likes your tongue on her clit while you stick two fingers up her ass…is that your kids’ business? I’m afraid we are breaking at a more fundamental level than “what is family” We are breaking at the level of “what information is private.”
But this could also be true when parents have very good friends with whom they hang out a lot, who are not their spouse. They’re not boning. They’re not thinking about boning. But Mom STILL goes out a couple of times a week without Dad.
Do Mom and Dad give up going out with their platonic friends because it might destabilize the children?
Now see THAT finally makes sense. I agree.
If someone extolled the virtues of monogomy and told their kid that their father was the only person for them, while shagging someone else on the side, that’s going to lead to a betrayal and trouble when it comes out. The problem is not the affair, it’s the lying.
I also think that parents need to think about their specific children as individual people, and to make judgement calls and determine what is right for each child as a unique human being. Only then can an adult decide how much information, in what language and context and with what explanations a child needs.
My son knows my husband and I are of the opinion that monogamy is not for everyone. We have a silly saying in our house: “Another problem solved by polyamory!” whenever we see a lyin’, cheatin’ whorin’ betrayin’ plot, or an angsty “love triangle” on TV or a movie. He knows that we consider sex a beautiful, fun and wonderful part of consenting people’s lives, whether they’re gay or straight, single or in groups. He knows we think little of people who view other people as possessions. (And we’re clear that not that all monogomists do this, but some do, as do some polyamorists, interestingly enough.) His best friends have three parents, as do a number of his acquaintances (it comes with the neopagan territory). He also knows his own parents have time away from the house with people of the opposite gender.
Has he put it all together yet? I don’t know. But I think he’s received enough of the puzzle pieces that it won’t be a huge shock. While we’re discrete about our partners, we’ve definitely laid a good groundwork for acceptance. We have not lied to or decieved him in any way whatsoever. He has grown up, unlike many kids, knowing that “married” does not necessarily mean “sexually exclusive”, and that whatever the form a relationship takes, honesty and communication are the most important elements in it.
I mean, really. We all figured out Liberace was gay without him telling us, right? My kid’s not dumb. If he hasn’t brought it up yet, it’s because he’s not ready to talk about it yet.
No, it’s not the issue of going out with friends. It’s finding out that the RELATIONSHIP with the friend is different from what the child thought it was.
And I say from a sexual perspective alone, it’s none of the child’s business. Now, if you’re in a poly relationship (and by that I mean a relationship that involves more than sex with more than one partner), yes, the child has a right to know. But sex is personal. A kid has no more right to information about who you’re sleeping with than he has a right to know what positions you favor in bed.
But what IS that person to Mom/Dad other than a good friend? If Mom/Dad also occasionally sleeps with his or her good friend, how does that effect the kid at all? Just because two people occasionally have entertaining sex with each other does not mean they hold hands, or cuddle on the couch, or even kiss each other when they’re not in the bedroom. They are still just great friends. If the kid never sees the sex, and the parent and friend never reference the sex, why does it matter any more than if they occasionally went bowling together? Is it okay to go bowling and not tell the kid about it?
Not all “lovers” are actually love-ers, in the romantic sense.
It just seems like playing with fire. Of course, IF the central spousal relationship doesn’t change as a result, and IF the kids never find out about it, then I agree, what they don’t know won’t hurt them. I just question the likelihood of maintaining the situation as such for the long run.
I have kids. Two. I think you’re a bombastic cretin who has serious emotional issues with regards to sex. Stay the hell away from my kids, you puritanically closeted perv.
My father passed away when I was 15… since he died I’ve found out alot about him that I didn’t know growing up, like for instance that I have a half sister out there somewhere I’ll never meet. Of all the things I learned not ONE ever ‘devastated’ me or came close to the faintest shadow of the pain I felt when he died. Shut your filthy mouth you judgmental prick and let people live their lives and raise their children how they see fit without your worthless condemnation. If any children of poly people DO feel shame and or hurt it’s probably because assholes like yourself who project their own insecurities and moral judgments onto them and that makes you the problem, not their parents.
Right. People get to do with their kids whatever they want because they, like, own them, right? Are there any situations that you would condemn?