OK, let's forget about the "Sister Wives." IS polygamy an excellent way to raise a family?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So **Stoid’**s thread about polygamy being a good setup to raise children. The thread is a tangled web of hijacks,but the actual premise of the OP hasn’t been explored too well. I don’t think Stoid will mind if I quote her OP here:

[QUOTE=Stoid]
I’ve decided polygamy is an excellent way to raise a family

I just watched a polygamous family on Oprah, Ive watched other reality and documentary stuff, and I am a Big Love fan.

I think that if your goal is to raise children, especially if you want lots, polygamy is a terrific way to do it - I think it’s better for kids than monogamy, assuming the adults can be happy with it.

It seems very clear that it’s a wonderful boon to the women involved, enormous support, plenty of support and supervision for the kids… I just don’t see a downside, if you can manage to handle the expense, which is an issue for lots of families and may be less of one when you have four wives and 2-3 of them work - built in childcare!

On the whole I think monogamy vs. polygamy is all about sexual jealousy, because for raising families it’s hard to make a case that monogamy is better.
[/QUOTE]

Let’s assume for our purposes here that the poly setup is a typical onein terms of structure…a man with several wives. Let’s also assume for the sake of discussion that the adults all entered into the arrangment with free, informed will, that they are healthy psychologically, not coerced, and not raised in a poly environment. Rather, they have all decided that this is their preference, and though they might feel jealousies and there might be skewed power dynamics, they are all reasonably happy with the arrangement most of the time, as one might be in a typical marriage.

The question is, is this an ideal or excellent way to raise a family? Is it healthy for everyone? does it solve problems that traditional families have when raising children?

jsgoddess and I started talking about some of this at the end of the thread, and while that part got interesting to me, I’m guessing that it is getting lost in the noise. That exchange is quoted below:

[QUOTE=jsgoddess]

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
OK, moving on from the Browns. Let’s assume that there are people who would love this kind of arrangement. What are the great benefits? Not to the adults, obviously if they would love it, it’s good for them. So, what’s the great benefit in terms of raising a family? Seems to me if you’re the mom who works, this setup is no different from just finding a nice daycare. I mean, if you’re at work, and your kids are with someone else. They aren’t with you, you aren’t with them, and all the stressors I ever felt that were caused by that would probably still exist. About 95% of the “mommy guilt” that working moms feel has nothing to do with who you leave the kid with…it’s about the fact that you aren’t there (maybe this is something that non-parents don’t quite get, I don’t know?) Maybe the kids would be more bonded and happy with the extra wife than they would be to a daycare provider, but that’s not necessarily true if you find a good, stable, consistent caregiver. Plus, the cost of adding an extra wife, and a few more kids, would far outweigh daycare costs. I’m not seeing how it’s worth all the extra trouble.
[/QUOTE]

And the amount of contribution from the father gets cut. Nothing like trying to push forward the idea that men are just sperm donors who have no responsibility for kids. It’s a great system if someone thinks that only women need be concerned with child care.

The amount of resources needed by the family as a whole could grow at a much faster pace than a monogamous family would usually find. I like working outside the home, but I think I’d get a little tired of having more and more and more responsibility piled on me to do that to enable another woman to have a ton of kids.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]

[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
And the amount of contribution from the father gets cut. Nothing like trying to push forward the idea that men are just sperm donors who have no responsibility for kids. It’s a great system if someone thinks that only women need be concerned with child care.
[/QUOTE]

That’s exactly right. In my family, the times that a kid needed us during working hours was shared between me and my husband. In fact, he was more likely to stay home on the occasional day off of school than I was, because he could work at home more easily. So, the kids had their time with him and he was relevant. If there are a couple other moms to pick up the slack, then for sure the dad’s getting edged out…why would he take the time off work if he doesn’t have to?
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]

[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
The amount of resources needed by the family as a whole could grow at a much faster pace than a monogamous family would usually find. I like working outside the home, but I think I’d get a little tired of having more and more and more responsibility piled on me to do that to enable another woman to have a ton of kids.
[/QUOTE]

I agree with this, too. As I said, I was lucky to be able to afford pretty good daycare (though not the ultra-premium nanny situation), and it was far, far cheaper than supporting another wife and 6 kids. I would have had to be much more climbing-the-ladder career focused to support even a couple extra people, which would most likely give me even less time and energy for my own kids. It doesn’t sound great to me.
[/QUOTE]

That’s exactly right. In my family, the times that a kid needed us during working hours was shared between me and my husband. In fact, he was more likely to stay home on the occasional day off of school than I was, because he could work at home more easily. So, the kids had their time with him and he was relevant. If there are a couple other moms to pick up the slack, then for sure the dad’s getting edged out…why would he take the time off work if he doesn’t have to?

[QUOTE=jsgoddess]

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
I agree with this, too. As I said, I was lucky to be able to afford pretty good daycare (though not the ultra-premium nanny situation), and it was far, far cheaper than supporting another wife and 6 kids. I would have had to be much more climbing-the-ladder career focused to support even a couple extra people, which would most likely give me even less time and energy for my own kids. It doesn’t sound great to me.
[/QUOTE]

Considering how much drama we often see just from people dealing with stepkids who are, usually, limited in number and whose parent is not necessarily hanging around the house all day every day, I find it extremely unlikely that most people would feel up to working extra hard to support kids just because their spouse got horny. I just start thinking about what I would have felt had my husband knocked someone up and I was supposed to support not only the new kid but the new kid’s mom. What in the world would be in it for me? I would be sharing my husband, so the level of support would go down there. I would be supporting more people, so the level of effort would go up there. And I would have to have extraneous people in my face that I couldn’t just avoid or drop.

To go the other direction, the idea of multiple husbands makes me want to go hide somewhere.
[/QUOTE]

I’m sure there’s a few more posts in that thread that address this, I just can’t go through to find them now. But this should get it started. Any thoughts/opinions?

2

I’m sure it can be a great way to raise kids. Kind of like how living entirely off the grid with only a wind-powered water pump out back can be a great way to raise kids.

But in all likelihood, most people being sort of average people and not paragons of virtue and rationality, it probably isn’t most of the time. More people, more problems is the general rule.

3

For me, the fact that there are just that many more kids and the father’s time is split even further, makes it a bad model. We already live in a society where the father’s role is generally not considered as important as the mother (with some exceptions, as there are single fathers and primary caregiver fathers). But in general, we do see the mother as the main parent. Polygamy just further emphasizes the idea that it’s a woman’s job to do most of the childrearing and that that role for the father is less important.

4

I think polygyny is probably a horrible way to raise children. Gender blind polygamy in which what you basically have is a large extended family created by the adults–instead of a harem created by one man–might be an excellent way to raise children, provided the general tendency for poly relationships to descend into the most asinine and juvenile of dramas is dealt with.

As mentioned before, polygyny reduces the father’s roll in his children’s lives. Additionally, resources are spread thinner across each mother and her children. Assuming some of the mothers work, then leaving the children with the stay-at-home mother is little different from leaving them with any other trusted caregiver. For the stay-at-home mother, any benefits of staying home and caring for her children are drowned out by the fact that she’s now running a daycare, for all intents and purposes. She’s no longer a stay-at-home mother focusing on her children, but a caregiver surrounded by many children who happens to be able to keep her children with her during her workday.

In a situation where you had a large number of single mothers, I can see how it might be an improvement for a group of women to pool their resources. But that’s a group of women working together and has nothing to do with their sperm donor.

5

No.

6

I was raised, part time, in a polygamous (not legal, of course) family, and I think it was wonderful. There was (is) my dad, my legal step-mom and another legally married couple, man and woman. I always came home to a welcoming, loving parent type. I always had someone to talk to, to answer questions, to throw ideas off of. Since there were more adults, there were more points of view and more “experts” at various things. Need math or science homework help? Dad’s got a degree in it. Need help with music? Other Dad is a professional musician. Other Mom a professional writer and teacher. Stepmom was the one to go to for philosophy, women’s issues and religion.

Of course, there were also more adult eyes keeping tabs on me, and helping me stay out of trouble! At the time, it was a bit annoying, but now that I’m a mom myself, I do appreciate those times when one of the four would notice I was lying, or sneaking around, and often quietly approach me in private to talk to me about it. They very rarely “ganged up” on me, but I think that’s because they were good parents, not specifically because they were poly.

And that’s it, really…if you’re good parents, having more of them can only help. If you’re lousy parents, adding more will do no good.

Polygamy can be an excellent way to raise a family, sure. In our case, there weren’t any more kids than a nuclear family might have (me and two stepbrothers; Other Mom and Dad’s kids were grown and out of the house) and the men were just as deeply involved in the household as the women.

I see no reason why polygamy is superior to any other household with multiple adults, however. “It takes a village” for sure. That village can be four adults sexually involved with each other, or two parents and and aunt and a grandmother or one parent and four uncles, for all I care. I never gave much thought to who was sleeping with whom - and really, I didn’t even know they were “poly” until I was in high school - they called each other “roommates” and I accepted that at face value.

But I do think having more adults on the premises is superior to nuclear families or single parent families, again with the caveat that it’s only superior if the adults are good parent[al figure]s. I’d rather have a single mom who’s a good mom than a half dozen bad parents.

7

To me, the number and age range of the children seems crucial. Traditionally in these situations, there are lots of kids and they are close in age. So you get 4 adults with 10 kids under the age of 12. Not good for household division of labor or individual attention for the kids, dad is spread too thin/pushed to the side. But if the family is planned in a similar way to most monogamous couples, with children spaced a couple years apart, the dynamic changes. You get 4 adults and 6 kids ranging in age from 2-15. Totally different.

8

Wow! Finally, a voice of experience, and as a child of a poly family no less! Thank you for speaking up!

9

You’re welcome. Sorry I didn’t speak up in your thread, but by the time I saw it, it was multiple pages of hijacks and judgements on a family from a television show I’ve never seen! :slight_smile:

10

Though I think there are some very good ‘up-sides’ for children having the support they need in a well functioning family, I think the sexual jealousy part is extremely difficult for human beings to simply overlook [psychologically] if they do not have some kind of faith either in a higher power or in their own independent security. I’d venture to say that run-of-the-mill people, average folks, are not secure enough on their own to accept having multiple partners, with multiple children. I think there are parts of human nature that make it difficult to accept having a spouse who is not tied solely to you, but to multiple other people who also have multiple other children with your spouse. Time can be divided, and is divided, but jealousy is a security issue, and not all people are strong enough [if that is the right word] to handle a partner who has multiple other partners.

11

I would also think it difficult for all of the children if the family were to come apart. Divorce in a two-parent household is difficult enough, but when the entire family comes apart, or even if one or more of the other “parents” decide to move on, that has to be devastating to a child who has never known any other arrangement.

Wouldn’t there also be the potential for non-sexual jealousy if your bio child bonds more strongly with another “mother”? Or is there some way around that?

12

How is that any different from tearing apart a monogamous-parents family with a divorce? Would it suck? Absolutely. It sucked for me when my (biological) parents divorced. At least had my poly family divorced, chances are great that more than one of them would have remained together with us kids.

I assume it would be handled just like when fathers are jealous of their baby’s bond with their mother, or mothers are jealous of their 5 year old Princess’s bond with her father. Good parents are grateful the child has love and realize it’s not a judgement on them, and that it’s likely a phase that will pass. Bad parents probably get dysfunctional about it.

13

This doesn’t seem entirely accurate. I would be very proud and happy to see my son or daughter bond with my spouse, I’d expect it to happen, that is pure human nature\biology. However, as a father, if my son began bonding with another father in the house, or as a mother, having my child bond more with another ‘mother’ in the house, *that *is where the issues arise. Biology is very important, it’s unconscious, and it is hard wired into our genes to bond with our children. This does not mean foster children can’t bond with their parents, or children within a Poly family can’t bond, because they do. Obviously WhyNot bonded with her family, extended or not.

However, in a monogamous family - this is rarely, if ever an issue. Certainly not as much an issue as it would be in a poly family.

Can I ask, WhyNot, were either of your family Bio]Poly religious in any way? Zero judgment, I’m simply curious.

14

Phlosphr, your point goes back a bit to what jsgoddess was saying about all the drama often seen with step-parents and step-kids. I think there’s often a lot of resentment and competition present when there are kids who “belong” to one parent and not the other. Obviously, there are great step-parents out there, but I’m sure even a lot of them will tell you it’s often tough. I’m not sure if everyone living in the same house and having a relationship together would make that better or worse.

WhyNot, can I ask a couple questions about your experience with a poly parent? I was wondering what age you were when they entered into the arrangement (sounds like you are talking about teenage years?), and also, how much time did you have there? Was it like a 50/50 custody arrangement, or weekend visits, or something else? I’m just trying to picture how much time you spent in the poly household, and when, because I’m guessing it might be more or less difficult given the specific situation.

15

I agree, and as a psychologist I am pulled in both directions, nature v nurture [from several sources] nature not exactly meaning there ought to only be one set of parents…In the end if there is a healthy dynamic between all, there is little reason to split hairs. The sexual jealousy part is very difficult and again, it’s human nature to care about these kinds of things…

16

And that’s wonderful, and I’m so glad you see it that way. Sadly, it’s very common for parents not to, so much that whole chapters of parenting books are devoted to it. I don’t really understand it myself, but I can’t deny that it happens.

BioMom= Lutheran as a child, areligious when I was growing up, now vaguely Buddhist
BioDad= Catholic as a kid, atheist as an adult
OtherMom/OtherDad= No idea. Areligious in behavior, never talked about beliefs
StepMom = Atheist when I was growing up, now has a Master’s Degree in Spiritual Counseling or somesuch. Very active in the CUUPS chapter of her UU church, as well as teaching privately and at neopagan retreats/workshops/etc.

I was the “white sheep” in the family, craving religious knowledge and experience even as a small child, but raised by atheists/agnostics/areligious folks.

My dad once told me, “The optimal number of people in any relationship is 0.6. Any more than that, and things get complicated.” :smiley: Told you he was a mathematician! Yet he’s been very happy in poly relationships for more than 30 years somehow.

Dad and Stepmom were apparently poly, in some sense of the term, uh…before he left my mom. Mom was a “don’t ask, don’t tell” gal, until she couldn’t handle it anymore and asked him for a divorce when I was 5 or 6. Dad and Stepmom had “roommates” of varying stability when I was very young, but like I said, I never clued into the sexual nature of their relationships. I mean…ick! :smiley:

They met and moved in with this particular couple when I was a tween - 10 or 11, I think? I spent my summers there and two weeks in the winter, and the rest of the year with my single mom. So yes, I didn’t have the complete polygamist family upbringing, but on the other hand, I have first hand experience of three different family structures as a kid - my nuclear family, a single parent family and a polygamous family. And I’m very, very exceedingly lucky that all 5 (well, 6 really, but soon you’ll need a flowchart) of my parents are all wonderfully great parents.

[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
The sexual jealousy part is very difficult and again, it’s human nature to care about these kinds of things…
[/QUOTE]

Indeed. But I think your error is in assuming that sexual jealousy is a universal human condition. It’s not, and I say that from first hand experience, not just what I observed growing up. Some, perhaps most, people experience sexual jealousy, but not all do. I’m monogamous now, based on my partner’s preference, but I was poly myself for a decade, quite happily. Even now, if my partner wanted to be sexually or romantically involved with someone else, I wouldn’t be jealous (although I would wonder why he’d changed what he himself believes to be a fundamental part of his make up.)

17

WhyNot, thank you again for speaking up, this is fascinating. And you seem to be describing what I envisioned: if the adults are happy with it, it’s great for the kids.

When you lived in a poly relationship as an adult, were you MFF or MMFF or?

18

I’d like to repeat that in my experience, through most of the world, polygamy rarely takes the form of “one big happy family.” The vast majority of polygamous families maintain fairly separate households. Women in polygamous relationships usually raise their own children relatively independently, without much more influence from the other wives than any other nearby neighbor.

19

I think this thread has a much better chance of getting some serious thought.

First, as I wrote in the other thread, I don’t think that religious or culturally based polygamy will work for most cases, based on historical evidence. There is too much coercion or pressure and the participants are not all truly willing participants.

Second, the problem with the assumption of the OP in the other thread is that you are comparing the best of one group with the worst of the other when you talk about polygamy as a solution of the “unnatural” state of monogamy. This thread is only looking at people “are healthy psychologically, not coerced, and not raised in a poly environment. Rather, they have all decided that this is their preference, and though they might feel jealousies and there might be skewed power dynamics, they are all reasonably happy with the arrangement most of the time. . .”

If you are only looking at adults who are sufficiently emotionally mature and committed to handle a situation where there could be jealousies, power struggles, misunderstandings, etc. within the dynamics of a group, and you place them in a monogamous settings, then these same people will do well there as well.

Years ago, a woman on a radio program was talking about how to make divorces easier on children, and how if the parents can work together to create a healthy environment for the children. Then at the end, she said that if the parents were capable of all of this, the chances are they wouldn’t be getting a divorce in the first place. Of course, she didn’t mean this literally, as there are plenty of people who get divorces and who find ways to work things out great for the kids, but I think there is a degree of truth there.

Kids are going to do well with parents who are psychologically healthy and dedicated to raising their kids. They will have problems with those who are not, and this not dependant on the number of people in the household.

As WhyNot says, there’s no magic in the formula, and I, too would rather have a great single mother than six fucked up adults.

If you don’t compare the best to the worst, if you compare the average person in both situations, then it may be that you will substitute one set of issues for another.

One important factor about WhyNot’s situation was that there were no additional kids from the other party, so the household had an increased ratio of adults per child. We’ve had my wife’s sister stay with up, and that was great for our daughter. She had someone else to tend and play with her, but also had her mother and father there with her. There was no downside in it for her to have three fulltime, attentive “parents” there for her.

If it had been a second wife with other small children, then it would be a completely different dynamic. Would she get along with the other kids? See them as rivals? Like them? I don’t see this as a slam dunk.

My daughter is getting used to her new-born baby brother, and doesn’t seem to be overly jealous of her young rival, but then there are three adults (mom, dad and grandma) for the two children. What would happen if there were three wives, with one as the stay at home, and the others working. Would there be jealousy?

My BIL is not a touchy-feely guy and does not relate particularly well the children, even his own. On one Christmas visit to their place, my nephew was about 2 1/2 and my niece was 5. I spent the week playing with them and we all had a great time. One morning, the little boy comes racing into the kitchen where I’m talking with the BIL. He’s still wearing his jammies, with the stocking feet, and he wipes out on the transition from carpet to linoleum flooring. With a loud thud, he hits the ground hard. He looks up, sees us, then looks around in vain for mommy. Not finding her, he looks back to me, bursts out in wails of tears and comes over for comfort, bypassing his father who comments that he’s number three in his own house.

This little guy is now 11 and could use a different father. He’s often commented that he wishes that me or someone like me was his father. Would polygamy have helped? Not the type in this thread, because we’re only discussing increasing mothers, not supplementing fathers. I don’t think a polygamous settings with multiple males would work either, as my BIL is extremely difficult to get along with, and I can’t see another man putting up with him.

Consequently, I don’t see monogamy as a magic solution, either. People with problems are going to have problems in whatever setting they are. There will be people who do better in one particular setting, but I don’t know if there would be more who do better in polygamy.

I’m interested in hearing what problems people think that polygamy would solve.

Finally, if polygamy is limited to the one man, multiple wives variety, then my post on the other thread of the limitations because of mathematics stands. Only a fraction of people can be involved without creating additional problems of males with no one to marry.

Which again is a point I made in the other thread about Mormons.

20

Absolutely on the nose, TokyoPlayer. It’s not the institution, it’s the people in it.

I mostly wanted to speak up because I’m tired of hearing that polygamy, legal or not, is always a damaging institution of fucked up women and abusive men. No, it’s not. Can it be? Sure. Is it always? No, not by a long shot.

For what it’s worth, I’m also tired of hearing from the polyamory community that monogamy is always an institution of jealous people run by their childhood programming who think that they sexually “own” their partner. Can it be? Sure. Is it always? No, not by a long shot.

Polygamy CAN BE an excellent way to raise a family. So can monogamy, if there is a larger support network of adults, whether they live in the home or not. I see definite advantages to more adults in the home, no matter what their sexual relationships to one another.