A Canadian study on polyamorous parents

[sweetcadcouple 40]

For people who are in a polyamorous relationship and have kids there a recent study about it. I want to be neutral in this since I am not a polyamorous parents.

If the link doesn't work, please let me know, I will copy and paste the article here.

Juhl: Are the children of polyamorous parents OK? | Montreal Gazette

[PeterJ 960]

The link worked fine! 
 

Terrific to read an article in the popular press on ENM that is neither intended to titillate nor implicitly judgmental, @sweetcadcouple Just facts that will be informative for the average reader of the newspaper. How refreshing! Thanks for posting it.

 

I will be interested in @coupler’s response to this.

[couplers 4,717]

A very good article. 

 

17 hours ago, PeterJ said:

I will be interested in @coupler’s response to this.

I have two thoughts: 

 

First, we did not have to deal with introducing our children to a polyamorous family.  They were born into into it.  (The only exception was that Lora joined our family after the first two were born to Clair and me, but they were young.)  It is totally natural for each of our children to have five parents, three moms and two dads.  Compared to other kids, they feel lucky.  They also comprehend that they have biological parents, but it's not something that they dwell upon with regard to us adults, more as to who among them are half-siblings, genetically unrelated, or in one case, full-siblings.  (Lora and I have two children, one each with David and Red; Clair has three - one with Red and two with David.)

 

The oldest are now aware of what sex is and that it happens among us adults, but only to the extent that any kids know that parents have sex behind closed doors. 

 

Second, as to others, there are two parts to it.  The first is lawyers and making the legal aspects as secure as possible.  I won't go into that, other than we've done a lot of work.

 

The second is our relationship with schools and healthcare folks.  We did our research and screen, then meet with them, bringing in members of our family.  For doctors and nurses, the tone was set when Clair (who was the first to get pregnant) went in for her pre-natal exam accompanied by David who is the father, and me, David’s wife.  It was explained that we were all good with it and excited to be raising this child together.

 

Similarly when I got pregnant and went in to the gyno introducing Red as the father and David as my husband. 

 

Same with school.  People know that the familial relationship is broader than the genetic.  Each of the children has been brought in, picked up, and supported along the way by each of us adults as their parents, regardless of the biological relationship, and have authority over each of them.  (There's legal stuff involved.)  We adults strive to never inadvertantly contradict one another to avoid even a hint of conflict.

 

Overall, it's not much different than step-parents and the like, but it's concurrent rather than sequential relationships.  It seems normal.  It is normal. 

Edited October 20 by couplers