Tag: Children

  • Polyamory and Children Guest Blog: Marmoset, Metamour and Ice Cream

    Sadly, The Poly Man Whore stopped updating his blog a couple years ago, but you can still check out his old posts. Reposted: June 15, 2017 A few months ago, The Poly Man Whore put up a blog post about the night he and his daughter (the Marmoset) met his wife’s boyfriend (Mister Alvin). He’s…

  • Polyamory and Children: Research Update

    List has been updated with more recent work by Dr. Elizabeth Sheff. I haven’t heard back from other researchers yet, but if I do I’ll add their newer work as well. A lot of the newer stuff is publicly available, so skip to the bottom if you want something you can read and don’t have…

  • Telling Your Children about Polyamory

    Not much changed here on the main topic, but original version was pretty heterocentric. I’ve tried to correct that and be more inclusive of single-parent families. Revised 3/26/17 Children who are born into a polyamorous relationship do not need anyone to explain their parents’ relationships, any more than children born into a monogamous relationship. Because they…

  • Polyamory and Children: Where is the Research At?

    Nothing I wrote here has changed substantially in the last few years. However, there was a great deal more research on children raised in polyam families than I was aware of when I wrote this. And more research has been done since then. Most of that research has been small scale and not longitudinal, so…

  • Polyamory and Pregnancy: What makes a parent

    Since writing this post I have learned that the poem is by Fleur Conkling Heylinger and was probably published in the early 1950s. Unfortunately, my Google-fu is failing me, and aside from one other poem, I haven’t been able to find anything about Fleur Conkling Heylinger. She might or might not be the same as the…

  • Helping Our Kids Talk About Polyamory

    In an ideal world, no one would be asking our kids about our relationships because private stuff is private stuff and grown-up stuff is grown up stuff. But as one of my favorite authors points out: “No thinking adult would ask a kid about this stuff, but that just means you’ll need to deal with…

  • Should You Tell Your Kids About Polyamory?

    For polyamorous parents, choosing whether or not to let our kids know about our relationships is a major decision. There are pros and cons to both choices. I generally believe you are better off being open with your kids, unless there is some compelling reason not to. Other people will advise the opposite—don’t tell your…

  • Introducing Your Polyamory Partners to Your Children

    If you got here looking for ideas on explaining polyamory to your kids, try this post. I am going to stake out an apparently unconventional opinion here. Are you are talking about moving in together, co-parenting, or otherwise creating a situation where your kids and poly partners would need to relate with each other directly?…

  • Laws and legal practices affecting our children

    If you’re been following this blog for a while, you’ll understand why today’s topic is a personally painful one. I’m not going to go as in depth as a usually do, in an attempt to avoid triggering myself. If anyone else has knowledge or personal experience in this area, please feel free to share in…

  • Polyamory Hurts Kids? Not in the Real World

    Any parent who chooses to enter a polyamorous relationship will sooner or later run into the charge that polyamory hurts kids, and they are being selfish by putting their desires over their kids’ well-being. I recently ran across a blog post claiming to be based on psychological research that used big fancy words to say…