Welcome to the Poly Pathways podcast, helping you create paths for practical polyamory. Your hosts are Kat and Doc. We're glad you're here. Hey listeners, welcome back to Polypathways. We're thrilled that you're here, whether you're new to polyamory or you're experienced or you're just curious. We're here to help you create effective pathways your polyamry experience. Today, Kat and I are going to be talking about the children. What about the children? And if you have... Think of the children. Think of the children. If you haven't gotten that question already in your polyamry journey, then you might be the very, very most fortunate one, or you don't have children. That's also a possibility. But there are a lot of concerns and a lot of ideas and thoughts around children in polyamory. Today we're really going to be talking about three of them. We're going to be talking about communication around polyamory with children, dealing with and handling external judgment from people who are not understanding of polyamory, and creating your polyamory molecule in a place of stability. If you have children and you're polyamorous, you have questions, you have experiences, we invite you to share those experiences with us, messages on your social medias, send a comment wherever you may put it, and we want to hear your stories. But today we're really going to dig into some of our experiences with being in family and in polyamory. Which is a great way of saying we have kids. And we've had kids for a while. There are various ages. I know Doc's kids are a little bit older than mine. But most importantly, when you're talking about kids, we're going to talk about communication, right? Which is something we talk about in polyamory all the time. But when you're talking about children, it is really important to have clear, honest and age-appropriate communication around your polyamorous lifestyle. Truth be told, not every kid's going to kind of get it depending on their age, depending on their mental development level, and some kids are going to react to it a little bit differently. Maybe you have a highly sensitive child or maybe an autistic child or if there's other things going on. You kind of need to tailor your communication style to the kids that you're talking to. And I wanted to call out that there are ways of communicating with your children that are not as straightforward as just coming up and saying it to them. Right. We have nonverbal communication as well. And I want to kind of layer it in as a setting the stage. So one of the cool ways that I did this with my children was I started taking them to pride festivals and pride events where they could kind of see different types of love out in the wild, right? And it wasn't so much I'm talking about my own experience. I was just trying to expose them to the fact that there's lots of different ways to have love and family and things like that. And that kind of came home for me when we were playing life the one day and my daughter goes, hey, well, I want two husbands in my car. And then my other daughter wanted, you know, a girlfriend in the car with her when she got to that get married stage of the life game. So sometimes you can have communication around different types of love, different types of families. If they have friends that have gone through divorce, things like that, you can point out in public like, oh, look at that. family, you know, they're, you know, a different constellation than what we have or a different grouping than what we have. And just kind of setting that narrative from an early age, no matter what the age is, of just saying there's lots of different ways to love and there's lots of different ways that love can be experienced by families. And I think that's really helpful in setting the stage for an eventual communication about your polyamory. So if you haven't come out, I'm putting air quotes around, come out, if you haven't come out to your children yet, maybe you have some of those conversations less about you and more about the world as a whole and communities as a whole and other people out there that are experiencing love in a non-modonormative and non-particularly heterosexual way. I think it's a really great gateway to set this stage for open communication with them about your life. Your family is your family. You know your children. You know what they're going to face. And you can make a decision about how and what you want to communicate about your relationship, style, preference, arrangement, whatever it may be with your children. Some kids are going to care a great deal about it. Some children will not care a great deal about it. They're just as long as you're happy. We're happy. And as long as I'm safe, I'm okay with what's going on. But making that decision about how and what to communicate with your children is a really important thing you want to take into consideration, both how children think and learn, and experience the world, but also what is age appropriate, where are they in their developmental levels, and what types of things that they can and can't, they can and maybe cannot handle or should and should not handle. I think especially in today's day and age where kids are getting exposed to way more mature things than maybe they were 30 years ago or 40 years ago, there is certainly some difference, but your family can dictate how and what to communicate and what's inappropriate. It maybe even think about it in terms of phases. Hey, look, phase one, we're going to talk about these things. Phase two, phase three. This is an important thing, and I think within my family, I am very open with my children about my polyamory, mostly in a normal sense of this is who I am. This is my relationship status. This is where we're at. And I don't talk about it any differently than I would talk about it if I was monogamous, because it isn't really any different, for them, except that there may be more people around if that's what we choose to do. I love that thread of, this is normal, because that is how I approach communication with my children and always have, is it feels normal to me, right? I don't think this is different. I don't think this is other. And I'm always trying to act in a way of, like, this is just normal operating procedure for us. So there's really nothing weird going on here. But interestingly enough, one of my daughters has a counselor for some other issues. And the counselor said to me, but you do realize this is not normal, right? And I had to take a step back with that and be like, well, it's normal for us. But I think she was thinking in the broader terms of it's not normal for the child if she's comparing herself to other friends and peers, right? But that doesn't mean you shouldn't act like it's not normal for your family. Because if it's normal for you, they're going to feel like nothing is out of the ordinary until they get into a social situation where they realize it might not be, you know, standard operating. procedure. Regardless of where your children are in that process, right? Because I would imagine that my kids, certainly I don't know what they talk to their friends about or their teachers about, but for my kids, that probably isn't much of a conversation of, oh, you know, dad has, you know, partners, you know, or what that might be, you know, for their experience, I'm their parent, I'm the person they talk to. I'm the person at the school calls. I'm the person. The school calls. I'm the and that, you know, takes them to the doctor or the dentist, and that doesn't really change for me in where I am in my relationship. But there isn't kind of an underlying factor here about talking your children. And we'll break this down a little bit between kind of very young kids, where, you know, Kat has younger children than I do, elementary-aged children, and then, you know, older children and what that might be and what that might look like. But underneath all of that is this space for us as parents and polyamorous parents. parents to allow our children to ask questions and really guide the conversation. It's upon us to say, hey, like, if it's up to us, to sit down and say, hey, I want to talk with you a little bit about, you know, my relationship status or my relationships that I'm having with these people, but allow the kids to guide that conversation and ask questions, primarily because I think you might be surprised at what your kids already know about your relationship because they're observant and they know what's going on. And I think in today's day and age, they're probably more normalized to, as Kat said, other forms of family, other forms of love, other things that are besides heteronormative, mononormative type families. And so they may already be like, yeah, all right, cool, it doesn't really affect me. Everybody seems to be okay with this. But also, you don't want to over-stimulate or over-inform your children about anything. They will ask what they want to know and they will ask questions maybe all at once. They may ask questions over time. But allowing your children to guide that conversation, maybe providing them a little bit of, do you wonder about this or do you wonder about that to spark their thinking if they have anything to say? But by and large, I found that at least my kids are kind of like, yeah, all right. I would say that's true. A lot of people that I know that have older children, their kids are very quick to just be like, oh, well, mom, I don't care. Or, you know, I don't want details. And I think of it kind of in terms of like the worst parents who are dating, right? In that situation, like, I don't want to hear about your boyfriend, mom. Like, I don't care. Like, they're so enmeshed in their own world and their own growth and all this stuff that, like, they don't want to know until they want to know. And then they're going to come to you with questions to be like, hey, this is kind of weird. But I love what you said about love is love. Back to my earlier comment about setting the stage, I have a lot of books around different types of family. Like, this is our family. Love is love. And we can put those in the show notes. I'll give you a couple of links. But there's some great books out there that are just like, you know, my family's handicapped or my family has, you know, a grandma instead of a mom and all these different ways of doing that. And I think that's really awesome. I want to talk a little bit about how to talk to people at or how to talk to children at different age levels. Because we talked about being age appropriate with it. I have a unique situation where one of my children was extremely young, like not forming memories, young when my second partner came into our lives, right? So I believe she was like two and a half or three at that point. So she was very, very young. She didn't really have a lot of formative memories of that thing. So she's not really known a time before my partner was around. I refer to him as B. And I'll refer to my kids are currently seven and nine. So my youngest is seven and my oldest is nine. So I'll refer to them as seven and nine for the purpose of this recording. So there was not a time my seven did not know that, you know, this other partner existed. Whereas my nine did know a time before him, and it was kind of different. So as my younger child was growing up, I tried to keep it as simple and normalized as possible and very focused on the love and things like that. And we would say things like, oh, mommy has a friend that she really loves and cares about and stuff like that. And really, she never asked a lot of questions about who this other person was. She just kind of of thought about them as another adult that was active in our lives. And that was really great for her. I think she didn't really ask many questions at the time, but I did notice some of some of the internalizing that she was doing about our relationship started to come out in some comments. So there was one day where she was popping off to, like, I think like kindergarten or something. And she was like, you know, mommy, I don't really want to get married someday. And I was like, okay. And my kids are super smart. Not that, you know, anybody else's kids are not, but they're very astute in the way. She's like, I don't want to get married. I was like, that's cool. You don't have to get married. She's like, I think I just want like maybe like a girlfriend or maybe like two girlfriends and a lot of cats. And I was like, cool, baby girl. You go do your thing. So I would like that she was internalizing that being different was okay. She had yet to hit that like, this is normal. This is not normal. And yes, we have Disney princesses in our household. We're not like that kind of crunchy or anything. So they've seen multiple representations. But keeping those explanations, like, who is this person? Keep it very simple, very focus on just the love and the care, right? This is somebody that we really love. This is somebody that's important in our life. This is a very special friend. Things like that are really easy for young children to kind of understand. And then as they progress and get older, they might start to ask more detail questions. By the time they get to elementary age, they will. will start to ask them of those questions. They'll start to notice things. It might not be at the rate that you think they're noticing because again, they're very, I don't I say children are very self-centered, but right, they're their whole world and then you're the extension of their world. They are very self-focused in that way. I think that's like all of us, right? We're dealing with our own day-to-day, and so our children, they're going to school, they're worried about their friends, they're worried about, you know, whatever else is going on in their world. And so sometimes, just knowing that they have that supportive parent structure, mom and dad or mom and mom or dad or whatever it might be, that supportive parent structure is what they're really looking for. That, like, I'm safe here, I'm okay here, I have support, I have help, I have a friend, I have whatever it might be. But yeah, in that day-to-day, I'm always blown away when I talk to my littlest and about, you know, bigger things in the world. And he's just like, meh. Like, I just, like, I got my own things, dad. Like, I don't have, I don't have time to talk about these things. These things don't concern me right now. Interestingly enough, I had an uncle. An uncle is in air quotes here. And I'm going to come back to my quote unquote uncle. Um, I had an uncle that said to me around fourth grade. He goes, he was very intuitive. Uh, he was kind of weird in a different way, but he was very intuitive. And he came up to me and he goes, hey. I noticed your eyes have become open this year to the world around you. And it was such a unique statement to make to like a fourth grader that I, it stands out sharply in my memory that around fourth grade is really when I started making measurable memories and started opening my eyes to the rest of the world. And it wasn't just about me anymore. It's when I started noticing things around me a little bit more. And he caught on to that and kind of told me about that. And it kind of stuck out in me as like the fourth, fifth grade era is like, the fourth, fifth grade era is, where you do start to notice the things around you a little bit more. You're becoming more social. You're starting to expand your circle. And kind of some of that stuff is starting to happen. So interestingly enough, nine, nine is at that stage right now where she is starting to see how she fits into the basic structure of the social packing order and all that stuff around. So the main themes that I come back to with her is trust and openness, right? Like I have, you know, both my partners. These are adults you can trust. And I think back to my childhood and I know a lot of people shared this experience where you had close friends of the family. Like your mom's best friend was your aunt. She wasn't really your aunt, right? But you called her your aunt. Same thing with my uncle I just mentioned. There's a very close friend of my dad, right? So you grow up with kind of aunts and uncles and cousins that are not blood relatives, but they're part of your family in a way they're your chosen family. And I think about that a lot in similarity to. polyamory where you have, you know, aunts or uncles or whatever that are part of your chosen family and partners are kind of that way. So I like to frame it as this is another trusted adult that we love, that's part of our family structure. We treat them with respect and kindness like we do with everybody. And it's really a nice picture of being like this is just part of our extended family structure. Whether they're an integrated part of your family, maybe they're da-da versus, you know, dad or Papa or some other type of name. Maybe it's more integrated where they're living with you. But in our case, you know, we have a special name for my other partner and that's, you know, what the kids know him as. And it's basically like having another uncle. My daughter actually said to me the other day, oh, it's like uncle so-and-so, daddy's friend who is not a blood uncle, but she kind of clicked it together in that way of like, this is another trusted adult that is closer than just a casual friend. It is somebody in our inner circle. So I do want to acknowledge, like I said, that this is the age where they do start to notice and they do start to ask questions. And if you're showing up publicly in spaces back to our previous episode about how you're showing up with your polyamory, their friends might start to notice or, you know, there might be people in their social circle that's starting to expand that notice or have questions. and they will get those questions directed at them. So this is definitely a place where you start to see that shift of awareness happen, and you need to sometimes have more proactive conversations. Especially because that shift is going to be very monotormative, right? As your kids age into middle school, particularly, that's when they're starting to notice each other, their boyfriend, girlfriend, or whatever it might be. And if you have an active social house where kids are in and out of the house, they may see pictures. You may have your other partners around. And those are the types of things where those children are struggling to understand that dynamic against the dynamic they have at their home. And it's going to feel very weird. Yeah, I actually have a little story about that that I'm going to save for segment number two when we talk about the next section. But it is definitely this time from here to middle school where those. questions are going to start coming up and you've got to be prepared for them. If you have an older one, a teenager, they're going to have a lot more detailed questions, especially because they are also figuring themselves out in their relational world. Who are they relating to? How should they relate to them? They're also going to be very heavily influenced by their environment and what that is. And so I have struggled in this area where my oldest is not necessarily supportive of Polly Amory, in the sense that this is weird, this is different, she has a lot of mononormative mythos and a lot of mononormative belief structure, which is 100% fine. But that conversation is going to be a little bit different because they are more aware. They are more aware not just of themselves and relationships, but the world around them. They're going to understand relationship dynamics. they're probably going to understand a lot more than maybe you think. They're going to understand concepts like consent and respect and emotional intelligence. And so allowing, still allowing them not to inundate them or lecture them about your relationship style, but just make them aware of that your relationship world, what that looks like, and allowing them to ask questions, giving them the detailed answers that they need. But I think this is also a place where as they start to form their, their more permanent relationship style, this is also a place to reinforce your family's values, your values around relationship and love, and also to reinforce that there are many, many ways in which you can love someone and what that might look like. Yeah, I think for people who are new to polyamory, if you're starting your polyamorous journey, which I think for a lot of us, we start it later in life, right? You didn't go into your 20s being polyamorous, or you didn't call it that. you maybe just called it like getting around or, you know, having lots of partners. But I think the word polyamory and really trying to make formative relationship choices happens in your, I would say, mid to late 30s or older. So there's a good chance that you're starting your polyamory journey or really getting into it when your children are teenagers, right? And in a similar way to people who get to forest or separate or everything like that, It's just different from what they've known before that, which can be potentially more jarring than if they're younger, like my children were when I started my polyamorous training. So it's important to know that it may not be that they have a problem with polyamory per se. It's just another thing that's changing at a time in their life when they're already dealing with lots of changes. Like the added pressures of schooling being harder, the added pressures of friends, maybe learning to drive, also making big decisions about their future hormones. oh my God, the hormones. Like, there's so many other things going on in their life that it may hit them harder at this stage just because there's so much else going on. It's not simply coloring in a coloring book and then riding my bike outside at this stage. So just hold space for them that it might take them a little bit longer because it is a disruption from what they knew before. And their social circles are all going through that same thing. So just think about yourself at saturation or yourself at capacity where like, like you just get to that point of stress and frustration, and you don't have room or space for that. But also, this is also a place where maybe mental well-being and understanding and being more open can not probably be the case for your stressful team and your angsty team, as it might be. So they're going to be yielding and trying to navigate judgment and social pressures, which is what we're going to talk about in the next section. You are looking for a little extra support in managing your time and responsibilities. Magic AI has got you covered. Their virtual assistants can handle scheduling, planning, and more. Perfect for busy polycules that have no time left in their calendars for managing everybody's time. I personally loved my experience with my matched assistant so much and really feel like she's changed my life for the better. Check them out today using our referral link in the show notes and get $2,000 worth of magic for free. All right, so let's dig a little bit deeper into those external judgments and social pressures that are going to impact how your children view polyamory in general. It is really important to proactively kind of think about this stuff and provide some empowering strategies for both you, your partners, and the children to kind of confidently handle questions and judgment. If you do have resources in your family currently, like say you have therapists or even polyfriendly therapist or family counseling or counseling services or anything like that, that are polyfriendly, I'll stress that point because I have a horror story later to tell you, those might be good resources for you to try to role play a little bit and figure out how you're going to address this with your children, right? It's really hard to go at parenting alone, right? There's thousands of parenting books out there. There's thousands of ways to do stuff. But really, this is a unique situation, right? This is not something that's covered in regular parenting lore and what to expect when you're expecting, right? So maybe therapists are a great resource for you to just kind of learn a little bit more about it and kind of craft your own approach. I do recommend role-playing scenarios with your kids. Similar to the way I do when I'm talking to my kids about safety, like what do you do if a stranger comes up to you, right? You role-play those scenarios so that they are prepared and they can feel confident. it in the responses. So what do you do if somebody asks about Mommy's friend? What would you say? And just ask them those open questions. Like, what would you say? And they'll tell you and you're going to say, yeah, that's exactly right. Or maybe you shouldn't say it that way. I think we might need to have a little bit more of an understanding on what we should say in that situation. So having those conversations could be really helpful with your children to just prepare them because eventually someone is going ask a question, right? And you don't want to put your kids in the spot to have to be the source of truth there. But the reality is, like, the whole, like, oh, you have to ask mommy thing. That's not going to work if they're with their friends, right? That's not going to work if they're at school and the teacher asked them a question. Like, you do have to arm them with some knowledge so that they're comfortable, you know, responding. Or comfortable just saying, you know, I don't really know. You'd have to ask my mom. Like, depending on their age, that might be the appropriate response if they're quite young. make sure you have allies with yourself, find your community, make sure that, you know, if they're in a situation like that, someone else can help them answer if they're not sure or something like that. Make sure you foster their own sense of resilience and comfort with your families, love, values, morals, all that kind of stuff. They should know what your family stands for and what you guys are about. I grew up in a Catholic upbringing, so morals and values are something we talked about a lot. But even in a non-religious family, you probably have things. I always say when my kids walk out the door, make sure you're kind. Be kind to everybody you meet. Or let's be kind today. So kindness is one of our internalized family values. So this is a great place to kind of refresh on those and say like our value is we treat people with respect. We treat people with kindness. We're always kind to each other. I think that overlaps into how they talk about relationships. It is also okay at this point to talk to your kids about setting boundaries. So assuming you've had conversations with them about their personal safety and their boundaries around their body, I love our doctors because they're always like, no one's allowed to touch you there, make sure you know that. Similar can be said about how they talk about your family. You can set boundaries respectfully and say, I'm really not comfortable talking about that. And that's okay for them to say, right? They can be assertive and say, I'm not comfortable talking about that, or I'd rather not talk about that. if they're not comfortable discussing, you know, basically their relationship structure, that's perfectly okay. So empower your children with those responses to allow them to be assertive. And if somebody's being negative towards them, they empower them to walk away. Say, I don't need to be in this conversation. I'm going to go. And that's a really good way for them to sidestep a lot of that negativity they might experience. Having that supportive narrative or that supportive story for your children is going to help them deal with the inevitable negativity and intrusiveness that's going to come from peer pressure, especially at a heteronormative, mononormative, growing up structure. So having something simple that focuses on the values of your family rather than what does your family look like helps them to normalize why we love each other, what we do in our loving relationship with each other versus what do we do. look like as a family unit. Just as we talked about earlier, families now look very, very different. There's divorces. There's remarriages. There's there's dating. There's multiple moms, multiple dads. There's lots of different ways that families look. And I think more and more, even in a heteronormative mindset, there's still that understanding of, oh, okay, yeah, I understand what that might mean. It is also important that you hold space within your family, especially as parents, to allow your kids to come to you and express their frustrations or their curiosities when they're facing those external pressures or that judgment from their friends or from a bully or from their teacher so that they can come back and talk with you so that you have the opportunity to say, oh yeah, like that, I've been through that. I know what that's like. Here's a place you can go. Or that sucks. I really, I hate that experience for you. Let me see if I can't help you with that. but being able to, again, use your family values of love, especially in polyamory where we do not believe that love is a finite resource, giving them that space where they can talk about it, letting them know that they are also part of this experience is really important. But here's the real thing. Just like boundaries and agreements and discussions and evolutions in your polyamory, be ready and prepared to revisit and adapt this story, and adapt this narrative for your kids as they get older, as they ask more questions, as you change your pollicule and what that might look like, so that your support for your kids through their own kind of polyamru-related journey continues to be supportive, and it continues to be relevant. If things are no longer relevant in your relationship, it's okay that we revisit those in many aspects of polyamory, but also within this family structure. I wanted to share two different stories. One's positive and one's negative about how my kids have experienced and how we as a polycule have experienced kind of social reaction through my children to our polyamorous relationship. I'll share the sad one first. The sad one has to deal with a therapist. So nine, my nine, has been in therapy for a while because of something medical related. So it's medical related therapy and she's been seeing counsel for a little. long time. We've had a couple of different counselors at this point. But interestingly enough, we had this counselor that we'd been seeing for a year, and, you know, sessions were fine. She wasn't the greatest, but it was what we needed at the time. And towards the end, my daughter was struggling with a fallout from something that her grandma had done that was a direct relation to her of holly amory. She had said some things about my partner and, you know, basically it caused trouble for the family, and my daughter was rightfully upset about it. brought it up in therapy, and the therapist kind of short-circuited and said, wait, I don't understand. Are you both, like, still married? Because up until this point, we had not brought my other partner, even though he's a fixture in our life. He had not really been part of the therapy experience with her. She then proceeded to go home and do what she called research on polyamory, and then spent, I would say no less than three sessions. She demanded to meet the other partner, So, of course, he agreed, and we all came in together. We spent no less than three sessions talking about polyamory with this therapist. And what we got out of the experience was because it was a curiosity to her, she no longer was giving my daughter the care that she needed, and it really became less about her. And she tried to link almost everything that was wrong with my daughter back to being polyamorous, which because this was a medical therapy type of arrangement was very strange because it had absolutely nothing to do with the actual medical diagnosis that she had received, which was physical, not mental. I have to point that part out. I don't know how else to say without exposing my daughter, but she has a physical issue. And this therapist was supposed to be dealing with that. But instead, she pivoted to talk about basically our polyamory for several sessions, basically wasting everybody's time. And it was not a great experience. We ended up switching therapist because she just could not get over it. And she's like, I've been a therapist for a long time and I have never heard of anything like this. And she's like, she tried to like be nice and upbeat about it, but you could tell it was really bothering her. And we ended up exiting that therapist and finding a new therapist, which the new therapist is definitely more focused on my daughter, less focused on our family unit. But we led with that information the next time. time around because, you know, we can learn. So just be aware that those kinds of things can happen, right? And you're going to have to deal with that and navigate those safely for your family and do what's best for everybody. But some people still just won't be able to get over it, right? And that could come at your child. That could come, you know, whatever. She was very quick, this therapist was very quick to push us to tell everybody. And that, you know, we were keeping secrets by not disclosing it to everybody we knew, which, told me she didn't understand really the risks involved. And she's like, well, you should tell everybody, you should tell the school, you should tell everybody everywhere about this so that the kids are not, you know, put in the place of trying to defend you. And I was like, you don't get it. So anyway, on the positive side of it, I actually had a conversation with my older daughter, nine, this week about the situation. And I asked her point, Blake, I go, who is mommy's I'm like, who is he to us? And she's like, oh, he's our friend. And I said, okay, but do you know who he is? Like, really? And she goes, well, yeah, he's your boyfriend. She's like, but when I talk about him to other people, I just say he's mommy's friend. And I'm like, okay, that's great. That's great that you do that. Because sometimes my other partner will pick the kids up off the bus or he'll pick them up from school or activities. Like, he is very active in their lives, so he's visible. And I said, okay, is that, is that fine? I'm like, do you, do you understand that that's not necessarily normal? And she goes, yeah, but, you know, that's kind of why we have the pride parade, right? Love is love and you can do whatever you want and love whoever you want. It doesn't really matter. And I go, do any of your friends understand that? Like, because she has a best friend. And she goes, actually, yes, my best friend does understand that because her mom was dating someone and that's why her parents got divorced. And I kind of, I kind of was like, all right, I get it, but that's not quite the same thing. She goes, no, no, I understand the differences. So she is evolving to that point of understanding that it is a little bit different, but that doesn't mean bad, and how to navigate those conversations with their friends. So her best friend actually knows completely that, you know, this is, you know, my boyfriend, but everything's fine. You know, nobody got divorced. Nobody's getting divorced. This is not a secret. This is all on the up and up. And I thought that was a very nice story for her to share with me. She's like, oh, I understand because my friend understands and my friend understands, therefore, my friend is giving me validity back that this is all okay and all fine. So you might find unlikely allies for your children. Like if your children know how do you talk about it, they might, I don't want to say fight their own battles, but they might have their own way of communicating it that is simpler than how you communicate it to them, that makes complete sense and allows them to continue those relationships because they're not the odd man out. They're not the weirdo in the group that has weird parents. I would say kids are still mean, but kids these days are a little bit more accepting of this kind of stuff because it's kind of everywhere, right? There's all kinds of different ways of doing that stuff. So those are my two little positive but negative of ways this could shake out for your kids. I do think that it's also kind of your vibe will attract your tribe, right? We're raising our kids with our values. They're going to find children and friends of similar values. And so the conversations may be a little bit easier. It's like anything dealing in polyamry, it's when you approach people that we don't know that this can get a little bit messy. 100%. Yeah, we definitely have friends of the family where their kids love our kids. and the parents know and they just don't care and they just go and vibe with it. Thanks for listening to the episode so far. Let's talk about something that's been a lifesaver in the middle of this beautiful, busy, polyamory life, and that is staying hydrated and energized. Let's be real. Between managing multiple relationships, keeping up with work, parenting, and just squeezing in a little bit of self-care, it's easy to forget the basics, like drinking enough and staying hydrated. And that's where Drink Element comes in. That's Drink Element, L-M-N-T. It's an electrolyte replacement drink that's become my go-to for feeling good, no matter how hectic things get. Whether it's bouncing between dates, coordinating schedules with multiple partners, or just surviving the day-to-day hustle, Element helps me stay connected and focused on the people that matter most of me. And it's not just hydration. It's clean hydration, with an emphasis on the salt, your body needs, there's no sugar or artificial junk. It's just the right science-based balance of electrolytes to keep your body and your mind fueled. Personally, right now I'm obsessed with the citrus salt flavor, and I recommend it. Here's the best part. Because you're listening to the Polypathways podcast, Element is offering you a free sample pack of their top flavors with your first purchase. Just go to the affiliate link in the show notes and get yours today. Trust me what I tell you. The staying hydrated should not be another thing to stress out about in this whirlwind of polyamory. Drink element makes that easy. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Now let's get back to the episode. Relationship dynamics in polyamory can certainly impact your family stability as well, right? Whether you're an integrated polycule and doing kitchen table stuff or your parallel or things like that, I definitely want to call out this is super duper important. You do not have to have your partners have visibility to your children. They do not have to have a relationship with your children. This is not hashtag goals, right? This is not the end game. This is not anything at all. Like, you can choose to live a healthy polyamorous lifestyle where you have multiple partners. And those partners can never be involved with your children. That is perfectly acceptable to have that type of parallel relationship. My former girlfriend never met my children. I never met her children. that was not part of our relationship. That was something we agreed to in the beginning, that we were going to see each other. And that was not going to be what was an element of our relationship. Right. And we can always revisit that at a later stage if we did want to do that. But for the purpose of our relationship, we're like, no, we just want to enjoy each other's company. We just want to be together. And we don't want our children involved with that. So that is really important. You do not have to have the end goals of becoming an integrated and in a mesh family. Spoiler alert, there's actually a great documentary that just dropped on TLC with Polyfamory. That lovely group is an integrated family, and not to call them out, but they're wonderful, amazing people, and I love watching your Polycule. So that is an integrated family, but that does not have to be your experience. You can go either way. You can introduce some partners and not other partners. All of that can kind of impact your family's stability. If your family is going through some stuff on their own, medical things, big changes, moving, things like that, That's certainly not a good time to introduce additional partners and additional layers of complexity. So be aware of the timing and things like that. I'm glad that you said that because that's where I am with my pollicule. So my family is going through my own medical journey and there's a lot going on. So it's, I don't feel as though my partner or partners integrating with my kids is necessarily, our hashtag goals. It's an open goal. If it makes sense at the time, it makes sense for everyone. That's me, partners, children, and what they want. Everybody's got agency here. But I think that that's important to understand that, yeah, you may be excited about this person coming into your life. However, you may have a lot going on. Maybe this isn't the right time. Kids aren't, they do not have infinite resource to deal with all of the changes in their own lives, much less the life of their parents maybe going through some medical things or job things and then also by the way here are new people to get to know. They can make your family dynamics complicated, right? So if you're adding in all these people or even if you have a partner that's there for three months and there's a lot of changes going on, I'm thinking of integrating my partner and how much more difficult it made family gatherings, right? Because my partner is a fully present person within my children's lives, but there are still family gatherings where he's not allowed and he is not welcome, you know, just because it's abnormal and there's people that are uncomfortable and they're vocal about it and they're just very unaccepting of that. So this can kind of shake out in a lot of different ways. And it is important to kind of think about that, that there will be changes to your relationships and how you navigate them is also going to impact your children. The goal here, right, is to make sure that your children have stability. They're forming healthy and safe attachments with you as a parent or with your polychule as extended parenting because this is your family of choice, however that might be. However, there are realities within polyamory that we do need to help our children to understand or maybe potentially insulate them for. So I'm just going to put my bias right out there so that you understand where I'm kind of. coming from as I talk about these relationship changes. I do not integrate my partners with my children unless it's been a while. My children are okay with that. And it's something that we all agree to. It's not that we're not close off to it. It's an absolutely not, but it is, it is something we're very careful with to make sure that everybody understands. I do have a co-parenting situation. So I'm mindful of that social political dynamic within the family as well to not make things, to not upset the apple cart, to not poke the bear as it were, but also not give kids confusing and conflicting messages. It's important, too, that I communicate these changes with my co-parent so that she understands what's happening, but also that she becomes a resource in my children's lives if something's going on. and they may not feel comfortable bringing it to me, but they might feel comfortable bringing it to her. I don't want it to be a surprise. So relationship changes are important. So there's a whole idea of adding a new partner. So I've, you know, dad's got a new friend that he, dad's seeing or, you know, it's not like, oh my gosh, I got a date. Let's tell my kids about it. That's not what's happening. But if somebody's been around for a while, this is dad's new friend or this is dad's friend and what that might be. But that, that's kind of how I encourage. inform my children of things. And if they've been around for a while, they're going to hear their name more and more. They may start to see a picture or two around the house. They're going to see a text message or a phone call, if we're in the car, or if we're just hanging out in the house or whatever it might be. So they'll know somebody's around. So making sure that the kids know that somebody's there. And also inform, at least in my situation, letting them know, hey, this isn't a person I'm asking you to meet. This isn't a person that's going to be around. This isn't a person that's going to be moving in. We'll talk about that in a quick minute. That this isn't a person that's going to upset the dynamic of our small family and what we need to do. This is also something that I inform partners or new partners of right away. Hey, look, I am not looking for a child raising entanglement here. I am happy as time goes on to talk about meeting your kids or you meeting my kids if they're okay with that and what that might look like and being really careful and structured. So it's not just a pop by the house, oh, hey, this is mom's new friend. For me, that's counter to my values and also a little bit of trash behavior. But I am very deliberate in how I introduce people to my children. I'm very careful about what that means. This person needs to be somebody significant and long term in my life. And it's not just like, oh, hey, this is mom's new friend, and they pop by the house every day, and, you know, they hang out with us. Like, you know, that's counter to my values. I don't necessarily find that to be behavior that I would like as a child, and I certainly don't appreciate as an adult. So escalations are also something that you want to consider in your stability and attachment with your children, especially in polyamry as relationships evolve, as they become more stable. and more long term, your children are going to notice different escalations. In my own case, I have, as I've had escalations because of my health journey, my partner is somebody who takes me to the hospital or takes me to appointments when I need to do that. And there are times where that may mean that my kids see a different car out front. It might mean that they notice that something's going on or they might just hear me say, oh, hey, partner is taking me to, the hospital or partner is going to be with me for surgery so that they know what it is. Escalations can also be perceived by children differently. Maybe they start to notice that there's more stuff around the house or whose stuff is that in the bathroom or why is there a picture here. And so allowing for your children to have that safe space to ask those questions about what they perceive as an escalation is really super important. And then when you're ready to talk about your that you have that stable environment. There's also the unfortunate reality of breakups, and I, having just gone through a breakup, have had to deal with this change in relationship status and try to rebuild the stability within my small family. This breakup was rather sudden. It was rather acrimonious. It was unexpected and confusing. For me, as an adult, for my young child, it took. a little while for it to think in with my kid. And so we're still dealing with that and creating that stability. But if you've built in what we've talked about all along with stability and love and attention and openness, being able to sit back and have my young one bring me questions like, you know, why did this happen? This isn't a good thing, right? these aren't good choices or this person isn't a good or safe person for us, right, is really important. And being able to talk through those things is important. So be prepared if you're looking at a relationship change that your kids are going to notice. Yeah, and expect them to have feelings about that, right? Like, they're going to have feelings. Like, if that person was a positive influence in their life, they're going to feel bad that that person is no longer around. If they were a negative influence in their life, they might be glad that they're gone and be very happy. that the person isn't longer around, which unfortunately puts you in the awkward position where you're still grieving that relationship. And they're like, oh, I'm so glad that person's no longer around. Well, one note I really want to call out about about breakups and how they do impact the children is previously, I had a partner when my children were very young. My youngest was actually a baby. And I was very close with this partner. And they actually didn't like children. Well, they never came out and said that, but I always got the impression they really didn't like children. Like, they wanted to be around me. They didn't want to be around my people and my children. And I was not as versed in polyamory as I am now. But I was enmeshed with their family. Their mother actually became a caregiver for my children when we had a daycare issue. So my children got very close with my partner's mom. And she was a fixture in their life for a couple of years leading up to COVID. And when we no longer wanted to continue our relationship, it put all of us in kind of an awkward spot because I really enjoyed her. I didn't have a problem with her. But I no longer wanted to be, you know, in a circle or in any type of relationship, friendship or otherwise, with her son because of what had happened. And it was really challenging to walk through that type of breakup because when you break up with somebody that you've known, we had known each other for several years. you do feel that loss, right? You feel the loss of not just them, but they're extended circle and their family members, if you became close with their family members. And this has made me extremely cautious about when and how I choose to introduce partners to my family. So going back to Doc's earlier point, I don't do it right away. I wait quite a bit of time before I introduced them. I believe it was six to eight months before I introduced my children to my current partner. And previous to that, I had known him for several years as well. So it was very slow. It was very gradual. I'm not saying that that's the right or wrong way, but know that these transitions can be kind of jarring on children. Everyone knows that, you know, when kids experience divorce, you know, that's jarring because it's upheaving the apple cart. But in polyamory, there's more opportunity for kind of those escalations and de-escalations and breakups and changes and things to happen. That's just more change and changes hard on anybody. So be aware of how those relationships are going to be impacted if something eventually does dissolve and what's going to come back out of that. Let's talk a little bit more about the emotional and practical impacts of these dynamic sensuals. I know he just went over the breakup stuff, but really it comes back to basic, you know, good polyamory, quote, rules or... Also, just emotionally mature parenting. Yes, let's go with that. Good emotionally mature parenting. Good humanism. So open communication, holding space for feelings, addressing questions with openness and love instead of reactive behavior, you know, walking through any issues, problems, concerns, really listening, actively listening to your children, which is so, so hard, really being open to what they're saying. You know, if they're feeling a type of way about it, it's not a personal attack on you. It's just how they're feeling about it. Lean into those routines and normalcy and all that kind of stuff. Try to make it as normal for them as possible. You know, try to make this very smooth. And really give your child agency. Yes, they are children and yes, they're not going to know everything, and yes, they're not always going to make the best choice, but give them the opportunity, give them the agency, let them make choices. They might surprise you or they might hold out and wait for something. I seem to remember a sitcom from my youth where the parents, got divorced and then the TV parents would go out and date somebody else and they were like forcing their new partners on their children. Like you have to be friends. You have to hang out. And it's always the most awkward experience ever, right? Because the kids are like, I don't want to hang out with your new boyfriend, mom. Why are you making me do this? And think of that when you're when you're introducing your new partners to your children, right? You don't want to take away their agency to be around people that they don't want to be around, right? Give them the opportunity. But if they turn it down, don't take it as a personal attack and don't take it as the end-all be-all, you might have another opportunity. You can create another opportunity. Make sure you still give them that agency to have control over their environment and who they want in it. This really hits for me because I do leave this to full agency and my children when they want to meet someone or not. My youngest, prior to the breakup, my youngest had expressed an interest in meeting my other partner because this person's been around. They've been helping me through my journey, my health journey. And then, unfortunately, there was a lot of relationship changed and then eventually a breakup with my prior partner, which has left my youngest really feeling a lot of negative and hard feelings towards meeting anyone in his life. Because in his words, and it's very emotionally aware sense, I don't want to meet somebody and have them go away suddenly. And that sucks because the way that breakup was handled was actually. absolutely incorrect. But what can you do? Now we just got to deal with the, now we got to deal with the fallout. But that agency piece is really, really critical because they are actual human beings with thoughts and beliefs and ideas, whether they're fully formed or not. Allowing them to have that agency is going to prevent a lot of trouble down the road. I have done it the other way. Like, hey, there's somebody I'd like you to meet. That didn't necessarily go the way that I wanted it to go. So that's okay. Another aspect of creating stability and healthy attachment with your kids is, as we've talked about throughout this, being able to create consistency and clarity for your children within your polycule. And one of the tools that I really enjoy using a lot because it helps me personally, but also we're a neurodiverse household. So we know that predictability, consistency are really, really critical. So having predictable daily and weekly routines provide that security, provide that normalcy, provide that sense of I know what's going to come next so that I can deal with all this other uncertainty in my life. And the more consistent and the more predictable your routines are, the more you're going to be able to handle things that are outside of routines. So as we talked about, for example, if I have to suddenly go into the hospital for a health thing, that I have a normal routine gives me the strong foundation by which I can break that and say, okay, so today's a day where dad has to have a partner pick him up and take him in to the clinic to be supported by the medical professionals there. And this is the change that's going to happen. By the way, that's not, doesn't only just help me and my kiddo. It also helps my co-parent and my partner. It is really important to clearly define your caregiving role. of your children consistency and clarity, right? So if you are going to have your partner be involved in activities like picking up from school, driving to sports, all that kind of stuff, make sure your children understand, you know, who is going to be picking them up from soccer or who's going to be dropping them off at baseball and they have the understanding of who that person's going to be so that they know they can trust that person, right? It's about trust. Do they trust the person that's going to be picking them up to be on time and to do exactly what they need to do. I think that can be really helpful. It's helpful for us. We have a shared calendar so everybody knows where everybody's going to be at any given time and we're clear with the communication on what they can expect out of the partners. Like so-and-so is going to pick you up from basketball and make you dinner and then mommy and daddy are going to be home later, that kind of way. I think that helps a little bit with kind of their what's going on mentality. Absolutely. Making sure that you're clearly communicating expectations with your with your children, the boundaries, even allowing your children to say, I'd like to establish some boundaries here. So here, an example for my real life is that my partner stays here on occasion. My youngest boundary was, I don't want this person to be in my room. Not wasn't an issue to begin with, but it's a boundary that was established. Cool. We can all agree to that. So allowing that to be the case. but also if that's, if your situation isn't like mine, allowing for those expectations to be set together as a family, whether it's through, whether it's directly or indirectly from like kids to parents, parents to follicle, or all together, establishing those boundaries with your children and with your partner like, hey, look, if something's going on. So if something's going on with this person and you need to talk to me about it, this is, this is how we can get my attention. This is who you talk to about these things, that you can talk to anybody about these things, whatever that might be, and the roles of each adult within the family. So for me, in my situation right now, it's about being respectful, understanding that this person is an adult. And if there's no entanglement or enmesh here, but if they were to ask for something to be done, then that would be the expectation. But I think just having those clear conversations about, I think, Kat, your situation is probably very different, where Uncle, so-and-so is if he asks the children to do something, it's probably very much like you asking the children to do something. It's that enmeshment is so, that enmeshment is so present that this is just another parent in the household. And I admire that and want that to be the case. But I think making sure that your children and your partners have clear expectations about what your family dynamic looks like, what the boundaries and roles for each person and each adult are, is really helpful because it will be confusing for kids. especially when it comes to things like conflict or question or worry and knowing that they can always come to you. So in my family, we have a code word. So if they need, if either of my kiddos need my attention in a social situation or a conflict situation, they can use this code word to get a hold of me to be like, okay, this is serious, I got to go and deal with this. I like that. I like having a code word. It is really important to know who has what role with family and how those change over time. But I also want to kind of stress that parenting is hard, and you might not always have the emotional spoons to deal with something. I love having an additional trusted adult that is available to my children that maybe they're not comfortable bringing something to me, or maybe it's a problem that they don't think I can help them with. It's always nice to have another trusted adult that they can take a problem to or an issue too. Or maybe they have an issue with me or maybe they have an issue, you know, with their dad. They have this other person that's there for them and they can talk to them about anything. My other partner has unique interests that are different from mine and my husbands, but everybody has different interests in our household too. So if my kids get super into something very nichey that my partner is into, Actually, I can use Minecraft as an example. No one in my house plays Minecraft except my kids and my boyfriend. So when they all get together on the couch and they have in depth in conversations about Minecraft and what they're building in Minecraft, I love that and that's something that they can share together. And I think that enriches their relationship, right? They're still having this great relationship with each other. And if they have questions or concerns or maybe they're playing online and somebody says something weird, maybe they want to go to the person that they share that. versus, you know, bringing it to mom who doesn't understand. You just don't understand the Minecraft world. And I'm like, you know what? I don't go talk about creepers with, you know, your other person. I think that's really great. And it's really great when you can all work together, when the parents can work together as a unit in that way. So when we're planning trips together, when we're having big conversations about family dynamics, about how we're going to deal with things, when health stuff comes up or future planning comes up, It is great for the kids to witness you having open, respectful, and cooperative communication with multiple adults, right? They don't get that illustration very often. How often do kids get to see multiple adults in a room having collaborative conversations? Probably never, right? They learn from a teacher, which is usually a single human, or an assembly, or, you know, a coach, or whoever a singular point is. but watching healthy communication happen among adults is super powerful for children. So if you have that in your harmonious family relationship where you're having open and honest conversations about important things with them or even just near them, they're going to see that and they're going to internalize that and they're going to bring that with them for it in their lives, which I think is really, really a nice perk of polyamory when you have those types of dynamics. It's an absolute benefit to children to be able to see adults working together. they're maturely and responsibly because it's going to help them grow to be emotionally mature people that aren't going to be a victim to their whims or their emotions or their fears. They're going to be able to know that they can count on people and count on themselves because they have a model by which to follow to have a congenial conversation with somebody as opposed to freaking out and running away. I think it is important and one of the most important things we do as a parent is to empower our children. with tools that will help them be happier and healthier and more successful in their lives. So communication is a big part of that. Thank you all for joining us today. It was great to talk about all things, the children, and why, why we won't think of the children. It was great to walk through some of the ways to do open and honest communication, as well as how to deal with external judgments and social pressures, and then how to really create that stability and healthy attachment for them. in the future. We, as always, we encourage you to engage in some self-reflection at the end of this episode, maybe have open conversations and discussions within your own molecule and your family. And here's a radical bit of advice. Go talk to your kids. Go talk to your kids. It might not be about this, but I feel like as parents, we are all caught in the machine and we don't often make enough time to just sit and talk and listen. I really love still to this day having many tea parties with my kids where we just sit and talk for a little bit and eat little sandwiches and talk about nothing or talk about everything. So try to make some time this week. If this is the only thing you take away from this episode to go spend a little bit of one on time with your kids. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing and follow us at Poly Pathways podcast on all the social medias that you enjoy.
