I have a strong opinion about this subject, which I will share, but before I do I want to express that it is just that. It is an opinion. I do not have children of my own, but I do have children that I live with 50 percent of the time. These children belong to my life partner, who I live with. He raises his children the way that he needs and wants to. I have no say on what his children know or don't know about us or him, but I am left in the loop.
First off, I'll say children aren't stupid. They are much more intelligent than we give them credit for. They are empathetic and feed off of the adults around them. Living with and being close to my partner's children for so many years I learned that very quickly. They know when something isn't right, they always pick up on it. If the parents or adults in their lives aren't happy, they aren't happy.
Another thing that I believe about children is teaching them to be who they want to be and to never apologize or be ashamed of it. If you are truly yourself in front of your children, they can follow by example and see that what they choose for their life is okay as long as they are happy and not hurting anyone. Of course, there is a line when it comes to this lifestyle. Children who are very young can't understand a lot of this. So choosing not to be open to younger children makes sense. There is also adult time and non-adult time. And the people in your life have to be very understanding of this. You always choose your boundaries with what you show to your children, but I think it's important that they see you are open-minded and accepting because you love them. Lead by example and show how accepting you are.
You should always choose what is best for your child(ren) and what makes you comfortable with them. But what does it say about your acceptance of them if you can't respectfully and appropriately share who you are with them? If you can't share who you are and who you love, what makes you think they will do the same with you?
Advocate for your children to be open by showing them they have a choice, and that they should never be ashamed of making it.
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Children are always a sensitive subject in our lifestyles. Which we choose to be ‘alternative’ from typical society’s views on relationships. But I agree children are not fools, but also that those who are young or not mature enough should be ‘kept in the dark’ to an extent. My husband and I are poly with a live in. Our 6yr old son, is very mature for his age, we want him to learn that a relation ship is something you choose the dynamics of not society. Society has for too long feed us the absurd notions it thinks we should be teaching our children. Yet we should be teaching them to look beyond. Family to our son is a very open word. Its people who love and care about each other. And currently includes ‘biological’ as well as our extended Polly family which is made up of, another 3 (adult) polly family, with 5 full time children and 2 part time. and 2 other open polly families with 2 children each.
This is a topic I struggle to get my head around sometimes. Jake and I have always had a very open and honest view of sex education for our children. No question goes unanswered or avoided as is so often the case. We have taken advantage of living in a semi-rural environment and allowed nature’s activities and those of our poultry flock to guide our children to a very healthy understanding of how a baby is made.
When it comes to sex amongst the humans though it is a little more challenging. My eight year old daughter discovered a condom in our car one day and quizzed me on it’s use. Being an inquisitive soul she wasn’t happy with the explanation of ‘it is used to stop babies from being made’ She wanted a full box and dice description of how and where and got a sex mechanics lesson for her trouble.
We are always careful with our play partners not to express affection in front of the children although sometimes we are a little relaxed. I worry that our kids will grow up thinking it is normal for all adults to greet each other by kissing on the lips and I am not sure how I will impress that it isn’t always on them when it is necessary. Especially Miss 8 who will not take “it is just not done” as an explanation.
We are determined to present non-monogamy in a positive light but I do worry that doing this may be misinterpreted as a green light to go out and have sex with anyone and everyone with little thought to the emotional and physical consequences. I also worry that my children’s friends may not be as open minded as them due to their own upbringing and this may cause them grief.
This is a topic I struggle with as well. I am an honest and ethical swinger as well. And I don’t like to live my life with lies. But in the lifestyle, lies are necessary due to judgment of others. A big reason that we protect our identities so well is that we never want someone to say, “we will not permit our children to come to your house because of your sexual habits.” Or our kid gets shunned from a birthday party because of our actions and so on. Until our children are almost adults themselves, we have to keep secrets from them as well to ensure they won’t tell their friends who might tell their parents and so on. So as much as we want to be sex positive, we would need to teach our kids to lie then if they knew more.
I like the attitude taken by Ally from Swingercast that we can be open and encouraging that sex is a wonderful thing and assure our children that we have healthy and happy sexual relationships, but we do not need to provide details, as we wouldn’t if we were monogamous either. Kids don’t want to know the details of our sex life. They want to know what sex is and if we are happy I think. Or as a friend says to her children, “If it is important to you to know that information, I will explain it to you. But first you need to ask yourself if it is really something that you want to know.” We have to be careful in providing more details than kids are ready for.
I do worry as my children are entering their tween and teenage years what they will notice about our friends, our entertaining habits, etc. But I think the rules from above still apply–I think most of all they want to know that we are happy and solid in our relationship. And I will stress that love and happiness occur in many different structures and there is not one right way. Their interest in sex and what it is tends to be more about them than about us, so I’ll talk about sex on their terms, not mine. I think we can be sex positive but private about our own relations–and doing so is not contradictory.