One thing I'm wondering about - does age or primary responsibility issue make any difference for Lis?
I really really really really don't ever want to be pregnant, and I also know that being one of the people primarily responsible for a child under the age of about 6 would be incredibly horrible for me. (and them, and for anyone else who had to deal with me: I do very badly with sleep deprivation, and I do very badly with unreliable demands.)
But I do feel sort of differently about kids I can either give back at night, or past the age of about 6. (Old enough to be able to amuse themselves safely in some settings, be able to say what they need, etc.) And I'm looking forward to borrowing my neices for a while as they get older.
And in that setting I could see kids in a poly setting working really well, where you could potentially work out levels of interaction that worked for both of you.
(In my case, we're lucky: my husband feels the same basic way.)
I'm also reminded of someone I know. He, at the time, had been living in a mostly-commune, where there were something like 5 kids around, for a number of years. At one point in there, all of the kids' actual parents were in rehab or dealing with other stuff that meant they weren't there. He and his partner ended up doing primary parenting for a year or two, along with being around a lot the rest of the time.
He (his partner died a while back) is still considered a parent by all the kids (now grownups). (To the point that it was really important to him and to them that they approve of his newish partner, who's a good friend and the reason I know him.)
It reminds me that just like poly stuff reminds me there are lots of ways to make relationships work, maybe there's lots of ways to make parenting and interacting with the next generation work. If we can just figure out the practical details.
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Date: 2005-03-20 12:58 pm (UTC)One thing I'm wondering about - does age or primary responsibility issue make any difference for Lis?
I really really really really don't ever want to be pregnant, and I also know that being one of the people primarily responsible for a child under the age of about 6 would be incredibly horrible for me. (and them, and for anyone else who had to deal with me: I do very badly with sleep deprivation, and I do very badly with unreliable demands.)
But I do feel sort of differently about kids I can either give back at night, or past the age of about 6. (Old enough to be able to amuse themselves safely in some settings, be able to say what they need, etc.) And I'm looking forward to borrowing my neices for a while as they get older.
And in that setting I could see kids in a poly setting working really well, where you could potentially work out levels of interaction that worked for both of you.
(In my case, we're lucky: my husband feels the same basic way.)
I'm also reminded of someone I know. He, at the time, had been living in a mostly-commune, where there were something like 5 kids around, for a number of years. At one point in there, all of the kids' actual parents were in rehab or dealing with other stuff that meant they weren't there. He and his partner ended up doing primary parenting for a year or two, along with being around a lot the rest of the time.
He (his partner died a while back) is still considered a parent by all the kids (now grownups). (To the point that it was really important to him and to them that they approve of his newish partner, who's a good friend and the reason I know him.)
It reminds me that just like poly stuff reminds me there are lots of ways to make relationships work, maybe there's lots of ways to make parenting and interacting with the next generation work. If we can just figure out the practical details.