Is Polyamory Bad for Kids? (DP vs. PPL #3, round 4)

Today, boys and girls, we will be playing a numbers game.  Can anyone tell me whether having multiple, simultaneous intimate relationships takes more time and energy, on average, than maintaining one monogamous marriage?  What’s that, Joey? No, Susan, this is not the time for paper airplanes.  Please sit down – yes Tristan, Katrina, Guiseppe, Amanda, I’m talking to the four of you.  Pay attention.  We have an important que – Berkeley, your private conversation with Lamar will have to wait! – an important question to answer.  As I was saying….

Um.  Yeah.  Let’s do the freaking math:  more people = more time, more energy, more chaos, more drama.

The question is, are polyamorous parents plundering reserves that ought to be used to benefit their children? Is it the case that each of us has only a certain amount of love to give? As a parent, is it my sacred duty to avoid squandering this limited resource on people other than my kids?

More viscerally important (and I think other parents, poly or not, will identify with me here): Are my kids going to hate me for all the things I get wrong – and is THIS (you name it) one of those things they’re going to decide I got wrong?

Let’s take today, for example. I’m over at Travis’s house, writing a blog post.  Denali, my teenager, is doing who-knows-what (my guess, given that he’s out of school for spring break: watching Family Guy in the community room, or building something out of that ten feet of PVC pipe he bought yesterday with money he earned by carting away wheelbarrow-loads of rocks from our neighbor’s garden).  Sienna has probably gone through two or three outfits already: I’m betting she’s running around barefoot, in leopard pajama bottoms and a twirly dress.  But I don’t know, because I’m not there. 

One day a week, Parker takes sole responsibility for both kids, and I get to do whatever I want.  I usually spend the night at Travis’s and then hang out at his house after he’s gone to work, getting in some valuable alone time, soaking up the solitude. Parker also gets his day off every week; he often elects to go on a long hike.

I seriously doubt that these weekly breaks from parenting are harming our children.  Parker and I are both self-employed, which means that we are almost always home.  I’d be willing to bet that we spend more time with our kids than most American parents do.

Why, then, do I feel so defensive, so hooked in to this topic?  Why, whenever I tell Sienna that I am going over to Travis’s for the night, am I so relieved to see her wave goodbye with a smile and a sweet, “Bye, Mommy! See you tomorrow!”  Why was I surprised that Denali’s post on this topic was as positive as it was – and why did I feel uneasy, wondering whether he glossed over his negative feelings out of loyalty, a loyalty he’ll grow out of soon enough – or worse, whether he's playing the yes-man (however uncharacteristic of him such a thing would be) because he’s desperate for my approval, and it’s all because I’ve neglected him, because I've consistently focused far too much on my own stuff, at his expense?

If I were spending this morning at work, or a pottery class, or a La Leche league meeting, would I still worry that I’m stealing this time from my children?  More to the point, would I still worry that other people – the adults my children will someday become, in particular – are going to judge me and find fault with my choices?

I’m really not a fan of guilt.  But apparently, guilt is par for the course.  And Freud claimed that women lack a fully developed superego! 

So yes, a guilt trip I take regularly – I swear, I’ve worn a groove six feet deep – leads me to the conclusion that I haven’t paid enough attention to someone I love.

Just to give one example: when I was a kid, my little sister used to ask me to play with her, but I was often too busy reading, and I’d usually refuse.  Then later, when she had less use for me, I thought of all those times I could have bonded with her, and blamed myself for not seizing the opportunities when I had them.

(Funny, Travis and I were lying in bed this morning talking about regret.  “I don’t have a lot of regrets,” I said – quite truthfully, or at least that’s how it felt to me when I said it.  And he said, “I know.  It’s one of the things I like about you.” But back to our topic.)

The truth is, there are times when being a parent can be mind-numbingly boring.  Raising children is also worthwhile – in an absolute sense.  It feels to me like there is nothing more worth my while.  So, how to manage the cognitive dissonance (a.k.a. incipient guilt) that occurs whenever I find myself choosing to do something else?  As I must, if I don’t want to go barking mad?

For me, the key to the conundrum is this: to be a good parent (or a good wife, lover, friend, or neighbor), I have to take care of myself.  To use Travis’s analogy, it’s important to put on your own oxygen mask before attempting to help others with theirs.  This may be selfish, in a sense, but it’s what allows us to continue to be and do and give.

So, back to our question: are polyamorous parents shortchanging their kids? 

By way of answer, I’ll offer this comparison: there are a lot of mainstream  Mormons (i.e., NOT polygamous fundamentalists) who choose to have a gazillion children.  My grandfather was one of eleven; my mother was one of nine.  One of my aunts has ten children. One of my older cousins has twelve, I kid you not. Everyone raised in the Mormon church is familiar with these gigantic families – those two or three snot-nosed little ones being carted around by their slightly older siblings, the oldest kids working at McDonald’s after school to pay for luxuries their peers take for granted, like college – and meanwhile, that forgotten kid in the middle falls off the deep end and winds up pregnant or hooked on drugs, much to their pious parents’ chagrin.

There are people who will tell you that they loved growing up in a large family – and they might very well have siblings who feel like there was never enough of anything to go around, who resent the hell out of their parents for stretching themselves so thin.

In other words, I don’t have any pat answers to this question.

My best parenting advice – to myself, and to anyone else who cares to listen – is to work on awareness and balance. Pay attention to your own intuitions and observations. Are you feeling constantly overwhelmed, or are you enjoying the time you spend with your kids? Are your children behaving in ways that suggest they are starved for attention, or do they seem basically secure and well-adjusted?  Are the choices you make contributing to, or detracting from, your ability to parent effectively?  When you look at that magic family portrait in your mind, the one that shows you all as you really are, what do you see?

As the Mormons are fond of saying, “By their fruits ye shall know them.”