And Baby Makes Four: Raising a baby with three parents. On Babble.com.
My daughter has two moms, one dad, and no complaints.
A group of our friends were spending a weekend at a cabin in the mountains, and our hosts’ not-quite-three-year-old was starting to do the math. Over the squalls of nap-resisting toddlers, her mom responded without missing a beat: “Because they’re lucky.”
Living in a committed multiple-adult household always takes some explaining. In a nutshell: My wife and I were college girlfriends and had a commitment ceremony more than ten years ago. Our husband joined our family in 2001, and we had a three-way wedding in 2005. We own a house and car together and are equal co-parents (or as equal as you can be when one person is breastfeeding) to our one-and-a-half-year-old daughter.
It used to be that the most common questions we got when we explained our relationship involved jealousy (not a problem, but an understandable question) or sleeping arrangements (why this is so often the first thing people think of is beyond me).
But once I became pregnant, things changed. No matter how traditional the person or how new the idea was to them, we’d most often get a pause, a misty-eyed look, and then, “That sounds like a good idea. I could have used an extra parent.”
I’ve definitely been known to describe our current set-up as having my cake and eating it too: I work from home, my husband works out-of-the-home, and my wife stays with my daughter. We get to have two incomes, neither of which would support the family on its own, and a stay-at-home parent. I get to do work I love and continue to breastfeed, without even pumping.
Of course, about the time last December when the flu was cycling through the house and my daughter was on a nebulizer and holiday presents needed wrapping and we were calling my mother-in-law to help us with overnight shifts because she’s comfortable sleeping upright in a chair like the baby needed, we certainly all shook our heads and wondered how anyone does this with only two parents.
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About the Author
Miriam Axel-Lute is a freelance writer, editor and poet. She is an award-winning columnist for Metroland, and lives in Albany with her two partners and daughter. Her website is mjoy.org.
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10 thoughts on “And Baby Makes Four: Raising a baby with three parents. On Babble.com.”
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“….or sleeping arrangements (why this is so often the first thing people think of is beyond me).” You’re not serious, are you? I’m laughing at your attempt at being so cool. Of course people will think very quickly of the logistics – it’s not judging, it’s curious… and, yes, perhaps voyeuristic. Isn’t that what people wonder about when the word “polygamy” comes up in the traditional man-with-several-wives sense? It’s human to wonder about this! So… three adults in a king size bed, or what? I don’t expect you to answer that – it’s not my business. But it’s silly to be “surprised” when people wonder about sleeping arrangements once they are aware that you are in a polyamorous cohabiting situation.
Nice article.
I know a couple of poly families made up of normal, stable people, and
they get all kinds of crap dished out at them all the time.
Sad how people can’t imagine anything other than their own family models.
(Our little nuclear family is pretty average, but that’s OUR family. YMMV.)
(and do y’all just maintain separate bedrooms, or what? ; ) )
Gasp! I had no idea. I am so unimaginative! I would love a stay-at-home wife! I’d have to ask my husband to make sure, but something tells me he wouldn’t mind it one bit.
Thanks so much for sharing your story.
I can’t imagine having another person to deal with, j/k. We have a pretty average home life here, honestly even being bi-sexual I can’t imagine living this way. Having a child with a woman yes, but I can’t imagine doing that while also in a relationship with a man. I also can’t imagine juggling having time together while having two partners and a child and how things would work out sexually. Just too complicated for me.
It’s really awesome that you have a happy family, and impressive that you have a happy non-standard family. However, I find it disengenuous to to insinuate that it is ridiculous to assume that a non-standard family would be harder to keep stable. There is a reason why most families are the way they are: human nature. Not your nature or his nature or her nature or my nature, but the mean of the species. I am impressed with (and perhaps a little jealous of) your family dynamic, but a stable polyamorous relationship is the exception, and not the rule. You compare assumptions about polyamory to gay lifestyle. My social circle may not be indicative of yours, by the gay men seem to have many more brief, purely sexual relationships then straight men, and the polyamoroists hop from relationship to relationship with more drama than the monogamists. I wish that my gay friends could find true love with less exposure to std’s and my polyamorous friends with less drama, but not everyone builds their happy family as easily as you seem to have.
Aside from telling us it’s perfectly normal, you haven’t told us all that much. That’s your choice, of course — but since you wrote an article about it, you might want to open up a little more? And no, I don’t mean sleeping arrangements. Actually, what might be interesting is exploring the history of polyandry, finding cultures where it’s practiced, sort of taking it outside of your own little sphere. For one thing, the marriages aren’t legal, correct? How do you handle health insurance? House payments? And so on…
This sounds totally dreamy to me. Thanks for sharing your story.
I know a triad raising two kids. They (the adults) have been together 13 years. It hasn’t always been easy, there’s been fights and tears, but they’ve always stuck and they’re bonded for good. The setup is certainly wonderful for the kids. When one of the kids started going to preschool she was sad to learn of the other poor kids who didn’t have a Daddy, a Mommy, and a Mumsy. With two professional career incomes *and* a stay-at-home mom, they’re quite well off.Nowadays, one of the women is old enough that she often gets taken for a live-in aunt or grandmother by people who aren’t in the know. People have told her how lucky the kids are to live in such a “traditional” extended family.Alan———————————–Keep up with Polyamory in the News!http://polyinthemedia.blogspot.com/———————————–
I’m with BBBG Mom. Clearly when one is doing something so triply off the beaten track –and I’m not judging here– you got to expect the dull twosome hetero and homo and bi’s around you to be a bit curious. Astonished at our curiosity? That’s astonishing to me!
This is interesting — we have a full time babysitter (or nanny) and it is, in effect, a three parent situation. Yes, one of the parents in the payroll, but from the perspective of our 2.5 year old, it’s all the same (accept his beloved daytime sitter sleeps elsewhere). And I do think that full time babysitters develop relationships with their children that are extremely affectionate and enduring — ours attends birthdays for and is in semi-regular phone contact with all the children she has raised.So for the child, it’s clearly great, and for the parents raising the child, it makes a lot of sense. My guess is that if two party monogamy has a fifty percent chance of lasting to the grave, three party monogamy has lower odds (basic math would suggest this if each individual has the same likelihood of straying), but having said that, power to you!