My husband and I have kids ages 10 and 8. We both have secondary sweeties. How can we best keep inappropriate information about our outside relationships from our children?
—PolyParents
Children are amazingly astute about picking up things that they aren’t being told, or contrary to what they’re told. If there’s a conflict between what they’re told and what they see, they’ll believe what they see (and wonder what awful secret their parents are trying to keep from them by hiding it or lying about it).
For children such as yours who are too young to understand romance and sex yet, a good approach when referring to this other person that Mommy or Daddy often talks to on the phone and goes out with a lot is to refer to them as “special friends”. Little kids understand the concept of “special friends”; they often have special friends themselves.
As children pass puberty and come to understand sex, I feel it is better to be clear and open with them about any sexual component in our relationships with those “special friends”, while honoring privacy expectations. Again, if we cover it up, the kids will wonder why their parents are being secretive. It also sends the wrong message that polyamory is somehow shameful. Mommy and Daddy love each other a lot, and one way they show this to each other is by sharing sex. Mommy also cares a lot for her “special friend Joe”, so she and he like to share sex too. And because Daddy loves Mommy so much, he’s happy that Mommy is getting this extra joy in her life. (Thus children also learn about compersion.)
As children become mature enough to understand sex, they’re also mature enough to understand that not all information should be blabbed to friends, grandparents, teachers, etc., if you are trying to stay partially or totally in the poly closet (and sometimes there are good reasons to do so), as well as just to honor other people’s privacy. In this way your kids will come to have a healthy and realistic understanding about what polyamory is (and is not).
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