AIBU to be furious about this article and cancel my Guardian subscription?

[whycantwegoonasthree]

www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/30/children-removed-from-family-home-over-parents-open-relationship

The children weren't removed because of their parents 'open relationship', they were removed because the parents were neglectful and didn't safeguard the children. The headline is a deliberate distortion.

This is a dreadful baity headline/article at the expense of the polyamorous community. I expect better from the guardian - to which I pay a f-ing subscription...

AIBU to cancel my Direct Debit?

Pumpkin - thats as may be. But what you said happened didn't happen. What you said was said wasn't said. As I say I'm purely here to deal with the fast and loose approach towards truth some posters were taking. How on earth can you not see that?

And I've already explained what the OP is annoyed about re the original article. Please feel free to scroll back through the thread.

The OP is, I fancy, gone because people kept ignoring what she's said and making things up for themselves.its tedious correcting people who don't listen over and over and over again. She probably has better things to do. I don't, as my baby girl is waking up every 40 odd minutes asking for boob so I'm stuck awake and immobile and might as well put the world to rights on Mumsnet as anything else!

Pumpkin - thats as may be. But what you said happened didn't happen. What you said was said wasn't said. As I say I'm purely here to deal with the fast and loose approach towards truth some posters were taking. How on earth can you not see that?

You're deliberately trying to talk shit and derail, you must be.
Love how you've shoehorned in at the beginning of the sentence "that's as may be" (which sounds like an agreement) then followed by a load of "he said she said happened didn't happen"
THE NUMBER IS IRRELEVANT!!
Whether it's 1, 2, 3, 4, or a 100, you don't involve your children in your multiple partner sex life, say how you all share each other, and also say you'll have sex positively talks with seven year olds if they ask.

Cheshire I'll bet you a million who'd you cannot locate a headline saying Black man attempted robbery
Utter fantasy

Oh you already knew the answer then... what a surprise! Thank you very much for your kind offer but I have no intention of looking thru this thread again.

Strange how other posters who say they have open relationships manage to protect their children from being involved in, or even knowing about, their chosen lifestyle isn’t it?

I have no problem at all with people who protect their children - in spite of - or because of - their sexual preferences. Ultimately a parents job is to protect their children’s physical and emotional well- being.

The article states that the children were removed due to neglect; I don't know how many others on this post have attended child protection case conferences/child in need conferences or whatever they may now be called but I have been to quite a few. I have met parents who are so into their own world that children are unfed,unwashed,sleeping on floors, with the family dog( who is also neglected) ,rarely getting clean clothes, help being given to assist the family and nothing changing . I've met parents who spend all day every day chatting on computers ; sleeping in bed; and basically leaving the children to be feral. Now I'm not saying what happened here but the inference is that the parents were rarely available to be parents and in addition brought others into the home for random sex. In so far as there are value judgments being made they are being made to protect the children .

So basically the OP is the OW but the wife accepts her. I can't see a way to put a positive spin on that myself but each to their own. I also agree that it will be confusing for their kids. I had a friend in school whose parents had a similar setup, four adults living in the same house. My friend was seriously messed up by it. I don't doubt her parents thought they were being honest and open and demystifying sex but she had a lot of issues which she related directly back to her home situation.

I don't pretend to understand open relationships but I think kids should be kept well away from them.

The OP is, I fancy, gone because people kept ignoring what she's said and making things up for themselves.its tedious correcting people who don't listen over and over and over again

I don't think people have ignored what she said it's more that they disagree with what she says. This thread is was started because the OP was 'furious' that some articles were saying that some kids got taken away from their parents because of their polyamorous parents and that that is unfairly branding all polyamorous parents as neglectful and bad parents.

However the articles were NOT saying that. The article, the social workers and the judge were just saying that in this individual case the parents sleeping around was a factor in the neglect of the children. A fact the OP won't or can't acknowledge.

I agree with the OP that the titles of the articles were click bait. The OP is being feisty and outraged pointlessly.

From my point of view I find having multiple partners when you are a parent a bit weird (the 'share'comment by the OPs child is ) but iim sure you can be a good parent and have multiple partners.

I'm pretty sure the OP will be back.

Anyone who reads the Guardian needs help lol.

I think reporting standards are becoming lower. Journalists and reporters often bring their own opinions in when reading the news which is not acceptable. If it’s an opinion piece fair enough but not if it’s been promoted as a piece of reporting

My only gripe is this really badly written sentence.
She said of the mother: “It is plain some complete strangers have visited her house while the children were there to have sex with her.”

I don't agree with open relationships where there are children and the OP is deluded to think there will be no adverse effect as they grow up and learn what this actually means.

However if you read the details of the case, the couple were not actually in an open relationship at all so it does look rather click baity. It was more that the mother had learning difficulties, was violent and incapable of looking after the children, and was unable to manage her relationships or children as a result of basically being too stupid and having no support. Meanwhile the father was an illegal immigrant who had an affair with someone else. Both of them neglected the children and the house was filthy etc. The open relationship aspect is not relevant in this case

Agreed Purple that’s an appalling sentence. I think grammar standards are slipping along with reporting

You sound a bit over invested OP, hell I'm guessing even the username is a nod to your lifestyle, but really nobody cares what you do in the bedroom and nobody needs to do know either. Are you hoping it becomes a big socially accepted thing? Is it something you bring up often, are you distributing leaflets? perhaps a petition? why not picket churches and registry office with big polyphobe banners - it seems to be a very effective method these days.

I don't think the article is misleading although I don't read the guardian anymore so can't say if their recent stuff is any better.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jul/23/polyamory-new-way-to-love-men-women-sex-relationships-elf-lyons there you go OP, the grauniad is full of pro stories, many more if you search. They love anything 'alt' after all, such cool, enlightening bastions of social justice that they are.

I'm an exGuardian reader and just find its reporting too biased and manipulative now. I'd like to be credited with the intelligence to form my own opinions. I find the everything about the EU is totally wonderful stance since Brexit irritating too. EU large corporation favouring laws that did things like force the English NHS to put stuff out to tender used to be criticised, not now. They point out that it was English MPs (Labour then Tory who part privatised stuff and that Scotland chose not to but not EU regulations making a bad situation worse. They rarely mention Scottish politics though.

I think it’s clear from the headline. The open relationship “contributed” to the neglect and that was the ruling of the court. Therefore it’s not saying open relationships = neglect. What am I missing ?

I get what you're saying but I think those poor little babies who have been neglected and taken into the care system are more deserving of your anger and sympathy than the poly amorous community.

Probably beyond the point now, but OP: are you getting mixed up between the article headline and the article URL? Because as has been pointed out, the headline reads 'Children removed after parents' open relationship contributes to neglect'. The URL ends with 'children-removed-from-family-home-over-parents-open-relationship'. This isn't an attempt on the Guardian's part to be snotty towards poly people, it's just the way URLs work. They tend to end with several keywords pertinent to the article.

For example, another headline on the Guardian this evening is 'BBC launches Own It website to help under-12s navigate online risks'. The URL ends with 'bbc-own-it-website-online-risks-childrens-programming-investment'.

Now, one could read that URL and interpret it as meaning that the BBC's website poses a risk to investments in children's programming. But that would be a misinterpretation.

Anyway, as I said, probably pointless making that distinction now but I thought I'd whack my two pennies in all the same

OP
Shag Partner 1
Shag Partner 2
Shag Partner 2's Shag Partner
ad infinitum.

In the days before the advent of condoms and antibiotics this would have been very risky. That could be why most people find it distasteful.

Wow, what a thread!
OP - not entirely sure you in a polyam relationship....
You are the OW for a chap who has his cake and eats it...
You have casual sex with a couple of others (you rarely see them so hardly a "committed" relationship)
But, if that's what helps your self esteem, I'm not here to judge.

DC should have no need to know about the detail at their young ages. You appead to be second best to his wife - is second best what you want your children to accept?

In response to question? YABU for all reasons stated before.
I.e. the lack of putting the Children first due to polyam led to neglect and children being removed. It's very clear in the article. Expect clickbait and move on...

There is no such thing as "the polyamorous community".

The very word polyamorous - an ugly confection of Greek and Latin - was, according to Wikipedia, coined fewer than thirty years ago by a barmpot called

"Diana Moore, subsequently known as Morning Glory Ferns, Morning Glory Zell and briefly Morning G'Zell, She was a Neopagan community leader, author, lecturer, and priestess of the Church of All Worlds. An advocate of polyamory, she is credited with coining the word. With her husband Oberon Zell-Ravenheart she designed deity images."

Polyamory seems to be a term used to convey a degree of dignity on a lifestyle which seems to possess very little - it seems to consist mainly of shagging around - and the children of polyamorous parents would seem to be susceptible to neglect for the simple reason that their parents will be bound up running their needlessly over-complicated lives.

Personally, I don't care how people arrange their relationships if it suits them, but I don't think they are entitled to complain when their actions put children at risk of neglect. Certainly, the OP comes across as over-entitled, but that's probably just me being lower middle-class.

Let it go, it doesn't actually affect you

Just generally: it's worth bearing in mind that people who are obsessed with monogamy to the point that they are constantly monitoring a partner's conversations, social media and daily timetable, are also likely to be shitty parents...
The fetishization of monogamy is a relatively recent introduction to human culture and the point of it was to allow men control and ownership of women as the means of passing on men's genes. Initially it was accepted that one man could own multiple women, but that proved to be less conducive to social stability (if one man owns too many women, there aren't enough women for other men, who get grumpy and rebellious - ensuring that there's a woman for every man, to service him domestically and socially as well as sexually, is supposed to make things more comfortable for everyone. Well, except women.)

People can conduct their sex lives as they see fit, of course, but those who get too hung up on the idea of anything other than longterm monogamy being wrong or strange just don't know their social history.

It all depends on what you mean by the term "relatively recent", I suppose. The phrase "forsaking all other" [or an equivalent] appeared in the Sarum Rite of marriage in the 11th century, so the social norm of monogamy, at over a thousand years old, could be said to be well past its trial period. And although in both my marriages I was monogamous, it never occurred to me that I was "fetishizing" the concept. It had more to do with loyalty, friendship and common decency.