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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

475 replies

whycantwegoonasthree · 01/12/2017 16:50

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?

Angry
OP posts:
Queenofthedrivensnow · 01/12/2017 23:33

But there is a link between poor parenting g and monogamy. The op provides plenty of info on that ;/)

LipstickHandbagCoffee · 01/12/2017 23:34

The crux of the ruling and intervention was poor parenting and risk to the children

PumpkinSquash · 01/12/2017 23:35

And they are still not involved in age inappropriate ways, and never will be.

You're in denial and sticking your fingers in your ears. They ARE, and you've said as much! They're aware that you share yourself around.

Nothing inappropriate or damaging there…
If you say so. You clearly don''t want to hear anything else.Let's all just "yes dear" and nod and agree as that's clearly what you want.
You're deluded.

Aweektilltheseason · 01/12/2017 23:36

The guardian is as bad as the mail it's been distorting and lying and omitting the truth for years and years!!

whycantwegoonasthree · 01/12/2017 23:41

Queenofthedrivensnow - I never once said that. I merely pointed out that there is poor parenting to be found in every kind of relationship setup. Don't go looking for inflammatory, anti-monogamy stuff where there is none just to pick a fight. It's childish.

OP posts:
whycantwegoonasthree · 01/12/2017 23:43

Pumpkinsquash, and you're not actually paying attention to a word I'm writing about my actual approach and experience of polyamory in my own life, so there's not point in conversing with you. Especially when you use terms like 'share yourself around' to be deliberately insulting.

OP posts:
lelapaletute · 01/12/2017 23:47

OP, PumpkinSquash is referring to the post in which you said your kids have asked your partner if he minds being "shared". In the context of polyamory, as opposed to in general having to divide one's time between various people/pursuits. It may not have been in this case, but it's reasonable for PPs to have assumed they meant "shared" in a romantic/sexual way according to the degree of understanding a child that age has of romance/sex. I don't think you should get so defensive about terms you yourself introduced into the discussion!

MrLovebucket · 01/12/2017 23:47

Oh. I AS'd. Your partner is a poly cross dresser who you go underwear shopping with. Makes my life seem very vanilla!

I'm a bit confused as I thought poly triad meant 3 in the relationship (as your username suggests) yet you have 2 other partners and he has at least one other. Have I misunderstood what poly triad means or have you found more partners?

PumpkinSquash · 01/12/2017 23:48

Especially when you use terms like 'share yourself around' to be deliberately insulting.

I'm not being deliberately insulting, it's what you are doing. Does the fact you think it needs prettying up and more of a flowery euphemism name say nothing at all to you?

whycantwegoonasthree · 01/12/2017 23:50

OP, PumpkinSquash is referring to the post in which you said your kids have asked your partner if he minds being "shared"

I've since clarified that. As pumpkin well knows.

OP posts:
PumpkinSquash · 01/12/2017 23:51

As pumpkin well knows.

Confused
whycantwegoonasthree · 01/12/2017 23:52

MrLoveBucket. Three years ago or so whenever that last post was, there were just three of us. And we are still primarily a three, but I now have two other loving relationships in my life, although I see them relatively seldom, due to being very busy.

OP posts:
whycantwegoonasthree · 01/12/2017 23:54

And why would you think that 'shared' in the mind of a seven year old would ever mean sexually?! She meant in terms of time, BECAUSE SHE IS SEVEN FFS.

And I'm the one who doesn't understand age appropriateness?

OP posts:
MrLovebucket · 02/12/2017 00:00

Three years ago or so whenever that last post was, there were just three of us.

Do you mean 3 months?

whycantwegoonasthree Mon 21-Aug-17 00:03:11
I'm in a poly triad relationship which includes each of us sometimes sleeping with other people – with the full knowledge and consent of the other parties. What do you want to know?
WKWGOA3

PumpkinSquash · 02/12/2017 00:00

They have asked my partner - whom they know also has another partner, if he minds being 'shared' and things like that. To which they have recieved a frank and open answer. They haven't asked me if I am shared with others too, but if they did I would tell them honestly.

And if they ask questions regarding sex, they will get a very sex-positive answer.
They're CHILDREN.

But they witness nothing directly or indirectly, are not put at risk or in awkward situations, and they are very much put first.
Might not witness it, but you TELL them all about your partner being shared around, and if they ask you, you'll tell them that you share yourself around too. Sex positively, maybe.
If you really can't see that's not appropriate when children are involved, there's no wonder you felt judged by this case and "furious" as maybe it stirred something inside and saw a bit of yourself in it.

whycantwegoonasthree · 02/12/2017 00:01

Well I think that's explained it pretty well... I thought you were talking about the mammoth can of worms from three years ago.

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MeltingSnowflake · 02/12/2017 00:04

Going back to your original question, as someone who once worked for a news site, don't write in the comments section of the site to voice your concerns - news sites want a high number of comments, negative or positive. Write them a letter of complaint instead.

PumpkinSquash · 02/12/2017 00:05

No idea about the mammoth can of worms you're on about, but if it went the same way as thread, with completely different people and posters so a new audience, does that not at least show something when so many are in disagreement with you and say it's not good for the kids that they might actually be onto something?
That, ya know, YABU?
It's not usually so unanimous on here, and especially not over two different threads from ages ago!

whycantwegoonasthree · 02/12/2017 00:07

Pumpkin squash. you're being deliberately obtuse so as to pick a fight. You actually have no interest in the reality of my situation, only in proving your preconceptions. there's not much I can do about that.

My children have been exposed to nothing sexually inappropriate in terms of conversation or anything else. They understand that DP has another important relationship in his life, and that we three are all very happy with that, and sharing TIME is sometimes complicated but we don't mind that.

That's it.

There is nothing whatsoever similar with the case in the article and mine - and you suggestion that there is is appalling. My children are very well taken care of physically and emotionally. So kindly fuck right of with your insinuations to the contrary.

I'm merely tired of open relationships being used as click bait and correlated with abuse.

OP posts:
MiraiDevant · 02/12/2017 00:10

Really OP you are not coming across as very nice at all.

No-one is interested in who you screw. Really - no-one is. In spite of your constant attempts to get us to talk about it so you can tell us:
a) how much sex you are getting,
b)how cool you are and
C) how small-minded and judgey we all are because we haven't said how marvellous your lifestyle is.

Grow up

whycantwegoonasthree · 02/12/2017 00:10

It wasn't unanimous three years ago - far from it. There were a few people determined to see what we do as wrong and perverted despite honest accounts from several people that it wasn't, and to be very rude insulting and insinuate all sorts of appalling things.

But that's Mumsnet for you...

OP posts:
PumpkinSquash · 02/12/2017 00:11

and sharing TIME is sometimes complicated but we don't mind

You said you answered your children's questions and that you all shared each other.
You said nothing about TIME. In your head you're telling yourself that you're telling the kids about TIME, but kids aren't stupid.
They know more than you think.

whycantwegoonasthree · 02/12/2017 00:14

'constant attempts to get us to talk about it'

I literally started a thread three years ago, and this one.
Hardly constant.

And I'm not the one obsessed with screwing.

People come on here to talk about things that affect their lives. This affects mine. So I'm entitled to talk about it. No one is forcing you to.

OP posts:
lelapaletute · 02/12/2017 00:17

OP, I want to defend you here as I truly believe you can live several people at a time and have no problem in theory with polyamory. That being said, I was also raised in part by a mother who believed in honesty. She told me about her depression and multiple suicide attempts when I was 8. I have been scared to death of her killing herself ever since. She told me various snippets of the hideous psychological abuse she was subjected to by my then alcoholic father when they were married when I was younger than that; I got the full gory details at 19, and ended up in counselling completely unable to reconcile my own experience of a loving father with the sadistic monster she described. She told me all these things very matter of factly, and probably thought she was just being honest. And as for sex positive... She was always very open with me about her bisexuality, her amusing anecdotes of her sexual history from the age of 14 onwards, and answered my every question about sex very frankly indeed. And, I suppose, "sex-positively". Hard to fault her for that in theory, but I feel I developed a pretty unhealthy interest in sex very early on, I used sexual language far too young, played rather inappropriate games at school with confused playmates, because of all this 'honesty' so early on when, as the classic movie would have it, I "couldn't handle he truth".

By and large, I do wish my parents (both of them, but particularly my mother) had worked s but harder to filter themselves and their truth from me, as the "honesty" my mother indulged in made me a much odder, outcast, sad and scared child who always felt terribly set apart from my peers. Children want to be normal, and they want to belong, and know where and how they belong, as a rule. They're very dull, conventional creatures by and large (at least once they're in school). I hope sometimes you'll think about that, and compromise your clearly dearly held principle of honesty on occasion in the cause of allowing them a childhood.

I am of course projecting. But it is another perspective. Honesty isn't necessarily all its cracked up to be when you're seven and are trying to make sense of a complicated world.

whycantwegoonasthree · 02/12/2017 00:17

My kids haven't asked me about sex. And I haven't mentioned it to them.

If at some point they ask me about sex, then I will assume they're old enough to know an age-appropriate version of the truth. I doubt they will but…

Do you have sex with DP? Yes. Does DP have sex with K? Yes. Do you and K have sex? No.

I'd be very surprised if it goes much beyond that - because as someone pointed out children don't really want to know about their parents sex lives.

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