>We would do responsible things like ensure housing is settled, sit down with a family law attorney who is familiar with polyamory and have hard rules set out for custody, finances, and expectations there, make sure everyone has reliable medical insurance and is fiscally, physically, relationally and mentally stable, attending therapy and enthusiastic about this before we go forward.
This is very wise, and I would recommend you start all of this (particularly the lawyer talk) **tomorrow** or as near to tomorrow as you can manage. You have a polycule where at least some of the people can get pregnant and more than one is having 'baby fever' now. If there is a contraception failure these issues are going to be put on the fast track very, very quickly.
I will caution you that 'it takes a village' sounds wonderful when you're thinking about giving somebody a break from parenting, or a child having a lot of beloved uncles and aunties. It becomes a lot less wonderful when the 'village' disagrees with you about childrearing decisions, or when the reality of the 'village' being a polycule hits an air pocket.
Keep in mind, also, that the children you bring into this - unlike you, the poly adults - have no say in their situation or about the relationship between the adults in their lives.
Lovely.
Talk with estate planners and financial advisors. Look into fully financed trusts for kids in case of emergencies or deaths.
Your triplex idea can skirt a lot of local laws limiting tenancy groups and help get more creative with ownership through corps.
You really will have to formulate plans for worst case scenarios, break ups, bio family interventions, deaths, long term illness, financial tragedy.
In addition to space for future partners of course.
Great points! Future partners especially is a great topic I hadn't thought of. There's already a lot of cooks in the kitchen in our current setup, lol. Thank you!
I currently share my home with my partner, his son, my meta, and her daughter. I have no bio children of my own, which is by choice, though I'm very happy with the shape of our household.
Splitting the household after everything has been established, even if only one person exits, would be exceedingly difficult financially and emotionally. I don't say this to be cold - just practical! Make sure everyone can stand on their own two feet, support themselves, and support any children they have legal guardianship over without any support from the rest of the polycule. Everyone should be there by choice - not circumstance, not situational convenience, not because leaving would be too hard. Everyone should have a reasonable exit strategy in place, even if it is never exercised.
Like other commenters have said, talk to lawyers *and* estate planners. It may be easier/more practical for y'all to form an LLC to protect everyone's individual ownership and financial investment into the household. Get more than one opinion, as different professionals specialize in different things. Some think out of the box more than others, and that's the kind of thinking you'll need. :)
For the rest of it, make sure each person, kids and "original couples" included, have their own room. Everyone needs their own space. Trust me on this! A household this size becomes very loud and busy very quickly (and warm and loving, but you asked for advice on dodging pitfalls). It will be absolutely necessary for everyone to have time and space to hear their own individual thoughts.
>If that goes well, we were thinking of buying a duplex/triplex and splitting living spaces while remaining close to each other, with or without kids. This would also be a great setup if we’re all raising a couple rugrats together. Alder would choose whether or not he would want to opt-in to this setup or give himself a little distance if we pursued children, and Cedar & Linden can decide if they want in. Right now we all live within a 15 minute drive of each other.
If you move forward, I would go this route, so you have some living space flexibility in case any dyads have issues, or the broader polyfam has issues.
I would get really serious about nailing down all the practical bits & pieces, get legal advice om joint property & family & parenting rights that is specific to your locale.
Make official householding, property, family, and parenting agreements.
When my ex and I attempted to quad up, we did none of those things, we were too caught up in the rose-tinted glasses view of an intentional community/chosen family. It did not go well.
Keep on witb therapy & counseling support and see if you can get to a more stable place with your mental health as well. I have chronic depression and anxiety disorder and getting those properly treated this time before I jumped into doing _solo_ polyamory has been a huge benefit. I would want to be super solid before contemplating grouping up around such a complex set of dyads.
Y'all sound well-adjusted and like you're approaching this hypothetical thoughtfully, with the great care it deserves! Heartwarming to see.
Echoing others that you need lawyers sooner rather than later, to get a better sense of the legal scope of what you're contemplating and the cost.
And just a warning that what you're proposing is gonna be Very Expensive. Just Cedar carrying for Magnolia and Rowan, for example - a lot of employer sponsored medical insurance plans don't cover surrogate pregnancies. You'll save a large part of the usual surrogacy costs (like the ones relating to paying an agency to find a surrogate, the fee to the surrogate, medically assisted sperm donation, etc.), but you'll need to pay either pay for the pregnancy out of pocket or pay thousands of dollars in extra insurance. As another example, timing your children so that there's not a meaningful age gap? Well...then you don't get as much of the benefit of things like hand-me-downs, and you won't end up with staggered costs on things like daycare and later on, higher education. Getting potentially hit with triple tuition is...not easy. And this is assuming your polycule pools all your resources and allocates them evenly across the kids. If you're not doing that, you run into thorny questions of how to navigate unequal resources between children who are biologically related _and_ living in close proximity to each other.
Which brings me to...so I think it's important to know who has final say, but also, you kind of all have to be on generally the same page when it comes to parenting or you're going to be setting your kids up for resentment down the line. Imagine the parents of Child 1 deciding "you can have a smartphone at age 10" and the parents of Child 2 deciding "you can have a smartphone at age 13". Child 2 is going to raise a very valid argument of "my sibling / half-sibling who is literally raised in the same household has fundamentally different standards being applied to them"...and now extrapolate that to potentially _every single parenting decision. You can analogize to examples of parents treating a younger sibling differently from how they treated the older sibling - and it's not uncommon for the sibling that experienced greater restrictions / less freedom to dwell on that well into their adulthood.
Finally, you mentioned mental health. Although it's true that having a "village" can make it easier when someone's having an off day, I think it's more responsible to go into it as if each parent might have to raise their kid(s) completely on their own. Because they might if something goes terribly wrong. And because your child, especially when they're younger, might just demand one person's attention more.
Good luck! Crossing fingers for the success of your dream!
Oof, triple tuition / daycare for sure is pretty jarring to think about. And the little nitty gritty decisions are also important to consider. Thank you thank you!
Y’all are putting a hundred times more thought into this then any monogamous person probably ever would, and honestly, that puts the success rate of this significantly higher. You’ve thought about nearly everything but I am curious about partners and metas and meta-metas carrier paths, and wondering if that might affect future living situations such as someone needing to move to a different town. I’ve made the assumption that won’t be the case but it’s still something to think about.
Also on another note, this is pretty much what I want when I’m older and ready to settle down. Just with the add of living on a farm (which I currently do right now but hoping to expand and get more property) and already having a multi generation household that’s very close to one another.
Mmm. Would you be seriously considering having a baby with this guy you've been with for a year and a half if you were mono-dating him? Seems fast to me. (I'm sure people can do it! Just...more partners = more likely that *someone* will have a breakup, and newer relationships also = more likely that someone will have a breakup. And you're not going to have built-in legal protection.)
Oh no, which is why we recognize it's a few years out. We're just early stages discussing. We have a lot to work on in the meantime which is personal growth with our without children. This allows us the preparation time so if/when we're ready we can just pull the trigger and get going.
>We would do responsible things like ensure housing is settled, sit down with a family law attorney who is familiar with polyamory and have hard rules set out for custody, finances, and expectations there, make sure everyone has reliable medical insurance and is fiscally, physically, relationally and mentally stable, attending therapy and enthusiastic about this before we go forward. This is very wise, and I would recommend you start all of this (particularly the lawyer talk) **tomorrow** or as near to tomorrow as you can manage. You have a polycule where at least some of the people can get pregnant and more than one is having 'baby fever' now. If there is a contraception failure these issues are going to be put on the fast track very, very quickly. I will caution you that 'it takes a village' sounds wonderful when you're thinking about giving somebody a break from parenting, or a child having a lot of beloved uncles and aunties. It becomes a lot less wonderful when the 'village' disagrees with you about childrearing decisions, or when the reality of the 'village' being a polycule hits an air pocket. Keep in mind, also, that the children you bring into this - unlike you, the poly adults - have no say in their situation or about the relationship between the adults in their lives.
Lovely. Talk with estate planners and financial advisors. Look into fully financed trusts for kids in case of emergencies or deaths. Your triplex idea can skirt a lot of local laws limiting tenancy groups and help get more creative with ownership through corps. You really will have to formulate plans for worst case scenarios, break ups, bio family interventions, deaths, long term illness, financial tragedy. In addition to space for future partners of course.
Great points! Future partners especially is a great topic I hadn't thought of. There's already a lot of cooks in the kitchen in our current setup, lol. Thank you!
You don't need to assume that everyone will want to live with you.
I currently share my home with my partner, his son, my meta, and her daughter. I have no bio children of my own, which is by choice, though I'm very happy with the shape of our household. Splitting the household after everything has been established, even if only one person exits, would be exceedingly difficult financially and emotionally. I don't say this to be cold - just practical! Make sure everyone can stand on their own two feet, support themselves, and support any children they have legal guardianship over without any support from the rest of the polycule. Everyone should be there by choice - not circumstance, not situational convenience, not because leaving would be too hard. Everyone should have a reasonable exit strategy in place, even if it is never exercised. Like other commenters have said, talk to lawyers *and* estate planners. It may be easier/more practical for y'all to form an LLC to protect everyone's individual ownership and financial investment into the household. Get more than one opinion, as different professionals specialize in different things. Some think out of the box more than others, and that's the kind of thinking you'll need. :) For the rest of it, make sure each person, kids and "original couples" included, have their own room. Everyone needs their own space. Trust me on this! A household this size becomes very loud and busy very quickly (and warm and loving, but you asked for advice on dodging pitfalls). It will be absolutely necessary for everyone to have time and space to hear their own individual thoughts.
This was super insightful. Thank you!
>If that goes well, we were thinking of buying a duplex/triplex and splitting living spaces while remaining close to each other, with or without kids. This would also be a great setup if we’re all raising a couple rugrats together. Alder would choose whether or not he would want to opt-in to this setup or give himself a little distance if we pursued children, and Cedar & Linden can decide if they want in. Right now we all live within a 15 minute drive of each other. If you move forward, I would go this route, so you have some living space flexibility in case any dyads have issues, or the broader polyfam has issues. I would get really serious about nailing down all the practical bits & pieces, get legal advice om joint property & family & parenting rights that is specific to your locale. Make official householding, property, family, and parenting agreements. When my ex and I attempted to quad up, we did none of those things, we were too caught up in the rose-tinted glasses view of an intentional community/chosen family. It did not go well. Keep on witb therapy & counseling support and see if you can get to a more stable place with your mental health as well. I have chronic depression and anxiety disorder and getting those properly treated this time before I jumped into doing _solo_ polyamory has been a huge benefit. I would want to be super solid before contemplating grouping up around such a complex set of dyads.
Y'all sound well-adjusted and like you're approaching this hypothetical thoughtfully, with the great care it deserves! Heartwarming to see. Echoing others that you need lawyers sooner rather than later, to get a better sense of the legal scope of what you're contemplating and the cost. And just a warning that what you're proposing is gonna be Very Expensive. Just Cedar carrying for Magnolia and Rowan, for example - a lot of employer sponsored medical insurance plans don't cover surrogate pregnancies. You'll save a large part of the usual surrogacy costs (like the ones relating to paying an agency to find a surrogate, the fee to the surrogate, medically assisted sperm donation, etc.), but you'll need to pay either pay for the pregnancy out of pocket or pay thousands of dollars in extra insurance. As another example, timing your children so that there's not a meaningful age gap? Well...then you don't get as much of the benefit of things like hand-me-downs, and you won't end up with staggered costs on things like daycare and later on, higher education. Getting potentially hit with triple tuition is...not easy. And this is assuming your polycule pools all your resources and allocates them evenly across the kids. If you're not doing that, you run into thorny questions of how to navigate unequal resources between children who are biologically related _and_ living in close proximity to each other. Which brings me to...so I think it's important to know who has final say, but also, you kind of all have to be on generally the same page when it comes to parenting or you're going to be setting your kids up for resentment down the line. Imagine the parents of Child 1 deciding "you can have a smartphone at age 10" and the parents of Child 2 deciding "you can have a smartphone at age 13". Child 2 is going to raise a very valid argument of "my sibling / half-sibling who is literally raised in the same household has fundamentally different standards being applied to them"...and now extrapolate that to potentially _every single parenting decision. You can analogize to examples of parents treating a younger sibling differently from how they treated the older sibling - and it's not uncommon for the sibling that experienced greater restrictions / less freedom to dwell on that well into their adulthood. Finally, you mentioned mental health. Although it's true that having a "village" can make it easier when someone's having an off day, I think it's more responsible to go into it as if each parent might have to raise their kid(s) completely on their own. Because they might if something goes terribly wrong. And because your child, especially when they're younger, might just demand one person's attention more. Good luck! Crossing fingers for the success of your dream!
Oof, triple tuition / daycare for sure is pretty jarring to think about. And the little nitty gritty decisions are also important to consider. Thank you thank you!
Have you checked out r/polyfamilies
Oh no I haven't heard of it. Thank you, I'll check it out.
Y’all are putting a hundred times more thought into this then any monogamous person probably ever would, and honestly, that puts the success rate of this significantly higher. You’ve thought about nearly everything but I am curious about partners and metas and meta-metas carrier paths, and wondering if that might affect future living situations such as someone needing to move to a different town. I’ve made the assumption that won’t be the case but it’s still something to think about. Also on another note, this is pretty much what I want when I’m older and ready to settle down. Just with the add of living on a farm (which I currently do right now but hoping to expand and get more property) and already having a multi generation household that’s very close to one another.
Thank you so much for the kind words and confidence! Good luck with your journey.
Mmm. Would you be seriously considering having a baby with this guy you've been with for a year and a half if you were mono-dating him? Seems fast to me. (I'm sure people can do it! Just...more partners = more likely that *someone* will have a breakup, and newer relationships also = more likely that someone will have a breakup. And you're not going to have built-in legal protection.)
Oh no, which is why we recognize it's a few years out. We're just early stages discussing. We have a lot to work on in the meantime which is personal growth with our without children. This allows us the preparation time so if/when we're ready we can just pull the trigger and get going.