Re: [UUPoly-L] some interesting news from Ferry Beach

[Melody Winnell <melodywinnell@gmail.com>]

First Unitarian Church of Hobart, Indiana here! We also have children
involved with RE- a 4yo biological, 2yo foster daughter, and 5 kids we are
matched with for adoption hopefully moving in soon- ages 6,9,10, 11, and 13!

On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 9:05 AM, Valerie White <valerie@valeriewhite.org>wrote:

> I'm at Ferry Beach for RE week . . . not that I'm a religious educator but
> there are other families from my congregation who go and it has become a
> tradition.  I was approached yesterday by a DRE from a Boston-area
> congregation, someone I knew from North East Leadership School, BECAUSE
> there's a poly family new in her congregation, with kids in the RE
> program.  She knows that I am involved with UUPA (she saw me at the booth
> at GA) and asked me to talk with her about how to welcome this family and
> what books she might read to become familiar with polyamory.
>
> Well, small world department, it turned out I know this triad (from Family
> Tree), and of course I guessed right away who they were.
>
> I did my best to let this wonderful DRE know how much I appreciated her
> determination to do right by them.  I made a few suggestions . . . warned
> her that poly parents were apt to be nervous about being "out" and why,
> pointed out to her that multi-parent families should be mentioned when RE
> classes talk about the diversity of family types UU's embrace.  I told her
> that my congregation has "family structure" included in the list of things
> we don't discriminate against.  I said that the family will doubtless
> appreciate feeling safe in bringing up things in joys and concerns, like,
> "This is the anniversary of the day so-and-so joined our family," or,
> "we're glad our secondary so-and-so is here visiting from  Ohio . . ."  I
> suggested she avoid making assumptions about partner-number.
>
> I said she should treat the adults in the family like a "couple for large
> values of 2". I referred her to the Loving More  website as a gateway.  I
> told her about several books.  I told her that there have been no
> published studies on the effect of being raised in a poly family on
> children.  I said there  were credible professionals who had opined  that
> a stable poly family was BETTER for a child  than a series of monogamous
> relationships.  I said there was plenty of anecdotal evidence that
> poly-raised kids do fine.  I said that the movement has gotten old enough
> now that some of these kids are grown or nearly so and some of them are
> willing to speak out and write about their experiences, and most of them
> seem to say that it was  great having extra parents.  Some of them are
> poly themselves and some are not, just as you'd expect.
>
> I told her that poly parents are making "villages" to raise their
> children.  I told her that, closeted or not, there are poly families in
> MANY UU churches.
>
> (By the way, just out of curiosity, it would be interesting if everybody
> on this list would post the name of the congregation they attend at least
> occasionally.  I would love to be able to tell someone  like this DRE that
> I know of at least thus-and-so UU  congregations with  poly  members or
> friends.  How about it?  It's my guess there would be almost as many
> congregations represented as there are members of this list!
>
> I'll start it off:  Unitarian Church of Sharon, MA.)
>
> I told her that no responsible parent mixes his or her sexuality with his
> or her parenting, and poly's are no more likely to expose children to
> inappropriate sexual conduct than anybody else.
>
> It's exciting that she wanted to hear all this, and that UUPA is seen as a
> resource to professional leadership in the denomination.
>
> BTW, UUPA trustees . . . nobody got back to me on my proposed
> poly-parenting flyer?!
>
> Valerie
>
> PS:  yesterday at worship I led the choir in singing a two-part setting I
> composed for Edwin Markham's "Outwitted":
>
> He drew a circle that shut me out
> Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout
> But love and I had the wit to win
> We drew a circle that took him in.
>
> WHAT a treat!
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