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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