Thanks for reading my (long) comment. RE the Laguna Pueblo, I will read up. Certainly it’s not something that we’ve seen often. Whether this is because “things are different than they were before” or something else less plastic is another question.
To be clear, my argument about the correlation between polyamory and child-rearing is not about how effective a poly environment might be at child-rearing. On the contrary, I’d be that a stable poly family would provide access to consistent capital and caretakers that a mono family cannot. However, the question remains of how it’s in the individual parents’ interests to enter into a given family arrangement. When it’s not, they won’t have kids, and the eventual parenting outcome remains moot; if moms and dads don’t want to do it, it won’t happen. My suspicion is that among those individuals so constituted that polyamory is a good match, having kids might not be part of their plan. (Again, early days, data needed, though this could be done with surveymonkey.)
My objections to your comments: my “hey smart poly people, round up the jerks” comment was intended as a humorous way to point out the sanctimoniousness that you also recognize, and which damages the discussion. It wasn’t intended as a serious proposal for the Grand High Poly Council to take up. (Note: I also don’t really think there’s a Grand High Poly Council, but I think we understand each other by now.)
My second objection is to your statement that “[my] theoretical understanding of human sexuality has left [me] ill-prepared for making predictions about real-world cases like this”. A less charitable person than myself might react to this as a personal attack. Suffice it to say, I must sadly report that I have a good track record of looking at relationships and identifying tensions that later end them. My predictions aren’t based on personality clashes, but rather fundamental supply-demand tensions that would seem to be constant across any kind of arrangement where a person can be happier with one person than another. Maybe I hang out with awful people who act this way, or maybe I’ve just been around the block enough times to know where cynicism is warranted.
Leslie Marmon Silko is a good source there, re: pre-Christianization (and to some degree mid-and post-) sexual practices.
However, the question remains of how it’s in the individual parents’ interests to enter into a given family
arrangement. When it’s not, they won’t have kids, and the eventual parenting outcome remains moot; if moms and > dads don’t want to do it, it won’t happen.
I’d find that an easier statement to accept if I didn’t see many, many people routinely make decisions about parenting (or becoming parents) that did not appear to involve such analysis. The only times I’ve seen parents really think and act the way you describe, was when they were financially-stable and comfortable enough in status from the start that any such alterations would change that (and even then, many of them wind up divorcing anyway if things go poorly instead of staying together for the kids’ sake, something which may or may not be in the child’s best interest as well). And even then, I’ve seen parents in such situations adopt polyamory or whatever; either they don’t agree with your assessment, or they’re not thinking about the decision in those terms in the first place.
(FYI: This is what I meant re: your theoretical understanding of human sexuality—it’s not an attack on you, it’s just me stating you appear to have an understanding of how people behave in these situations that’s informed more by your big-picture theoretical beliefs about human behavior, than by a direct assessment of how people really behave—at the very worst, I am accusing you of generalizing too broadly beyond the scope of what you know).
Thanks for reading my (long) comment. RE the Laguna Pueblo, I will read up. Certainly it’s not something that we’ve seen often. Whether this is because “things are different than they were before” or something else less plastic is another question.
To be clear, my argument about the correlation between polyamory and child-rearing is not about how effective a poly environment might be at child-rearing. On the contrary, I’d be that a stable poly family would provide access to consistent capital and caretakers that a mono family cannot. However, the question remains of how it’s in the individual parents’ interests to enter into a given family arrangement. When it’s not, they won’t have kids, and the eventual parenting outcome remains moot; if moms and dads don’t want to do it, it won’t happen. My suspicion is that among those individuals so constituted that polyamory is a good match, having kids might not be part of their plan. (Again, early days, data needed, though this could be done with surveymonkey.)
My objections to your comments: my “hey smart poly people, round up the jerks” comment was intended as a humorous way to point out the sanctimoniousness that you also recognize, and which damages the discussion. It wasn’t intended as a serious proposal for the Grand High Poly Council to take up. (Note: I also don’t really think there’s a Grand High Poly Council, but I think we understand each other by now.)
My second objection is to your statement that “[my] theoretical understanding of human sexuality has left [me] ill-prepared for making predictions about real-world cases like this”. A less charitable person than myself might react to this as a personal attack. Suffice it to say, I must sadly report that I have a good track record of looking at relationships and identifying tensions that later end them. My predictions aren’t based on personality clashes, but rather fundamental supply-demand tensions that would seem to be constant across any kind of arrangement where a person can be happier with one person than another. Maybe I hang out with awful people who act this way, or maybe I’ve just been around the block enough times to know where cynicism is warranted.
Leslie Marmon Silko is a good source there, re: pre-Christianization (and to some degree mid-and post-) sexual practices.
I’d find that an easier statement to accept if I didn’t see many, many people routinely make decisions about parenting (or becoming parents) that did not appear to involve such analysis. The only times I’ve seen parents really think and act the way you describe, was when they were financially-stable and comfortable enough in status from the start that any such alterations would change that (and even then, many of them wind up divorcing anyway if things go poorly instead of staying together for the kids’ sake, something which may or may not be in the child’s best interest as well). And even then, I’ve seen parents in such situations adopt polyamory or whatever; either they don’t agree with your assessment, or they’re not thinking about the decision in those terms in the first place.
(FYI: This is what I meant re: your theoretical understanding of human sexuality—it’s not an attack on you, it’s just me stating you appear to have an understanding of how people behave in these situations that’s informed more by your big-picture theoretical beliefs about human behavior, than by a direct assessment of how people really behave—at the very worst, I am accusing you of generalizing too broadly beyond the scope of what you know).