Coming Out To Your Kids
Libby and Catherine of Expansive Connection answer a listener question about coming out to older kids.
Transcript
Libby:
So today on making polyamory work, we have Catherine from Expansive Connection and today we're gonna answer a listener question. And I'm very excited to have Catherine on the show. Catherine and I have known each other for a while. Been in the mutual admiration society of each other. But Catherine is a licensed therapist and relationship coach and yoga teacher, and she brings 18 years of experience and teaches through mindfulness education, metaphors and example, and has been doing a lot of support for non-monogamous folks for a quite a long time. And Catherine, is there anything else you just wanna say about yourself to introduce yourself to my listeners?
Catherine:
Sure. Thank you so much for having me. It is an honor because I have you in my ear very often as I walk my dogs and exercise. And so very often my exercise routines are interrupted by me stopping and forwarding your podcast to my clients. So it is so exciting to be here with you. So thank you so much for having me. So I have been, in the helping field, as we call it, as a therapist for 18 years. And, eight years ago my husband and I opened up our marriage and boy, what a wild ride it has been in all the ways. And about a year into it, I was approached about, well actually the very first time we, went to desire in Mexico, I had a guy follow me around the whole time saying, will you please counsel me and my girlfriend?
Catherine:
I'll pay you anything you want per hour. We just need help. And I was like, you're on vacation. I was my first vacation of this, like very first foray into this. I was like, dude, I have no idea what I'm doing. You could probably counsel me better than I could counsel you. But within about a year I did start getting more and more serious, requests for that. And I was asked to be on a podcast to discuss the journey that I had personally had with jealousy. And it really made me realize that people not only want lifestyle or ethical, non monogamy friendly therapists or coaches, they really love that we are walking this journey ourselves. Yeah. And are willing to be, self, you know, do self disclosure and, open ourselves up and tell our own stories. And just like you and I when we were having our coffee date before we started recording, where we have our head and our hands going, oh my gosh, this is so hard.
Catherine:
Sometimes I think my, clients seem to really appreciate that I'm willing to be on the journey and also share it. So I started a business, coaching. I did go ahead and, stop working under my license as a therapist so that I could put my work toward coaching people all over the world and have since grown my business to include two other coaches that bring expert expertise of their own with Enneagram and the adult chair work of, understanding inner parts. Also, one of my coaches is, is certified in DBT, which is a wonderful way to help people manage extreme emotional reactions, which certainly ethical non monogamy can, bring up. And she's also, trauma informed and also a sex therapist. So the three of us work together to do individual and couples and more some coaching, but also we are all educators.
Catherine:
So we have a lot of ways that we like to, similar to you teach people skills so that in the moment when they are flipping out, they have some something they can pull out of the tool belt to try to change the course of these emotional reactions that are so old and baked into us from our childhood. So it's been a really fun ride and I'm excited to talk to you today about what we're talking about. But I do wanna say I am absolutely not an expert, as we just discussed, who is an expert on parenting. Right. But I do happen to be a parent and am an, and I have been an ethical non mography. So the combination of those two is really exciting for me to talk about today.
Libby:
Yeah. I'm excited to have you, talk about this because you're, you're also a parent of an older child, whereas I have young kids and our journeys integrating our kids into our non-monogamy lives are very different. But you know, sidebar, just sidebar, I think maybe there's another conversation in the future for us talking about help, you know, what it means to give help and get help. Cuz that's something that's been on my mind a lot. But I'm gonna put a pin in it. Cause what we're gonna talk about is this listener question, which I got a while ago. And I wanna be accountable to my listeners who send me questions. I know that I am slow and getting answers to your questions. Sometimes painfully agonizingly slow, but it's because I wanna bring in other awesome people to talk about it. So this listener wrote to me and they said, hello, thank you for your work on these podcasts.
Libby:
I've listened to your podcast regarding children, but I'm wondering what you do if you need to tell, kids who are either in middle school or high school, who are older and how to approach that with them, as well as having partners stay in the home occasionally with kids that age. And so thank you in advance for that. And you know, and I was so to, for those of you who don't know, I am a mom of young kids. They are now seven and nine though, so they keep getting bigger. Crazy how they do that. They do, if you keep feeding 'em, they just keep growing. And, you know, our journey,, into non-monogamy started before they were born. And so, like our children have never not known their parents to be non-monogamous. There have always been other adults staying over in the house and of course not just like romantic partners, but also friends and things like that.
Libby:
So like when my kid was two, he would come into the room and maybe see me in bed with a partner and cuddle with us. And like that was no big deal. It was just normal. But I have always, like, I, so I haven't had the experience of having to come out to my kids. As though they, they thought it was one way and now it's another way. And so that's why I thought, cuz Catherine, you have had that experience, right? And, so I thought that that would be really useful for my listeners to hear. Not just like, you know, there's, cuz there's the two pieces, right? There's the what should you do. and what, and like, how should you be thinking about this? And then also I think I'm hopeful that you'll tell us what you did do.
Catherine:
Absolutely. I'm happy to share that.
Libby:
Yeah. So why don't we start with, you know, like, because I did a podcast episode about this where one of the things I said was, you know, be, thoughtful about what you're sharing with your children and really give them the right to not know things and think about what's developmentally appropriate. And I know you have some stuff to say about that as well when it comes to like, older kids. And I wonder when you share your
Catherine:
Thoughts. Absolutely. Well, first of all, I do wanna say again, a little bit in expectations and outcomes, which is also how I'd like to end our talk about this. Is expectations and outcomes because I think those are so important is that I just wanna make sure that people don't hear my story as advice. This is the way to do it. These are just, I'm gonna tell you how I did it and I'm gonna give you some reasons why. And I really just hope that your listeners will listen, listen for resonance, but also listen for what doesn't feel right for their situation or their children or their partners. And please to, not just take this as a template, but as a starting point and a launching point for making it your own unique space and journey.
Libby:
I'm so glad you said that because what I hear in that is, you know, don't trust us actually
Catherine:
Yeah.
Libby:
You know, don't. And well, and this is what I tell my clients too. I tell my clients, don't trust me. Trust you. Right. And that's what I hear you saying in that statement is hear what, what we say, see what resonates for you and really trust that
Catherine:
Yeah. Very important. Which I think is, I do like the same with my clients with anything I offer or any podcast or resource just bringing in his information. But make sure you check in and for the rest Well,
Libby:
and, can I say something about this that's just coming to me now as a parent? Like how much advice do we get about how to raise our children? Like how everywhere, how many books, podcasts, Instagrams,
Catherine:
Oh wait. And that's then that's just
Libby:
The Well meaning relatives.
Catherine:
I was about to say that's when you act actually have solicited it. How much unsolicited parenting advice do we get from grandparents
Libby:
Or strangers at freaking target? Right. well, and there's a lot of pressure as a parent, to do it right and when, things are going in a difficult direction, it's very visible to, in a lot of different ways. And there's a lot, there's a lot of opportunities to be ashamed or to feel shame around how you're doing as a parent. And, you know, it can be really, really hard in those moments when you're not sure what you're doing, to feel grounded in that self resonance. Right. In that self-trust because there's all this advice out there. There's your kid maybe going through what's normal for a kid to go through, but it's not fun, it's not pleasant. It's really challenging. It's triggering all your and to, not like, wanna go and grab someone else's advice and just be like, this is what I should do.
Libby:
Because it gives you some sense of like anchoring uncertainty in what is fundamentally and uncertain and really challenging, experience can be really hard. I mean, it can be really hard not to just wanna do what someone tells you to do. And I remember that as a mom of like, of babies and my baby would be like, crying nonverbal, don't know what's going on. Turns out probably it was just indigestion. But I'm like flipping through books being like, what do I do? And people would always tell me, well, just trust your instincts. And I was like, I don't know what the my instincts are telling me right now, I need a book. You know? But, now with the hindsight, I wish I had been able to tell myself, no, you can actually slow down with yourself and just listen to yourself. You don't know. But they don't either. And the way you're gonna know is not by listening to them, but by figuring it out. I mean, you can listen to the experts or the not expert experts, right. You can listen to us, but it is really important that you also slow down to with yourself and listen to your kid too and trust your kid. And cuz that's where the answers are and it's, but I just wanna name how hard that is.
Catherine:
Yes, indeed. Indeed. So, yes. So let's go with what you just said of listening to the child. So for me, the first question that we, that we ask then that I think is important for people to consider is what specifically, what specifically do they need to know and why? Yeah. And as you've said, making it developmentally appropriate. I think it's really important for, what was really important for us is to very clearly understand our why. Why are we telling her? And why are we telling her now what it, what was our motivation? And really getting clear about that. And one of the things that we used was some, was from a wonderful podcast about, Sex Ed for children. And I got this advice from them, which was give them a little information and then listen for when they're saturated.
Catherine:
So instead of explaining the whole female reproductive system and getting really detailed about fallopian tubes, you know, like say one little thing and then listen for what they ask and then let them lead with those questions. And you know, tell them that you're doing that. Say, I'm gonna let your questions, especially with these older, with older children, I'm gonna let your, your questions lead how much I tell you and I'm gonna let, I'm gonna make space for it. So you know, when you're ready to ask questions, I'll answer them. And it is wild if you do this with, Sex Ed or if you do this with your relationship structure or gender identity or sexual orientation, any of this, it is so interesting because you give them a little piece of information and they'll usually ask one or two, sometimes really thoughtful questions. And then the third question will be, so why, why do they sell chocolate milk but not caramel milk? And they will ask
Catherine:
About these
Catherine:
Same passion and you know that the conversation is over and now it's time to talk about caramel milk. Yeah,
Libby:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I, what comes up for me when you say that is, I actually, this is totally unrelated, but I was out on a bike ride with my kids trying to teach them how to use a gear bike. And I actually, I don't think I would've gotten what I got if I hadn't asked them. After we rode a little bit, I, and we paused and we took a little water break and I said, Hey, do you have any questions about how this works? I think if I hadn't asked, Hey, do you have any questions? I wouldn't have gotten the questions that I got. And I think you're right. When you get a question from a kid that is showing they're interested and they're actually gonna listen to you, and how often is it that we have something we really wanna tell them and they don't fucking wanna know. Right?
Catherine:
Yep. Or we try to tell them too much cuz we've worked our way up to this big conversation and we're nervous and we wanna get it over with as quickly as possible. And then we feed them from a fire hose and they're like, what
Libby:
Well, and they Yeah. And they don't process it and, they're, and they're irritated with us for distracting them from what their agenda is. And, and you know what it is, Catherine, it's not relational.
Catherine:
Right.
Libby:
We're doing to them instead of doing with them.
Catherine:
So true. Yes.
Catherine:
Yeah. Yes,
Catherine:
Yes. so I think I'll just jump into how we did it. Is that you just tell
Libby:
Yeah. I wanna hear the story
Catherine:
Well, so my, our daughter was, 11 and a half and we had been open at this point for probably five and a half years, but most of our openness had been a little more on the swinging side of things. couple dating a lot. We live in a small town and so a lot of our interaction with nonmonogamy was out of town. So it was just her understanding was just that mama and daddy go outta town a lot. We like to go see friends in cities, we live in the mountains, so we like to go have our city time. We always have normalized how to her, how important our marriage is for the stability of our whole family unit. And that when we are going on a date, it's not because we want to get away from her necessarily, but that we also see it as investment in our family unit. So yes. Yeah, we love spending time together, but we also have always kind of helped her have buy-in to under to understand that it also benefits her.
Libby:
Well and I think, you know, I love that you say that and I think normalizing that we have other people that we care about besides just each other. Like, even if you're not ready to come out to your kid, you're, even if you're not ready to be polyamorous yourselves, even like normalizing that it's normal for adults to have other people in their lives and other relationships and a network of social support. I think that's actually modeling like really healthy, relating in a way that, you know, a lot of us are, there's been a lot of discourse about how the nuclear family's very isolating and very insular and very, it's very difficult to raise children that way. And so if parents have, can normalize for their kids, Hey, it's okay to have outside resources, it's okay to have other people you talk to besides your partner. Like you're already I think, strengthening their future relational landscape too.
Catherine:
Yeah, that's a great point. so by this point she had no idea, but I had started, dating someone and had gotten a lot, it had gotten much more serious and I had been dating him about nine months and it was just getting to a point where I honestly, I was scared she was gonna catch us and I, I just hated the, I didn't want, I didn't want that stink on it because we've always been really honest and open with her and to find out we were lying about that just, and he, he was very, he was becoming part of our unit in ways, I mean, she saw him as a friend right. Of, ours, but more mine. And he'd been around, you know, we'd gone snowboarding together and he'd been around and hung out with, you know, my husband and I in front of her. He, she would see me with skiing with just him or something like that. So she just assumed it was a male friend, but it was just getting, it was getting entrenched enough that I was, I was most, my biggest motivation was not wanting her to catch us. Right. So,
Libby:
Well, cause if she caught you, she'd think you were cheating too, right? Absolutely. So she would think you were betraying her father. Yes. And that would and that would be horrible. And, that actually happened to me, not with my kid, but with my mother-in-l aw. She actually like read some text messages.
Catherine:
I remember the hearing that
Libby:
Yeah, yeah. From, one of my partners and she thought I was cheating on her son. And you know, I think it actually was, is one of the reasons why when we did come out to them, it was so hard for them to acclimate that because she already had a story. Yes. And then she had to undo that story and then create a new story. And, I think that was really hard. So I think that's really a good point. And that goes to your why, right? Like why would we tell her so that she doesn't think we're
Catherine:
Cheating? Absolutely. So we sat down and talked to our individual counselors, and the, our couple's counselor to get thoughts and ideas to look for our own blind spots. And one of the pieces of advice that we got from that was be sure to clear your own static and any personal judgements or shame that you're carrying around about it. And that was huge and slowed down the process because we did wanna be very intentional about, and really, and worked with our counselors on what are our blind spots? What do you see? Where do you see shame? That is so entrenched in my, the way I grew up that I'm not seeing it, that I might pass on to her. So we slowed way down in the preparation phase of clearing our own static, which also was incredibly therapeutic for us. Right.
Libby:
Well, well, and I could see that because like if you told her about it out of a sense of urgency, but then you yourself actually weren't okay, like fully okay with what you were telling her, you know, she's gonna pick up on that. Right. And then again, when you're talking about like, one of the reasons you wanna do it is to maintain trust. Right? To maintain a trusting relationship, to be in an honest relationship. When you tell her but you that she can see there's something else going on under the surface, then she's not gonna trust totally what you're saying.
Catherine:
Right. And that can be scary for children for sure. So, once we did that, we also talked to our other partners about their thoughts about this, any wishes or ideas or boundaries that they had and that, that was, so that was another mind blowing therap like kind of therapeutically cathartic, exercise because my, my boyfriend, he tends to be a much, um, more cynical person walking through the world than my husband and I, we can be pretty poly, polyamorous and polyannaish
Catherine:
trusting others and believing in the good. And, while sometimes his critical nature and negativity drives me crazy in this case, it's so helpful. And I got to see how much my kid meant to him. And he said, you know, I wanna make sure that he said, I don't wanna scare her, but I don't want you guys to just make it out like rainbows and care bears and everybody's gonna embrace this. Like, she needs to understand how awful people can be and how bullied it might be. And he's like, and I know you two will do it in a way that isn't too scary. But I, he said my worst case scenario is, her getting bullied at school because of something I my, because of my relationship with you, like knowing that she could be hurt by what we are doing breaks my heart and so, double. It was really nice to have that perspective and we did bring that into the conversation, but also what a lovely opportunity for me to see how much my kid was impacting him. That was so sweet.
Libby:
Well, I'm, wondering Catherine, like, did, was that something, maybe, maybe I'm jumping ahead, but I'm curious, is that something that came up like, you know, with when you talked to her about it, was she worried about like what her friends might think or, you know, maybe we'll put a pin in it. I'm just,
Catherine:
I'm, we'll, and I will talk about that. But the other thing that came out from that is my, my boyfriend said, I don't want, he said, I mean, she really, really wants to talk to me about it. That's fine. But I don't really wanna be her place of getting information about this. I it's not really a place that I feel comfortable. So he was able to set that boundary with me and, I loved that he set that and, it hasn't been that way. I mean, over the, you know, almost two years since we've told her they have a very close relationship. But, and I don't know that she's ever discussed clearly or openly anything about relationship or sex or anything with him. Yeah. But I did, I did really appreciate that he had that boundary and I think he appreciated that we brought him and his wishes into it ahead of time. Yeah. At the time my, my husband was dating someone, but it was much more casual, so she wasn't as involved in the, in the telling. she's very involved in our lives now. But I do think that that's an important piece, especially if, if your partners are gonna be involved with the kids to go ahead and, any time we can do some prevention or thinking ahead to set boundaries, then those boundaries don't feel as harsh, I think.
Libby:
Well, and I think they can change too, but like if, if there's this assumption of a certain level of involvement or a certain level of non involvement without their participation in that Right. You know, then that definitely can cause some problems.
Catherine:
Sure, sure. So the next thing we did, and this was happening really, this had been happening for years, but we certainly got a little more intense with it. And I think I may have gotten this, I may have gotten this from you, the idea of bread crumbing where we dropped Yes. Okay. Where we dropped some ideas about this. So the way that we did bread crumbing with our 10, you know, 10, 11 year old was, this was also the time where we came clean about Santa
Catherine:
So we had this discussion about,
Libby:
Wait, you lasted to 11 with Santa
Catherine:
10 her, her 10, she had just turned 11 that Christmas. And it's easier with an only child. Oh, it's you know
Libby:
The cat that with my kids already.
Catherine:
Yeah. I think it's easier sometimes with girls. And anyway, so we, this was, we had already had the Santa discussion and we had already had to say, listen, we've been lying to you about something your whole life and here's why. And she was, and I said, and, I told her, I said, the last couple of years especially, it's really killed me to lie to you because trust and transparency are such family values. And she looked at me, she was like, I'm so glad you lied to me. And I said, wow,
Libby:
That's so great. She said,
Catherine:
Because you made my childhood more magical. I was like, oh my God.
Libby:
Wow.
Catherine:
So she understood and she said, she said, I'm glad you lied to me because you made my childhood more magical. And she was like, and also I wouldn't have understood, I wouldn't have understood if you told me sooner. right. She said that about this again, jumping ahead a little bit. She said, I understand why you lied to me about this. I wouldn't have gotten this when I was six or seven. And I, and so I'm glad you did. So, so Santa was one of our bread coming, because of my work, I was able to talk, I always talk about relationships and, I started, you know, talking about clients that are poly. I mean, obviously not specifically, but I'll just, I would just mention poly people along with Yeah. You know, LGBTQ people or anything. Just making that poly as a term that she already knew about.
Catherine:
Yep. And then I also started talking about the oddity of romantic love being so different and have such a diff having such different rules than any other relationships. And so the main one that I've talked about was, was about her para grandparents. And I was talking about how, you know, wouldn't it be weird if you were only allowed to love one of your grandparents? You could be friends with all of them, but you couldn't, you couldn't have, you couldn't love one, you had to pick one of your grandparents to really love and, to love more than the others. And you're gonna, you have to have this superlative love for them. And she was
Catherine:
Like, that would be
Catherine:
So weird. And we of course talked about we either bread crumbing was about siblings, you know, if I had another child, do you think I would love you less? Do you think? Or do you think my heart would, double in size? And so those are the bread crumbing specifics that we used, so thank you for the idea. And that's how we used it,
Libby:
Yep. Yep. Yeah, I think that, and I think that's a good, like it's an on, it's probably still ongoing, right? Oh yeah. You know, and, as your kid gets older it can be, you know, cuz all of those are kind of questions, right? Like what do you think about that? like, some people think that you should live this way. What do you think about that? Rather than just like not talking about it because when you don't talk about it, then it's assumed that we all agree. Right. You know?
Catherine:
Absolutely. so the next thing we, the next piece of it is deciding who would tell her. And we decided to tell her together. My husband and I told her together we did not involve my other partner. and again, everybody does this for different reasons, but we were very intentional about our reason and our reason is the next step is how we led it. And we led with this being a choice that my husband and I make that, you know, we, well we asked her, do you know what an open marriage is? And she said, yeah. And I said, oh really? What is it? And she said, it's where you are open and you talk about everything.
Catherine:
And I was like, that is true. And so we in introduced the concept and we talked to, we were, we talked to her about, you know, that this is a choice that we've made because we believe it helps us be the best versions of ourselves. Yeah. And we compared it to other things that we do in our, lives that she's already very aware of. We are very, very committed to our exercise. We are committed to our nutrition. We both meditate, we are very committed to getting good rest. We're committed to our community. We take good care of our house and our cars. And, so she already sees the work that we put toward kind of having the best version of our house, best version of our car, best version of our physical body, best version of our spiritual body. We said, this helps us have the best version of our relational body, if you will. Right. And so telling her together and helping her understand that this is something we choose together to make our unit stronger. that felt really important to the way we have already set up our lives and what she already understands.
Libby:
Yeah. I love that. Thanks.
Catherine:
so then we helped her, we also made sure she knew that we had been very intentional about making this choice that we sought education and counseling when we've needed to for ourselves. So that felt important to us because we wanted her to know that, I guess just that this wasn't some willy-nilly crazy decision that we were grounded in it and that we had, we
Libby:
Really thought about
Catherine:
It. Yeah. And that we had our own supports for it. We had our own counselors, we had our own educators, that we have gone to and continued to. We
Libby:
Well wait, I'm curious about something there, Catherine. Cause you know, I'm wondering did she have any questions for you about like, why, like did she ask you like why it's the best version or, and or did she have any challenges for you around like, you know why aren't you monogamous or, I mean, did she have any questions like that for you?
Catherine:
No, she has, she didn't. and I'll tell you what her, she only had, she really only had two questions, which I think will make more sense, if I tell 'em in the order. But she, no, she didn't really question. Like of course it may be because, you know she also has a counselor and an educator as a mother. I may have, I may have given her enough information that she didn't have to question it. But I think what I said was, you know, that we just, like, we have always, she's always seen us with lots of friends and a big community that, we have a, strong capacity for love and romantic connection and we enjoy that. And you know, that we've been together since we were 22. And that it's been fun to add the energy of other people and to be able to do other hobbies with other people and to also learn more about ourselves in mirroring from other relationships. probably, I mean I told her all that. So I guess I maybe just gave her the answer for why we were monogamous
Libby:
Well, and I guess I wonder, I mean do you, maybe this is jumping ahead again, but do you make space for her to like not be okay with that? Like for her to be like, I don't think I would want non-monogamy or that wouldn't be the best version of myself.
Catherine:
Absolutely. It's funny, one of my cousins asked me, where I'm out to them and, recently she said, because our daughter is, identifying as, um, she's, she goes between bi and pansexual is how she describes herself. And so my cousin came to me and she said, I just need to ask you a really straight hard question. And I said, lay it on me. We've always had that kind of relationship. And she said, are you making it okay for Grace to just be some like air quotes, normal, white, heterosexual Christian girl. And I was like,
Catherine:
Sure.
Catherine:
She's like, is that okay? I was like, of course it's okay. And I said, you know, her whole life, we've always used the word tolerance. we do live in the south. And when she was little, little, she came home from the gym, the daycare at gym, at the gym at holiday time. And she said, mama, I'm so scared because I love Santa Claus, but the girl at the gym, the other little girl, she told me I was gonna go to a place with lots of fire cuz I love Santa Claus and she loves this other man. I don't remember his name. And it was Jesus. Right. So she had a little kid pro to her at the, you know, so we started talking about tolerance from that conversation that you can believe whatever you wanna believe, as long as you don't scare someone else with your beliefs or shame someone else for their beliefs.
Catherine:
So we've been having that conversation our whole, our whole, I mean it's for as long as she could remember. Yeah. And most of our friends are not poly. Most of our friends are not ethically not monogamous. They are, you know, they are monogamous people. we have friends from different religions. We have friends from, you know, their different, different sexual orientations. So, and so we said, you know, this is not the path for everyone. And some people do this for a while and then they don't and then they do again. Or some people never do it. They think about it and they do the research and they decide not to. So I do hope it's certainly been part of our intention that she believes that she could do it however she wants. I mean she's 13 and she hasn't dated anyone yet. So we could talk in 10 years.
Libby:
Well, and I mean, but you know, it does, I mean that's the thing that I, think is important to say cuz I think I'm mostly saying this because I could see somebody probably not people that are really listening to my podcast all that much, but like, somebody could be in here and be like, you're indoctrinating your child into non-monogamy and look, she's, she's identifying pansexual. So obviously the, you know, sex positive queer agendas being, you know, blanketed on your child. And I'm like, but no, I mean, you gotta understand the dominant culture is pushing, like you said, especially growing up in the south. I mean, I grew up in the south and, I felt very pushed to be a particular way, which is not the way that I am. And so it took a lot of work for me to be able to feel like I could be who I was. And I mean, so I think you making it safe and, and okay for her to be whoever she wants and then being an example of a way of being different is probably not indoctrinating, but just supportive. But I just kind of, you know, and it sounds like you think a lot about that, that it's really important that if she decides she wants to be monogamous and Christian and heterosexual, that that you're still gonna love her and that's perfectly okay.
Catherine:
I think it's great. Whatever she chooses, if it's making her happy. And we, we've had those conversations too about, we live in a liberal arts town, it has a university and you know, obviously I have a master's degree and my husband has a bachelor's degree. And we say, and we've said, if you wanna, if welding is interesting you and you wanna be a fantastic welder and it's fun for you, like there's, you don't have to do our path. So yeah, I do believe that there are many ways that we've, that we've tried to let her create her own path, but I do think it's certainly worth discussing that to make sure that she doesn't feel like we would be upset if she were different than us. So yeah, thank you for bringing that up. we did emphasize a lot about safety and security, which to me, I believe at least subconsciously is the most important concern that the kids are gonna have. Absolutely. We have so much of this lofty prefrontal cortex understanding abstraction about relationship and blah, blah, blah. They really wanna know like, is it gonna change? You know, am I fed? Am I safe? Am I warm? Do the people that love me are they gonna love me? I think that that is, they need to know that most and we can get lost in the weeds. So we really try to continue to bring it down to concrete emphasis about her safety and security.
Libby:
Um Yeah. And things that like won't definitely won't happen. Right. Like, things that definitely won't happen. Like we will still love you. Yes. your family is still your family. Yeah, absolutely.
Catherine:
And we did talk about, um, and I think it probably also helped that we had already been in this long enough, we said, you know, really nothing's gonna change other than, you know, who, who my boyfriend is now, you know, what he, what he is to me. And she had some funny like oh, this makes so much more sense now . And it was very funny to watch her like connect the dots and Oh, I, you know, it was, it was really cute to see that happen. And then the hardest part of the conversation was explaining the need for her to be secret for this to be a secret and for and with whom it needed to be a secret. And then of course, this is gonna be different for every family where we live.
Libby:
Yeah. Because you're not out. Right. You're not out at all.
Catherine:
I would say I'm quasi out so my family knows my, all of our good friends know, but we are not, I mean, people at her school don't know it, there people only know because we have told them very intentionally. Right. And we've been lucky enough to not have a big exposure scare. I think that there are people in our community that, wonder or have some questions, but it hasn't been a, we haven't had some big shaming outing or anything like that. but there's
Libby:
A worry about that it sounds like based on where you live,
Catherine:
Based on where we live. And, and again, to my boyfriend's point, really, really not wanting our choices of how we live to have any potential to hurt her as much as we can protect her from that. Which as she gets older, I'm realizing is a little bit of maybe me being a control freak, trying to control things that are out of my control. you know.
Libby:
Well, I'm wondering if you're open for a little pushback on that.
Catherine:
Sure,
Libby:
Sure. Well, cuz like, what if you were gay? What if your partner was of the same gender as you? I mean, that's not something you can hide. Right. Or if you did hide it, it would be pretty painful to hide that. Yeah. And that could also expose you to bullying. Right? Yeah. And that could also expose your child to bullying at school if the people at your school, at her, if the people, if the people at her school are, you know, homophobic or you know, just really have been indoctrinated in the idea of, you know, heterosexual marriage is the only true marriage or whatever or what if you were trans, or your partner was trans or, you know, and you wouldn't ask her to hide those things. Right. Or at least I hope you wouldn't. But, you know, those could also put her at risk and that's a choice that, or not necessarily a, it's not a choice though. Right. But it's like, it's a, it's a part of who you are that, you know, would potentially, some people wouldn't like it. And, and I, guess I, wonder like, not that I'm, I mean I, think it should, people should always be at choice about what's comfortable for them and what feels safe for them. But I guess I wonder how this feels different in terms of Absolutely. Yeah.
Catherine:
It's, it's a great, it's a great pushback then, and I appreciate it. And that's, it's sort of why I said the longer it goes on, the more I realize that maybe I'm trying to control something that is really outta my control in the first place. Because just, in the last two months I is when I came out to my dad and it's the first coming out experience that I've had that was negative and it was really negative, ironically. And I didn't do this on purpose. I told him, and then four days later he called me when I told him it went really well. And then four days later he called me and threatened suicide and said that he didn't know how he could be in the same room with us again. And he lives in our town, so he's very, very involved in our lives. And the day that he called me to do that was international coming out day.
Libby:
Oh my gosh.
Catherine:
How about some irony? So the reason I share that is I was on social media and seeing all this about coming out and it really hit me between the eyes, the privilege I've had to be able to hide this. Right. I can hide. I have been able for eight years to hide behind what looks like seemingly heterosexual normative marriage. Yeah. And I can have, I've been able to pretty much fully express what feels right to me sexually and, and relationally without having to face how difficult it is to get that negative judgment when you come out. And so that has been a lot of discussion in our family in the last two months about why are we hiding? What does it mean? What are these negative impacts? I mean, my daughter was 12 when this happened with my, with her grandfather. And this was the most heartbreaking part. She said, wow, I really thought that his love for us wasn't so changeable. And I was like, you mean conditional? And he, she goes, yeah, conditional.
Libby:
Oh yeah.
Catherine:
Ouch. Right? Yeah.
Libby:
Oh, that. Well, and I'm sure that was heartbreaking for her.
Libby:
And there's nothing you can do to protect her from that. And that must have been awful as a mama.
Catherine:
Oh, so many. Well it's, it was awful as a daughter and awful as a mama. Right.
Libby:
Well, yeah. Well as a daughter, sure. Like, also heartbreaking. But like, I'm just thinking about, I decided to tell my child's grandfather about me and then that caused my child's grandfather to be, to act in ways that are hurting my child. You know? I mean, exactly. It can be easy to kind of justify it if it's yourself, you know, but when it's someone else that you're doing that for it I can, I mean, cuz what I'm hearing and what you're saying is like, what you're trying to do is protect her, right. But you, but like what you're seeing is like, you can't, but then you also have to be with the experience of a choice that you're making or a lifestyle that you're living. I mean, how much of this is a choice? We don't, you know.
Libby:
Yeah. But like, but like the lifestyle that you're living and the ways that you're moving through the world, potentially having a negative impact on your kid. That's tough. Like, that's hard. I think about that too., cuz my kids, I mean, I also live in the south, I live in a metro, a very large metropolitan area though. So I feel a little bit like fortunate that I feel like most people that I interact with understand non monogamy polyamory. But it's been a very gradual thing since we moved here of like checking who can I tell who is safe to kind of do this with? And I'm sort of bracing myself for the moment when, parents of children that my kids go to school with know that we're polyamorous and they pull away from us. Yes. And they don't want, like, and maybe they don't want their kid over at my house, or they don't want my kid playing with their kid, or, you know, they don't invite us to some birthday party or something like that.
Libby:
And my kid has to experience social consequences because of o ur lifestyle. Like, that's, it's really hard and scary and it really hasn't happened yet that I'm aware of. But I mean, it can't not if we're gonna be out and Exactly. And at the same time, I think, well I had a, I had a friend in middle school whose mom was a lesbian, and you know, it was reflecting on it now it's pretty obvious. Like there was her mom was not hiding it, her mom was like super butch. you know, and, you know, I mean, it was, it was real obvious, but I think that, you know, we were all kind of closeted, you know, white suburban Christian, middle schoolers. And so, you know, if you didn't know what to look for, you wouldn't know. And so I think a lot of people didn't know, but then, at some point someone said something, but I remember I knew because like I was friends with her and we went over to her house and she talked about it and, you know, and all that.
Libby:
But, but then someone told like the whole class and she got really upset and she actually thought that I had done it, that I had like outed her mom and I didn't, but also like, you know, there was no, like, her mom clearly wasn't trying to hide it. Her mom was trying to be who she was and it was just sort of, but her daughter was embarrassed and her daughter was afraid that people wouldn't like her and all this stuff. And I was just like, but you know what really needs to exist, going back to what you said before is tolerance and acceptance of different types of people. And that's what we need. I mean that, I think that's what we need to stick up to protect our child from is not from experiencing that kind of, bigotry and prejudice and hurtfulness, but instead to understand like, when that happens to someone else, that's hurtful to everybody. So if it happens to me, I'm in solidarity with those other people. That's kind of how I frame it at least. And, you know, so I don't know. That's, so, I don't know.
Catherine:
Yeah. It's complicated. And I, and exactly, I mean, I, the idea of her having social consequences because of what we're doing, I think is the reason that we, we have decided to be more closeted than, and we, and the other thing that was interesting is explaining, well I actually thought this was a fantastic opportunity to explain the difference between having to realize that so often we have a secret because there's shame around it. And for her to understand like, we keep this a secret, but not because we're ashamed, but because of where we are choosing to live and how it can be, it can be more intolerant than other places in the world. And, and she loves where we live. And so, and she understand again, she, we reminded her of the Santa Claus burning in hell thing. And so she's very aware of we, there is certainly a pocket where we live that is very liberal and understanding and tolerant and right around the edges of it. There's way, there are way more people that are not. And so, I mean, Libby, I don't have a clear answer on it. We, I feel like we are, we are straddling that line. It's
Libby:
Hard. It's
Catherine:
Hard. It is, and it changes and it's flowing. And again, having this experience with my father is changing the landscape about it a little bit because we are feeling the sting of that. And so it's like, oh, do we tighten up even more or do we, we're already okay, we're okay. Do we open it up a little bit more? We've, it's, it's a challenge. So yes, to your point, if we had, if what if it were harder to hide this? Would we, that point
Libby:
Is Yeah. Like if your partner was living with you, like my partner's living with, my husband and I, and so it's like we would have to deliberately be really exclusionary and hurtful to them if we were to hide it, you know? And even now, like I said, it's been this gradual, like, you know, hey, by the way, this is my partner here. you know, hey, you know, and by the way, they live with us and by the way, we're polyamorous. You know, it's been a gradual, you know, cuz I mean there's also this balance of like, what are, what is actually people's business to know about you? You know, like, is it anybody's business what your sex life is? And you know, do I go asking the other parents of my kids' friends, like, who do you, who are you having sex with this one.
Libby:
Like is that even, I mean, so that's the other piece of it, right? That's I wanna do, say there's both, there's two sides to it, right? there's the side of like, you know, privilege and kind of protecting yourself and protecting your social privilege, whereas like if your kid's pansexual, you know, or trans or, non-binary or autistic or whatever, you know, they're gonna experience all kinds of marginalization because of who they are or, you know, or different race or you know, all these different things, you know. But then there's the flip side of what is actually people's business to judge you around. Like, if you were, if you were practicing paganism, is that their business? That's your personal faith. You know, they might, you know, in the south might have a problem with that, might think you were going to hell, you know, might need to feel the need to prophetize to you and that's not their business, you know, so that it is a tricky thing. so I guess I don't wanna come out as saying like, and this is where I flip flop on it a lot, where I'm like, what do you really need to know about my life?
Catherine:
Right? To your point, even if we were pagan, there definitely would be families that would not want their kids to come to our house for a sleepover for a birthday party. And I think right now that is still something we're trying to protect is her, again, I'm being a, being in middle school, that's hard enough. We're trying to do as much as we can to not add extra burdens to those social constructs and constellations and understanding and so explaining that to her, we also, in that, that part of the explanation, we talked about, changing norms, generations, how society sees this. So we explained why, you know, when we told her, the only one of our parents that knew it was my mom, and so we explained and she was like, oh gosh, yeah, granddaddy, you know, I won't say his name.
Catherine:
He would really struggle with that. Well now two years later, we've told him he, she was right, you know, or she, you know, she'd say, oh, Grammy, I think Grammy would understand, but it would be pretty hard for her. And she lives far away, so she doesn't really need to know, you know, we're discussing this. We talked about for her what our parents thought of interracial dating or homosexuality or bisexuality and how difficult that was for us growing up. And we talked through that and she just thinks that she's like, that is ridiculous, really. And so she helping her see how things have changed and those norms. That was an interesting and important part of the conversation too.
Libby:
And I think that's a good point, you know, that we're seated in a context and the, you know, on the one hand, you know what came up for me when you were saying about the paganism, I was kind of like, yeah, but like, do you wanna be with friends with those people, you know, do you wanna be, do you want your kid? Do you wanna like go outta your way?
Catherine:
We don't, but what if it's somebody that she wants to be friends with? And again, I think eventually she would question that
Libby:
Well, or she'd push back with you, right? Maybe she would say, Hey mom, like, can you, can you can it with the pig and stuff? Cause I really wanna be friends with this person, you know?, and you know, that I guess that could be a place where like she's asking for the secret rather than you, you telling her, Hey, you need to keep this a secret to protect yourself, kind of thing,
Catherine:
Right? Yeah.
Catherine:
It's Complicated.
Libby:
It's Complicated but then the other thing that I'm, I'm thinking is what you're saying of like changing norms over time and understanding that like, there's a time when things were just really not acceptable and not only not acceptable, but it wasn't safe. Like it wasn't safe to be, like, it's still not safe in a lot of places to be transgender and to be, clockable as transgender, like you will be targeted for violence or, bullying or what have you.
Catherine:
Or to have brown skin or to have or to be gay.
Libby:
Definitely not to, yeah. Yeah. And at the same time, what it makes me think about is like, you know, inserting into that conversation that we need to protect each other, you know? And I don't know, that's something that comes up a lot for me is like, okay, if I have the privilege to hide who I am in a, even though I am part of a minority in some kind of way, and, you know, I'm not leading the pride parade, I'm not leading the, the marginalized, you know, cavalcade or whatever. But like, I think if that's where we are situated, then I feel this call to be and maybe, I don't know, you know, to be part of, you know, part of supporting everybody being, accepted for who they are. And I guess I wonder, I wonder if that comes into the conversation of how do we, like, how do we choose who to engage with based on their ability to, be inclusive of all different kinds of people? Right.
Catherine:
And again, we are, we are, I mean, I'm saying, I'm saying this about where we live, but in our, in our friend bubble, in our community bubble, yeah. It is pretty safe. I mean, some people we don't tell just because we aren't close enough that we would never talk about sex with them or we would never, it's
Libby:
About your sex life. It
Catherine:
Would be weird with some of the people that we might have a potluck with at school or whatever, but it's so our, our reasons for telling people before it, before we told our daughter, we were always very clear, why would we tell this this person? Why would we tell this couple? And so, you know, I don't think that there's a whole lot of risk to her in her small school, in our small community. It's more in that wider gossipy small town that we live in kind of thing. And I don't, you know, it's interesting. Chicken or the egg. I'm thinking here. Libby, I in, since she has known, keep in mind we told her when she was 11 and a half and she's now, you know, she's 13. She has gotten, she is very, even before she told us that she was, you know, potentially identifying as bi or pansexual, she was wearing pride shirts and she was, she, you know, she had had been exposed to books about transgender kids and how difficult their, their journey is.
Catherine:
And she very much has some of that. I mean, just wanting to be tolerant and also advocate for, marginalized population. So I don't know if that's just because we've always preached tolerance and we are that way if it's because she's also thinking about, wow, I hope nobody would do that to my family. I don't, who knows what the inner workings are, but yeah. But so far she, well, and let me also, this is gonna lead in to something else about her friends or are you okay to start shifting toward that? Yeah,
Libby:
Yeah, yeah.
Catherine:
So the next step in my, my list of what we did is we did offer her a counselor to talk to. And also that we would be happy to look in to see if there were any poly Kid groups online. If she felt like she needed a community because we were asking her at this, at that point to not talk to her friends about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She hasn't taken us up on that. But she, you know, she was interested. And then we said, if you do want to tell a friend, we understand why you would want to, we just ask that we have a family talk about it first so that we can be again, intentional about when and why and who and what are the implications. Since then she, we, she has, she told one, we actually, she asked me to do it with her.
Catherine:
We told her best friend who had moved away. So that was pretty easy because they live across the country. This friend's mom is a social worker that specializes in trans and LGBTQ populations. So we knew it was a pretty safe landing. Right. And it went really well. And we talked through that. And then one of her best friends here, who is the son of one of our best friends, he started to get wise. He's like, why is, why is this my husband's girlfriend? Why is she over at their house a lot? And why is my boyfriend over at their house a lot? And they're always hanging out with us. And like, what's up with that? He asked his mom. So then his mom. okay. So as families we sat down and we talked about it. And so that's great.
Catherine:
Yeah. So it's been nice for her to have a couple of friends. And the other thing that's interesting is so many times over the last, you know, year and a half, two years coming up since I've, we've told her, I told her, I said, we're gonna have to sit down and have mama counselor talks cuz we always laugh about what it's like to be, have a counselor as a mom, you know. Yeah. And I was like, I'm gonna, I was like, I thought I'm not the only one , my husband calls it counselee and my daughter and I, she'll say, mama counselor talks and I'll just check in. How does it feel? How's your connection with me feeling? How's your connection with daddy feeling? How's your connection with my boyfriend feeling? How's your connection with daddy's girlfriend feeling? Is there anything that you want more of, less of family time?
Catherine:
How does it feel When our friends are over, you know, I do these check-ins with her mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, and that she has, she's always like, mama, I understand why it's such a big deal to you. It's just not that big a deal to us. Like, can I just go back? Can I just go back to what I'm doing, please. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So within we, you know, we told her we were open to her fears and also it gave us a chance to talk about consent. We talked about sexual safety, all of that sort of thing in the conversation. So you did ask about what she asked, the two questions she asked, she, when we were first explaining it, she said, I saw her getting emotional. And I said, are you having some big feels? And she's like, yeah. And I said, you wanna get in my lap?
Catherine:
You know, she was still 11. She said, yeah, she's got my lap. And she was crying and I said, can you tell me what the big feels are? And she said, I just don't understand why if something makes you so happy, why anybody would be upset about that or be mean to you about that Yeah. Right. I was like, precious heart. She also said when we told her, I'm so happy for you guys, which was really sweet to hear. And then the next morning she crawled in bed with me and she said, I thought of a question and I said, yes, what is it? And she said, do you have sex with these other people? Cause we hadn't specifically said that, you know, we were just keeping it open. And I said, sometimes, not always, it depends on what our connection is with them.
Catherine:
And I said, but the one thing that always happens is safe sex. And she knew about that and we talked about it and, I said, and always there's consent and always daddy and I talk about it. And that was really, other than me checking in with her, she's just really rolled with it. Andthe only times during those check-ins that anything, I don't even wanna say negative has come up, her only feedback has been, there have been times where she says, you know, I think I'd like to have a few more family nights because, you know, we're, of course our time is split and we're like, okay, what do you wanna do in those family nights? And we just roll with that. Or she'll say, you know, I really wanna make, I really have fun when your boyfriend and I go, snowboarding, but it's summer.
Catherine:
Like, I wanna have something that we do together in the summer. Okay. We make that happen. She has said, it's been a little weird for her to see me especially be more emotionally affected, you know, with a new relationship, some of the volatility. you know, my husband and I have a pretty like steady eddy easy. We don't have a lot of big fights. I mean, we have them, but they aren't, she certainly has seen a lot more of that with my boyfriend and I than my husband and I, and she said, you know, it was kind of weird to see that you, this grown up that I've always seen is so strong and like has it together could be so affected and like get so emotional. Yeah. And she's like, at first that was kind of scary for me, but then I realized it's just normal. It's just emotions. Hello counselor kid.
Catherine:
And, but she did tell me that it scared her a little bit and I said, would you rather me work on not showing you that? And she's like, no, I don't want you to pretend. She's like, I just wanted to tell you. It was just weird to see you be so emotional.
Libby:
Yeah.
Catherine:
So that was some, those were some interesting conversations.
Libby:
I bet. I bet. Well, and I mean, I guess Catherine, I wanna highlight some of the things that I'm hearing that like I can see that you're doing really, that you're doing really well just from like the third party standpoint. Because I think I wanna, I wanna highlight that for our listeners. which is that, I mean, I think that you, you know, what you said before of like, I'm gonna tell you this, I'm gonna tell you why. I'm gonna give you all the context. I love the ways in which you op you're open to hearing from her and how she feels about it. And you're not like pushing it on her. If she's like, look, you know, you're checking in, you're giving her room to give you feedback, but if she doesn't wanna give it to you, she doesn't have any to give you or whatever she, you know, you kind of leave her room to, go keep playing her video games or whatever it is.
Libby:
She's right. You know. and I think that the other thing that I think is so important that you're doing is you're not trying to get her to see it any particular way. You're not trying to hide anything to create a very particular type of picture for her. You know, and at the same time, you're not giving her more than what she needs to handle. Like, you're not gonna give her the guts and the inside. And so it's like, it's, I guess I wanna like draw the distinction between being boundaried, which what is what I see. Like, I'm not gonna tell you the ins and outs of these relationships. I'm not gonna let you necessarily be on the rollercoaster ride with me of everything that I'm feeling and doing. Which I would call like purifying your kid. Right? Like overly, overly being, too emotionally involved with what you're going through with them.
Libby:
And that's because you got clear on your own story about it before talking to her about it. You did all that blind spot work with your partner. And then like on the flip side, you're not trying to hide the fact that you, you're human and you might have complicated feelings about it and you might have emotions and other people might have complicated feelings about it. So it's like, it's a, it's a both and of like giving her as much of the information as she, like you said, as she needs to form her own experience around it while also, not dumping more on her than is appropriate. And I think that's like, that's what is, is so important with any of these kinds of things, with anything you're trying to talk to a kid about. It's like what do they really want and what do they really need? And sometimes you have to, as a parent decide that for them and sometimes you have to work with them to get that with them and that and create that with them. And I think that that just, it sounds like you're really working hard to be in that middle ground.
Catherine:
Well I so appreciate you reflecting that cuz you know, as with any being on a parenting journey, being on an ethical non monogamy journey, there are days where I'm like, oh my God, I'm fucking everything up. Oh my God, everything's gonna get, everything's going to hell. You know? So hearing, hearing that feedback today was really nice. And I will say that it, one of the places in the, cuz I certainly was, was over penalized. And so I'm very sensitive to that and, and because she has seen me more emotional and she is a very soft-hearted, kind, loving human he will often come and want to, you know, hug me or give me, you know, and I did sit down and talk to her about that. I said, I love it that you see me hurting and you wanna give me a hug. And I love that. That's just the human that you are. And I need you to make sure that before you offer me that hug, you check in and make sure that you're not doing it because you feel like you need to take care of me.
Libby:
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Catherine:
It's not your job. I'm like, I am a, I'm a grown assed woman who is strong and has all the feels and I'm gonna be strong as fuck about some things and I am going to be strong in my pain too. Yeah. And I'm gonna feel it all. And of course I love to get a, I hope things get better, mama or a hug as you walk out the door or something, but not because you feel like you need to take care of me or you're worried that I'm not Okay. And I said, and it's really important. I also think she happens to be very empathic. And so we've talked about this kinda thing where I said, I don't want you to take on my feelings. You've gotta, we talk about it. Her I impact shield. I said, you gotta put your impact shield up and if you need space or you need for like, Hey mama, I'm trying to study and you're upset, can you go take a drive? You can ask me to do that, if you're, if the shield isn't strong enough, you can do that. Yeah. But I appreciate you saying that. And it's something that is another thing I've been very intentional about, because I also do want to have the freedom to be emotionally expressive without worrying about her taking it on too
Libby:
Much. Well, right. It's important that she sees that you are a human. If you hide it all from her, then she's gonna assume that her emotions aren't okay either. Right. Like that's gonna, like, I'm weak now. I'm not strong like mom, you know? So being able to show your emotions is important. Being able to show that you can handle them. I think that's the other part like, that you don't need her to fix them. That you're not an unsafe person for her if you're being emotional. And that's like, that's the hard work of being a grownup that, you know, we're not always able to do. Sometimes we might be in our feelings and we might actually be, like you said, like not able to be the most present and connected, parent when we're having, our emotions. And I think that that's where we have to like acknowledge that to ourselves. And if our kid's able to be with that, like acknowledge it to the kid, Hey mom actually needs a break,
Catherine:
Yeah, that's
Libby:
Good. Dad needs a break right now I go talk to the other. That's why we, that's why ideally we have more adults to help out. Whether it another parent, another caregiver, a friend, whatever. So that, you know, if we are having a bad day, we can have our bad day and we can tell our kid, I'm having a bad day and I'll be, I'll do my best with you, but, I'm having a bad day. And that doesn't mean you have to fix me, but it might not be. I might not be easy to be around right now.
Catherine:
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Libby:
And we all have, we all have that in our house and we all have ways of communicating that to the kids so that they know that. And honestly, I think it's important for kids too to understand, even though they don't have to care, take us that we are all humans coexisting together. And that means if moms having a bad day, you might need to be gentle with her. Like you might not be able to be your absolute worst shit show self as a child. You might actually need to like do, like, you don't have to take care of me and mom might need you to take care of you a little bit more.
Catherine:
Beautifully said. Beautifully said. Absolutely. And being able to, I mean, even before all this we had part of our family vernacular was, you know, to come in and be like, I am in a, and depending on her age now we're like, I'm in a bitchy mood, you know, earlier not quite that rough, but like I'm in a bitchy mood and it has nothing to do with these two, you two people that I love and I need you to not take on any of my shit. And I'm gonna work, I'm gonna go journal and I'm gonna go meditate before dinner and I'm gonna see if I can shift my energy. And if I can't, then I may eat by myself or I may sit with you guys and I might just be quiet and be kind of bitchy. But it has nothing to do with you and you haven't done anything wrong. And so when we can own
Libby:
That, you're picking up on my shitty energy. You're correct. I actually am in a shitty mood,
Catherine:
Exactly,
Libby:
You Know what you are seeing real and it's happening
Catherine:
Yes, Well, and I think this leads well into the last point that I wanted to make, I know we're, we're getting up on time here is we are, yeah. Back to outcomes and expectations about the influence that this has on our kid. And I needed to, as my daughter turned 13, I sat down with my mom a little bit cuz I wanted to kind of prep her. Like I'm not interested in hearing you say any of the following, but also I needed to say it to myself because I know I can of course be my own harshest judge and all counts. And especially in this big amazing job of being a mother. Yeah,
Libby:
No kidding.
Catherine:
My kid is, is stepping into developmentally normal differentiation and rebellion and she needs to become her own person. And as she stumbles along that path, she's gonna fuck things up and she's gonna get in trouble and she's gonna be snarky and she's gonna be in bad moods and she's gonna make bad choices. And that is a normal part of being a human. Whether you parents are married or divorced, whether your parents are gay or straight, whether your parents are white or not, whether you're you're a Christian or not, none of that is going to keep a kid from naturally, normally differentiating and having struggles along those paths. And so this whole idea of like ruining your kids or looking at the smoking gun at is the fact that we're poly that for anything that my kid struggles with, like that's what I wanna make sure I don't do and I wanna make sure that my parents don't do like, this is not gonna be the smoking gun.
Libby:
Can I get an Amen? Like you said that so perfectly. I just wanna like take that what you just said and I'm gonna put it on a little separate recording and like play it for myself anytime I'm going, am I ruining my children? And, by being so weird, but also, for anybody else who would worry about that because I think that is a worry, right? Like, you know, if I am polyamorous and my kid has to grapple with that, does that mean that they're like, they're gonna go be drug addicted or they're gonna go be, you know, sexually promiscuous or rebellious or whatever. And to your point, like whatever journey our kid goes on, yeah, we have some part to play in that for sure. But also kids go on their own journey, you know, and they go through their own stuff and they go through and they go through rebellious periods, they go through sad periods, angry periods, difficult periods, periods where they're, like you said, they're going through that differentiation, all of that and that it's actually, uh, humbling sometimes how little that actually has to do with me.
Catherine:
So true. So true. So true.
Libby:
Oh, I think I'm gonna end it there because I think that that's a perfect place to end it. And you know, and for anybody who is on this journey and who wants to connect around this, I hope you'll reach out to us. I hope you'll reach out to me. I hope you'll reach out to Catherine and, because I mean, I do think parents need each other. I do think parents need each other.
Catherine:
You know, that old saying of it takes a village to raise a child. I'm always like, that's bullshit. It takes a village to keep the parents sane enough to raise a child.
Libby:
Yeah.
Catherine:
That's what it is, yeah.
Libby:
Yeah Well, so Catherine, how can people find you if they want to, connect with you, learn more about you and stuff that you're offering?
Catherine:
Sure. The, the easiest way of course is, is a website. And I actually have two different websites. They are connected, but you have to be in the know to get to one of them. So, because as I said, because we are still not fully out and my other coaches are not fully out either, we have our kind of, boilerplate website and that's expansiveconnection.com and you'll see, you can see us and learn about us and learn about our work. And then we also have a site that you can only get to if you type it in. It's not searchable, which is expansiveconnection.com/enm, standing for ethical non-monogamy. And that's where you'll find the more open side, you can find the different educational offerings. We have self-study courses, we have live study courses. We have, you know, coaching, of course our coaching services. And so that's where you can find all of our different offerings. We are on, Instagram expansive.coaching and you can find us there. We do post probably six times a week, sometimes personal stories sometimes we're just passing along little memes that meant something to us that day. Sometimes we're, we're talking about our different offerings or that sort of thing. So the websites that the, you can also find our Instagram and we also on Twitter, you can find all that on our website. So that's probably the best place to
Libby:
Go. Well, and you've got a group program coming up, right?
Catherine:
Yes. my other two coaches both came from very religious backgrounds, Christian religious backgrounds. one of my coaches, both of her parents are pastors. So they have done a lot of work on untangling their religion from shame, their sexuality from shame, and are still both practicing Christians. And I think, I mean, in some ways I'm just in awe of tha there's so many people that if they struggle with anything, they just go to completely the other side and they just completely abandon an idea. And they, I think it's a testament to these two amazing women and the work that they've done to really untangle their shame around religion and shame around sexuality and still have found a relationship with their God. And it gives them a lot. And so they are, they have put together a, um, a group, experience where other people who might be anywhere in that process can come together for that community and talk about it and their resources and their challenging questions. And and mostly community. They will be doing coaching. They'll coach a couple each week and the rest of the community will watch and give feedback and I mean, loving feedback, like witnessing kind of feedback. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, lots of resource shares and things like that so that, that launches in January.
Libby:
That's awesome. Thanks for sharing all that. Yeah. And thanks for being here. This has been such a wonderful conversation.
Catherine:
Same. Thank you so much. And thank you for all the work that you do and keep it coming because you, you keep me riding my bike faster. I appreciate that.
Libby:
Absolutely. Well, and now you're, you get to, you get to hear yourself on your bike ride.
Catherine:
Oh gosh. No way. That'll be a skipper. I'll just, I'll just let your listeners enjoy that one.
Libby:
Well, I'm sure that they'll love hearing from you. Thanks Catherine.
Catherine:
Thanks Libby.
