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Breaking the news about PM to your kids

PeteR said:
We have four sons. Grown now, but at the point we began thisvtransition, all were teens with the exception of the eldest. After the first BibFam Retreat @KellyR and I sat down with the whole family on multiple successive nights to walk through the scriptures regarding headship and man as authority and leader. I took responsibility for not understanding and not fully teaching that role or its implications.

We walked through the lives of the patriarchs, etc and demonstrated from Scripture what we were learning. We had always taught that Scripture is true, so it was on that foundation we stood.

At that time, the boys said, 'yep, it's there. We don't want more wives, but we see it in Scripture.'

From then on, I pointed it out in Bible lessons often. I made it a point of conversation when appropriate. Kelly's journey was the harder one. The boys eventually picked it up as a fun/funny subtext to convesations and now fully accept the option for themselves and others. They've been to retreats, etc..

Keys: Admit you were wrong. What does Scripture say? Stand firmly together as husband and wife.

The older ones will have practical questions... talk through them and don't let the subject grow stale or get pushed to the backburner.
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My wife will be on here soon. I’ll tell her to connect with your wife if that’s ok. Those are great insights and I appreciate you sharing that. Your transparency is a blessing to us, thank you.
 
We first studied it out and accepted it about 21 years ago. At that time we had three children and the oldest was four. Our family pretty much grew up with the idea.

About 11 years ago I met a single gal here who got to know our family. Her first question for me was if our children knew about our beliefs as she thought it was odd that some couples were actively searching for a second wife, but hadn't talked yet with their children. I told her they knew, and their first question when I'd meet someone new is "is she real?"

This past summer my husband married a sweet single mom. Once this was not just a theological matter, our oldest single son started bringing the subject up in his social circle. One night this funny happened. He was just talking with guys, and this spunky blonde named Sandy and another girl walked up and asked what they were talking about. He said "Controversial stuff" and intended to avoid getting into it with the girls.....but they wanted to know. So in the discussion he said "Some women want to live that way, and actually look for another wife for their husband" Sandy then said "I'm calling bullshit on that! No woman would choose to live that way!" So Caleb said "Now this is gonna make things awkward, but my mom has liked that idea and looked for another wife for my dad for years!" As you can imagine, that ended the conversation! ....a man with knowledge is not at the mercy of a man (or woman) with just an opinion!
Sandy (and the others) had met me before.... just didn't know that!

So ours accept it.. .and accept our new additions too! They can't imagine living it themselves, but they know it's not sin and defend the practice regularly when talking to others. Speaking of others, we are "out" with some family friends and even neighbors. The neighbors are more accepting then some family....but we don't care that much. We get one life to live, and including these loved ones in our family is an amazing opportunity.
 
smilingjack said:
My wife will be on here soon. I’ll tell her to connect with your wife if that’s ok. Those are great insights and I appreciate you sharing that. Your transparency is a blessing to us, thank you.
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Happy to connect. Kelly is not on BF often, but she's active with a circle of ladies, some plural, on another platform. Once connected, Kelly can invite her to that circle.
 
smilingjack said:
That’s a funny story for sure 😆 thank you for your testimony. It’s encouraging to hear a family like yours is living true to their convictions. Thank you.
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I first came to the idea from a place of empathy. I have always felt blessed and think I have an uncommonly good man....and I knew not all women did. It's just another chance to live out the golden rule.
This very exclusive, "mutual appreciation club" of ours just got another member.

The stuff we have in common made the decision easy. It doesn't just happen that you find someone you get along with, who's crazy enough to join your family!
She said we all felt like family before things changed with her and hubby. It doesn't get better then that! :)
She also doesn't even think that 20 of us celebrating a birthday feels like a lot of people....because she knows us all.
When you meet someone you love and trust to help raise your children....you hang on to them!
 
Joleneakamama said:
I first came to the idea from a place of empathy. I have always felt blessed and think I have an uncommonly good man....and I knew not all women did. It's just another chance to live out the golden rule.
This very exclusive, "mutual appreciation club" of ours just got another member.

The stuff we have in common made the decision easy. It doesn't just happen that you find someone you get along with, who's crazy enough to join your family!
She said we all felt like family before things changed with her and hubby. It doesn't get better then that! :)
She also doesn't even think that 20 of us celebrating a birthday feels like a lot of people....because she knows us all.
When you meet someone you love and trust to help raise your children....you hang on to them!
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Thank you for your testimony. I appreciate the hopeful perspective - it’s encouraging. Thank you.
 
I very much agree with what Pete said. That’s the path we took with my sons. The oldest is 12, youngest is 8. And they all have recently said they would love it if I had another wife.

We just discussed what scripture said, the oldest already had a worldly monogamy only mindset. He thought it was adultery. So I showed him (mostly just talked) and explained adultery was always about if the woman was married. Explained about David, Moses, Caleb, all the men in the bible we know had multiple wives, and even told them how God the Father and Jesus both described themselves as having multiple wives.

And seeing as how God never says it’s bad, and that’s what God says He’s done and is doing, then how can we call it bad? They just scrunched their foreheads and said “well of course it’s not bad!”.
 
NickF said:
I very much agree with what Pete said. That’s the path we took with my sons. The oldest is 12, youngest is 8. And they all have recently said they would love it if I had another wife.

We just discussed what scripture said, the oldest already had a worldly monogamy only mindset. He thought it was adultery. So I showed him (mostly just talked) and explained adultery was always about if the woman was married. Explained about David, Moses, Caleb, all the men in the bible we know had multiple wives, and even told them how God the Father and Jesus both described themselves as having multiple wives.

And seeing as how God never says it’s bad, and that’s what God says He’s done and is doing, then how can we call it bad? They just scrunched their foreheads and said “well of course it’s not bad!”.
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That makes sense. Sometimes the simplest discussion can make a huge difference. Thanks for sharing that.
 
smilingjack said:
Found this thread from 2011. We have seven kids and some are teens. We’re trying to figure out the best way to say, ‘Dad was wrong’ and ‘We see polygyny as an option for families’ and some other things. My wife and I have been processing this for two years now and are in solid agreement. I’m in the angry stage 😅 lots to repent of and ‘rewiring’ still happening. But eventually, we need to live authentically or openly and our kids need to know first. Then family (that’s going to be rough). Anyone have experience with this? Wisdom is appreciated.
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I'd put it this way:
We have seven kids and some are teens. We need some help around here!
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Ours grew up with it. It's obvious from the lives of the patriarchs, if you don't teach against it the default is to accept it.

But I realised myself that it was ok as a teenager. We were not attending any church at the time, instead my father had us read the Bible for ourselves for our religious instruction. Again, it was just obvious for the same reason.

Teach on the lives of the patriarchs. The question will come up and be easily addressed. As @PeteR said, admit you were wrong and just go back to scripture alone.
 
We ran through Phil Vischer's "What's In The Bible" with the children a couple of times over the past few years. It's available online by subscription at a few places. This does not teach polygamy is ok of course - but, very interestingly, it does not teach against it either. It's a great walk-through of all scripture. And when it gets to Solomon, he teaches that a king was not allowed to have more horses than he needed, more gold than he needed, more wives than he needed - and never pushes monogamy only. He just sticks to what scripture says.

So this could be another interesting thing to go through with the children. Again, the topic will come up, and the fact it's not addressed in detail will be evident and the questions will come up. But they'll learn far more than just that, and it's far more important to teach them about everything else anyway. Having this come up as part of a much wider study would put it in context as being just one detail, not something you're making a key focus of life and becoming crazy cultists.
 
FollowingHim said:
We ran through Phil Vischer's "What's In The Bible" with the children a couple of times over the past few years. It's available online by subscription at a few places. This does not teach polygamy is ok of course - but, very interestingly, it does not teach against it either. It's a great walk-through of all scripture. And when it gets to Solomon, he teaches that a king was not allowed to have more horses than he needed, more gold than he needed, more wives than he needed - and never pushes monogamy only. He just sticks to what scripture says.

So this could be another interesting thing to go through with the children. Again, the topic will come up, and the fact it's not addressed in detail will be evident and the questions will come up. But they'll learn far more than just that, and it's far more important to teach them about everything else anyway. Having this come up as part of a much wider study would put it in context as being just one detail, not something you're making a key focus of life and becoming crazy cultists.
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I appreciate that. I don't want to come off as 'it's all about polygamy,' and make it such an emphasis that this issue overshadows all the good Scripture has for us. I'll check out that resource. This is super practical and helpful, thank you.
 
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