By Maria Padhila
As the economy imploded, thanks to the big teabagger foot-stomping tantrum (worse than any I’ve witnessed from a self-respecting 2-year-old), Isaac and our daughter and I were staying with his relatives. There were lots of jokes about who was going to move in with whom when it all tanked and none of us could pay our mortgages anymore. His family is very close anyway; they try to live close geographically, and it’s unheard of to stay in a hotel or with anyone but family if you’re within a 60-mile radius.
I don’t think I could live with his family — I don’t think they’d get our setup, to put it mildly — but it did get me thinking of my dream for a big poly family house. It would seem to make good sense for more people to give it some thought, as the numbers on the charts keep free-falling. I’d love to hear in the comments if you’ve got an economically viable alternative in your poly life, and how it works.
One afternoon that week, I got a chance to interview Robyn Trask, editor of Loving More magazine, a leading polyamory information source, and executive director of the Loving More nonprofit. I had called her to ask about the Kody Brown/Sister Wives case, and I’ll be using that info in a future piece. But because I was curious and I had the chance, I switched gears to try to thrash out thoughts on poly and the economy.
“In this culture, families can be so isolated,” she says. “We’ve been programmed to think of the strong, independent family who doesn’t need anybody as the ideal.”
But that approach doesn’t always work — or works less and less often. She tells the story of inviting a family with whom hers had become friends to live with them when the other family hit hard times. This is the kind of thing people used to do routinely and are now doing (often to great unhappiness) for their relatives. It can only work better if the people involved love each other out of choice. I think about how getting over some jealousy and having a little less space is a small price to pay for knowing you’re with a group strongly bonded and ready to help each other. I think about how many people are facing foreclosure and feel terribly alone. And that maybe they — or I — could have made another choice than to have my family live in a single-family home, if I knew such choices existed and could work.