Today’s article is a guest post from Kitty Rea.

A school teacher in disguise, Kitty has a desire to help others. Aspiring to become a sex educator, she writes about sexuality, kink and alternative relationship styles and hosts a brand new Romanian podcast on love and lust. She teaches bondage all over Europe and is on a fabulous mission to spread self-love, equality and consent.

You can find more from Kitty at her website.

And here’s what she wrote for us today:

“…So Who’s the Father?”

I always knew I wanted kids. Not necessarily biological kids, but I knew I wanted to be a mom. I wanted to give some little person a chance at growing up loved, supported, encouraged, taught by me about all the things I found interesting and learning from them about things that made them curious. And I was lucky enough to find a guy who wanted kids, too.

We also wanted to open up our relationship, so we embarked on this journey disclosing to all potential long term partners that kids were something we wanted. It was scary, mostly because we only found partners that were not interested in having kids. Having a poly family where only two folks desire the commitment of raising children can be terrifying, but I also knew it was important to me.

And last year it finally happened: me and hubby got pregnant! It was the most incredible, weird, joyous moment to realize that my life was now going to include this little alien growing inside of me.

With trepidation, I announced the news to my boyfriend, not being sure how he was going to react. I told him that he was a part of our family. That I wanted him and his live in partner to be parents to my child. I wanted this kid to grow surrounded by loving adults, by different perspectives, by lots of people. He was happy for me, emotional about becoming a poly dad, excited to join me on our journey.

I didn’t tell people about the pregnancy, but — as pregnancies tend to go– at some point it became apparent. And then it happened: all of our friends in the poly community started asking the same question, one by one. “So who’s the father?”

My initial knee-jerk reaction was to feel mildly offended. It was amusing, but I also felt a pinch of affront. After all, I grew up in a society where asking a woman about the father of her child has a nasty underlying judgement on her sexuality as well. Only the promiscuous woman, the slut, is out there having multiple options for the father slot. I grew up in a society that told me it was only okay to have kids with “your man”. The father of your child has to be the love of your life, your one and only. A child needs to be born of a pure and everlasting love. A monogamous love. So, yes, my initial reaction was to feel uneasy.

But then I thought about it. I thought of all the wonderful friends who looked at me with a spark in their eyes and celebrated my pregnancy and it dawned on me: I was finally in a safe space for a future mother. The space of my extended poly family was a place of no judgement. Nobody assumed that my husband HAD to be the father of my child. Nobody considered that my boyfriend was in a less worthy position to become the person I conceived with. Nobody thought any less of me for being a mother and also having a sexual and romantic life that was full and satisfying. They all made no assumptions and were happy for me, for us, either way.

It was I who had allowed society to warp my view. It was I who had assumed that it would be shameful to be asked who the father is.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter who the biological father of my child is. It doesn’t matter who the biological mother is. Because family is where you are most welcome as you are. And I hope my kid grows up with a huge, loving family. I hope my kid will have the privilege of being surrounded by dozens of poly family members who can’t wait to help raise him, teach him tolerance and self-acceptance and who want to be in his life.

I hope he grows up amongst people who would not make assumptions about him.

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Thanks, Kitty!

Poly Land is always on the lookout for different perspectives on polyamory and relationships in general.

If you have an idea for a guest blog post that you’d like to run by us, here’s a link to a post with examples of work that we’ve published in the past as well as our Submission Guidelines.