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For Nichole Gonzalez, giving birth to her now one-year-old daughter in late 2023 was a family affair.
As she pushed, her husband, Frank, held her left leg — while their girlfriend, Sasha, held the right.
“It was important to have both of my partners in the delivery room,” Gonzalez, 29, a stay-at-home mama of two from northern New Jersey, told The Post.
As a polyamorous parent to both her little girl and a nine-year-old son, she’s in the growing number of mothers and fathers exploring consensual non-monogamy (CNM).
It’s an unrestrictive relationship style that allows couples to pursue sexual and romantic connections beyond the confines of a two-person partnership.
The avant-garde arrangement is an everyday setup for roughly one in five adults in both the U.S. and Canada, per a 2024 report from the University of Quebec, which noted, “Among those who practice CNM, many have children.”
Investigators interviewed 18 children of polyamorous parents to find that “these children generally appreciated their parents’ partners.”
“These adults were seen by our participants as someone who contributed positively to their lives,” wrote study authors, adding that the kids enjoyed fun, fuller lives with mom and/or dad’s supplemental sweetie.
However, recent data via Cornell University, notes, “…Polyamorous families can exert positive and negative impacts on their children.”
The findings indicate that pups raised in polyamorous families are susceptible to a number of disadvantages, including “the potential loss of [an] adult partner relationships once a romantic relationship terminates and societal stigmatization.”
But Gonzalez told The Post she and her partners are poly-parenting for keeps.
The holistic healer, said her brood — whose names she chose to omit for privacy — even considers Sasha, 29, a third parent.
“My son said, ‘I like her name, but I’d like to call her mom,’” Gonzalez remembered.
The tike was seven when she and Frank found Sasha on 3Fun, a dating app for polyamorous people. And in the two years since becoming throuple, Gonzalez’s family has been made whole.
“If you’re bringing the right person into your family, your kids have more love,” she said, “that’s the best thing a kid could have.”
Gigi Engle, a certified sex and relationship psychotherapist, agreed. She told The Post, “When raising a child inside of a polyamorous unit, you actually have more caretakers for your child.”
“You have more hands, more guidance and more love to give the kids,” said Engle, an intimacy expert at 3Fun. “It can really be a great thing.”
Courtney Boyers, a poly, self-described “soccer mom” of three from Seattle, however, is happy keeping her boyfriends separate from the kiddos — and her monogamous husband, Nathan.
Unless, of course, the family expresses an interest in getting to know her men.
“None of them wanted to meet [my ex] except for my oldest and my husband,” said Courtney, 42, a relationship coach. “It was the first time Nathan met any of my partners, and he actually really liked the guy. He was sad it didn’t work out between us.”
But Nathan wasn’t always keen on his wife of 20 years having other men in her life.
“When Courtney came out as poly, it really made me reexamine what I wanted as a parent, partner and husband,” Nathan said, crediting therapy with helping him embrace her polyamory.
Courtney, a once pious traditionalist, expressed her desire to date other guys during their 17th anniversary dinner. It was a hard pill for Nathan, a military man and doctor, to swallow.
“It wasn’t easy, and there was a lot of hurt and pain to deal with, but we decided to stay married and to make each other better,” he said. “I’ve become more supportive and loving.”
Courtney, who meets most of her partners on Hinge, has become more liberated since coming out to her children in June 2023.
“I was terrified they’d think of me as a monster or disgusting,” said the mom, admitting she engaged in several casual “hookups” with men who made her feel “disposable” during her polyamory infancy — dalliances she “really f- -king hated.” She’s since refocused her sights on more meaningful relationships.
And her kids couldn’t be happier for her.
“They said, ‘We love you. We don’t care,’” a tearful Courtney recalled. “It was the most beautiful thing.”
Honesty has transformed Courtney’s parenting.
“I take each of my kids out for one-on-one dates each month,” she said. “If I can make time to go on dates with men I don’t know, I can do the same with my kids — we go to a restaurant and talk about everything.”
For Los Angeleno Jame Barrett, his five wives and their 11 kids, there wasn’t much discussion about moving into a 5500 sq. ft., six-bedroom house as one big poly family.
Barrett, 30, simply proposed the idea to his tribe of brides — Reda, 28, Cameron, 29, Gabriela, 30, Diana, 30, and Jessica, 31— in a group text.
“It was a shock when he sent the text,” said Jessica, a mother of two, who’s currently expecting.
She and Diana, the mother of the polycule’s oldest kids, sons ages 13 and 11, are due to give birth on the same week in September. Cameron, Barrett’s only legal wife, is also pregnant and due on June 30.
“But now, my children are living under the same roof as their dad,” Jessica continued. “It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
All the women tell The Post they’re happily monogamous to the Left Coast real estate pro, who says polyamory’s made him a better father.
“I get to be there for my sons and daughters — I’m not missing out,” he said. “I’m their first example of love.”
But he’s not pushing polyamory on the pack.
“I joke around with my three older sons and ask, ‘How many wives are you gonna have?,” laughed Barrett. “They’re like, ‘One!’”
Read the full article here
