A polyamorous family is unsure which man has fathered their children.
Couples Taya and Sean Hartless and Alysia and Tyler Rogers met online three years ago in an attempt to keep things exciting. After a year of spicing things up, the couples fell in love and decided to move in together in Oregon.
Each couple already had a child but decided to welcome two more tots together as a polyamorous family.
“None of us had been polyamorous before, but we all just met and fell in love,” Taya explained to South West News Service. “Since we moved in together we all just co-parent all the children. We’re one big family unit.”
The couples met in person in June 2019 after having an instant spark and chatting online for several months.
“From the first night we met, we all wanted to just see more of each other. It wasn’t easy, there was a lot of hesitations around having feelings. Sean was the first to point it out, he said, ‘We can’t deny this is happening.’ We agreed to talk it out to see what the future would look like,” Taya said.
“At first, I was really scared to come out and admit my feelings for Tyler, I was scared to let someone else in. But, eventually, we all admitted how we felt.”
The foursome does not see people outside of the family and has a “non-hierarchical” relationship. While they try to have a quad date once a month, they also have one-on-one dates, but they spend all holidays and big events together.
The families moved into a home early in 2020 and have happily lived as a quad family since. The women each have their own rooms, which the men rotate sleeping in each night.
The quad decided to expand their family after discovering they were all excited about the idea. The women would continue to sleep with both men and not question who fathered which child.
Alysia, who works outside the home in economic development, happily discovered she was pregnant in August 2020, while stay-at-home mom Taya became pregnant in March 2021.
“There was no regulation of who the father was and we said we didn’t care. We don’t know and don’t want to know. We said we would all be parents to all of them,” Taya explained.
Alysia gave birth to a boy on April 3, 2021. Taya gave birth to another son a few months later on Aug. 11, 2021.
“I always find myself thinking about how much I love our life. I’m just really excited for the future and raising our kids together. I can’t wait to be the big, crazy family that all shows up together. It’s a messy, hectic, crazy, wonderful life, that about sums us up!” Taya said.
The kids proudly tell everyone that they have “two moms and two dads,” with the children calling Taya “mama” and Alysia “mom,” while Sean is “daddy” and Tyler is “dad.”
Stay-at-home mom Taya cares for the two youngest while Alysia, Tyler, who works as an electrician, and Sean, who works at a high school, go off to work.
“People ask, ‘Does it make a difference that one is not biologically mine?’ But I have stayed home with him since he was a few months old and there is nothing that would change my relationship with him if I were biologically connected to him. I find it very easy to love a child of any of the people that I love, that’s the same for all the children.”
Taya explained that many people question and don’t understand their relationship. The quad has faced “pushback” from some close friends and family but has found support from the majority of their inner circle.
“A lot of people don’t really understand polyamory and think it is deviant or unwholesome in some way. It is true that it wasn’t always easy. It took me a while to admit I had feelings for someone else and we definitely do get jealous sometimes,” Taya admitted to SWNS.
“But now it’s so natural to us all and I feel so grateful to have multiple partners to raise children with,” Taya continued. “Why wouldn’t you want more love and support and more hands around? It’s a messy, hectic, crazy, wonderful life and I can’t think of anything else we could ever want.”
Taya shared that, like all relationships, navigating an unconventional relationship can be a tricky but worthwhile process.
“I don’t think we’ll ever stop learning and we know our relationship will be constantly changing. But we will roll with the punches and make it work,” Taya said. “We are different from everyone else but that’s OK and we have made it clear to our children that they can be whoever they want to be.”
They should at least have the Dad determined in medical records for the future health care for their children, even if they have to leave it with their doctors in private. They still wouldn’t have to know for their own comfort.