Modern Commune Life #1–Dramatis Personae
~By Tom (Tet)
Since both Augur and Kofi have expressed an interest, (and since Brenda has also asked in the past about my religious affiliation and history) I’ve decided to risk boring everyone in the blogosphere by talking about my household.
To give other people a chance to comment on specifics, I’m going to divide the entire article into three parts. This first part will concentrate on the people involved, the second on the physical makeup of the living arrangements and the third on the philosophies and practical agreements that enable us to work on a day-to-day basis. I expect to finish part 2 on Tuesday and 3 on Thursday of next week.
Before I start, I want to make a definition. I don’t know how many of you have heard of the term polyamory. It is a neologism that covers both polygamy and polyandry, but translated into terms better suited to the equality of status that is desirable in modern America. In other words, although we are a group marriage, neither of the genders has dominance in the relationship. Perhaps the easist way of thinking of us is as a “normal marriage” in which n=5, rather than n=2.
One quick note: The ONLY topic that is completely off-limits in the discussions that will follow is sex. I will not discuss anything about my family’s sex life. It’s not relevant, any more than Brandon’s is if he’s talking about how he and his wife manage their finances or how his atheism/agnosticism affects his outlook on life. OK?
So, at present there are five of us. In the past, there have been as many as 11, since three of our children and their families had homes in our immediate vicinity.
There’s an interesting mathematical relationship that I’ll describe in a minute. Let’s start with me. I’m 54, a farm boy gone bad. I’ve done some interesting things in the past–I was in college during the radical years, I worked my way up from the assembly line to the head of Quality Control for a manufacturing firm, I was part of the team that found the Top Quark at Fermilab and I’ve been an instructor at the University of Illinois now for about 15 years. I’ve been in varying degrees of ill health for about a year, which, along with my political disgust for the educational system as it is now, is going to result in my retirement at the end of this year. I have three children who range in age from 34 to 30 and two grandchildren, 13 and 9.
The other four of us are spaced evenly in age at 5 year intervals. The oldest has asked me not to use her proper name in my columns because she desires to be anon, which is just fine with me. She was born in 1950 and she and I met in 1970 at the Channing-Murray Foundation’s Red Herring Coffeehouse. Thirty-seven years is a hell of a long time to know someone–you’ve seen both the good and the bad in their lives. She has been a social worker, radical tax resister and accountant in the past, but retired from straight work two years ago. Currently, she has a home business selling Pure Romance products and works half-time for one of the charitable organizations in town as their accountant. She has a married son with two daughters.
The next in line is kitten, who will be 52 this year. She, like myself, went to college under the Illinois State Scholarship program and studied English and Library Science at Eastern Illinois University. She’s one of the Secret Masters of Science-Fiction Fandom and is currently working on the Robert Heinlein Centennial which will be held in Kansas City this coming July. She’s been a library worker for about 20 years now and currently does circulation for one of the larger libraries on campus here. She and I have lived together for 22 years, give or take a month.
Cheron was born in 1960 and is quite remarkable. When she came to live with us, she brought her wolf, Cody, with her. She’s an expert in computer networking and software, but that’s not the limit of her talents. She can take a sheep, shear it and walk the wool through all the steps to make a shirt out of it. She’s also a crack shot with firearms, a lover of nature in all of its forms and was the author of a Table-top RPG called Psi-World which was published during the 1980s. She owned a gameshop in Northern Virginia during the 1990s and did gun and game shows up and down I-81 for over a decade. She was part of an IRC channel called #callahans and came out to live with us in 2000. She has a married daughter and the cutest granddaughter in the world.
Sean is the youngest. He was born in 1965, the son of a country-western/rock singer. He has an IQ that is so high that I find much of what’s going on in his mind incomprehensible. He’s a large man, but so quiet that you often forget that he’s in the room. He can scratch-build a computing system or network to your specifications within a couple of hours, as well as virtually any kind of carpentry work, building design or cabinetmaking. When our present house was converted from student apartments to a (large) single-family dwelling, he did things like move concrete walls and put up ceilings and down floors. He, like Cheron, is a devoted computer gamer and spends his leisure time online (although he takes time to GM an ongoing D&D campaign.) He came to live with us 10 years ago and has been essential ever since.
In addition to the people, we have seven cats, distributed within the 2100 square feet of the main house and a half-shepherd, half-beagle that lives in the cottage.
People often call communes “intentional families”. In our case, it was more like “accidental family.” We began with me and kitten, added Sean (a ‘Net friend of kitten’s) in ‘97 (about the same time I re-established contact with my old friend from college.) In 2000, as I said above, Cheron came from Virginia, and both my daughter and eldest son rented duplex-halves in the neighborhood where we lived. (We lived on the edge of town in very low-rent CPM duplexes to save money.) During this time, Cheron’s daughter stayed with us for a couple months before she headed back to Virginia.
By 2004, the kids had all moved into homes they bought on their own. We wanted to get a place, but it had to have enough room for all of us, *plus* a separate air-supply for Cheron, since she was mildly allergic to cats. I also, having studied the polygamist LDS sects, insisted on a separate kitchen for each wife. In spite of a real-estate boom, we were finding a place to even consider about once every six-months. Finally, we found a piece of rental property in Champaign that would fulfil our needs.
Coming next: Our House, is a very, very fine house…..
~By Tom (Tet)
Comment by Brandon on 19 January 2007 at 12:22 pm:
I’ve already heard most of the basics of your family life and find it fascinating really. I mean I’m impressed that it’s worked and grown without rupture…but Tom how the hell did I get dragged into this?
“I will not discuss anything about my family’s sex life. It’s not relevant, any more than Brandon’s is if he’s talking about how he and his wife manage their finances or how his atheism/agnosticism affects his outlook on life. OK?”
Comment by tet on 19 January 2007 at 12:26 pm:
Your the only one of the regular contributors who is married, Brandon. Nothing personal, buddy.
I guess I could have said, “…any more than Brian’s sex life with his fine-looking young man has to do with his consistent belief in the Nanny State.”
Feel better now?
:D
Tom
Comment by kittent on 19 January 2007 at 12:55 pm:
Fear the Borg…you will be assimilated.
You forgot to note that I have known one of our partners longer than I have known you…(met her at a now-defunct gay coffeehouse in town shortly after I moved here. I bought a couch from her. The first time TC (Tom) took me home he recognized the couch. She told me he was a crazy fucker and I should probably not get involved…of course she was friends with his second wife.)
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 19 January 2007 at 1:10 pm:
Tom,
I found this very interesting and I especially appreciated the CSNY reference at the end. Given that you’re an interesting fellow, people always ask me about your life, so I’m glad you’re creating this permanent resource for people to read. I’m especially hoping that people who are not in favor of alternative family relations will get the chance to look at your family and realize that there are legitimate alternatives.
Comment by Brenda Kay on 19 January 2007 at 5:19 pm:
I loved the part where every wife got her own kitchen.
Comment by tet on 19 January 2007 at 5:47 pm:
More on that and other spatial innovations next week, Brenda. I figured if I studied folks who had been doing this for 150 years, they might actually have some helpful hints.
Tom
Comment by kofi the obsessed with brandon's sex life on 19 January 2007 at 6:06 pm:
Very interesting thus far. I look forward to reading the rest. Thanks for sharing.
Comment by kofi the obsessed with brandon's sex life on 19 January 2007 at 6:06 pm:
Very interesting thus far. I look forward to reading the rest. Thanks for sharing.
Comment by kofi the obsessed with brandon's sex life on 19 January 2007 at 6:06 pm:
Very interesting thus far. I look forward to reading the rest. Thanks for sharing.
Comment by Brandon on 19 January 2007 at 9:09 pm:
Gee Kofi…what can I say…I’m flattered…
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 20 January 2007 at 9:48 am:
Here’s a little more on Brandon’s sex life. He tells me that marriage is essentially the same as the woman snapping off her husband’s penis and storing it in a mason jar in the freezer with the dial turned to “coldest.” This makes me never want to get married. Brandon, I hope your wife doesn’t read this blog, hopefully she can’t even read English, that’s the kind I want ;)
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 20 January 2007 at 2:54 pm:
Ok, well, I lied…Brandon didn’t say that exactly. But I’m certain that he was thinking everything that I wrote even if he never said it.
Comment by kofi the such a kidder on 21 January 2007 at 10:47 am:
This is off topic but a lot has happened in the past few days. Obama is exploring. Clinton announced. Richardson announced. On the Republican side we have McCain and Rudy - two old white dudes. I for one am a little disturbed. The American people are getting the wrong impression. There is only one party that has appointed more minorities and women to more high ranking positions, but based on the peripheral glances most Americans give politics they would draw the wrong conclusion. It’s a shame. Maybe the NYT or Time magazine will write an expose detailing the truth - ha. I’m such a kidder.
Comment by Brandon on 21 January 2007 at 11:15 am:
Appointing Uncle Tom’s and Tio Tacos doesn’t make a party of diversity Kofi. They’re called strategic tokens to try to rescue an image of the white man’s party from sure annihilation as Latinos and Asians (who I don’t believe have been in any position of siginificance from either party) continue to make up ever larger shares of the electorate.
Comment by Evan on 21 January 2007 at 11:30 am:
Brandon -
I see. If you’re a particular color, you should hold a certain set of political views, and if you don’t, you’re considered somewhat of a traitor to that color. Awesome.
Personally, I don’t think it should matter, but that’s probably too idealistic.
Comment by Brandon on 21 January 2007 at 12:17 pm:
Not quite. It was more of a general statement about both parties. They put minorities in positions of power because they are trying not to look like the white man’s party in an age when white men are becoming less and less a share of the population. They seek relevance in a not-too-distant future where America will be a majority-minority polity. And until a minority is given a position of real power and by real I mean decision-making, it’s really just token. Look at the senate where there is one black senator vs about 10% of the overall population being black. It’s not about political affiliation so much as true representation.
Comment by Evan on 21 January 2007 at 12:28 pm:
Brandon -
I don’t completely disagree with what you say their motives are (not that you couldn’t argue that Democrats do the same type of thing to preserve power in other ways), but I object to the term(s)you used. Also, I completely disagree with your definition of being in a power position, and by extension, your argument about black people not having sufficient power.
Comment by tet on 21 January 2007 at 12:45 pm:
Personally, I’d say that the Secretary of State, as well as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are hardly “nominal positions without power.” This is especially true since W seems to do whatever Condi suggests.
You guys are stuck somewhere in the past–Brandon, I certainly hope that your Uncle Tom remark was in jest.
I find it very disturbing that a free-market conservative (albeit, a bit of a crazy one) like Alan Keyes is not taken seriously as a person of color. Keep in mind that this whole alliance between the Democrats and minorities in America is barely 45 years old. Prior to that, the Democrats were the party of Apartheid in America.
Just ask Byrd, who toyed with the KKK in his youth. A good percentage of the white guys who would have voted for Robert Kennedy had he not been shot ended up voting for George Wallace in 1968.
Actually, there is a minority in America that is overrepresented by a factor of 2 in the US Senate, and no one ever notices them. Anyone tell me what that is?
Tom
Comment by tet on 21 January 2007 at 3:57 pm:
Actually, make that a factor of 5, it’s a factor of 2 in the House.
Tom
Comment by kofi the factor of kofi on 22 January 2007 at 12:39 pm:
Based on wikipedia, I wanted to say Asian Pacific Islanders because: Another group which has a high level of political integration given its historically low ratio of electoral voters is the Asian and Pacific Islander ethnicity. Although this group has increased in population size by 600% in 30 years due to immigration, heavy naturalization and voter outreach efforts have provided this primarily foreign originated community with less than 1% of the voter population but 1.25% of the Congressional population. There are 4 Asians and Pacific Islanders in the US House and 2 in the Senate.
But according to the census data from 2004 (pdf) Asians were 3.2% of the population and 2.2% of the voters and their representation is 0.92% in the house and 2% in the Senate. So I guess not Asians, huh?
I’m going with pet owners then. There are too many pet owners in the house and senate.
Comment by tet on 26 January 2007 at 4:24 pm:
Jews.
Tom