"Coming Out as a Modern Family"
New York Times
Sometimes a successful poly family just falls together by itself, without anyone apparently knowing about, or needing, the word, the literature, or the community. Actress Maria Bello tells how it happened to her, in the Fashion & Style section of the New York Times. Here are the beginning and ending:
Read the whole article (Nov. 29, 2013).
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| Maria Bello |
Coming Out as a Modern Family
By Maria Bello
When my 12-year-old son, Jackson, asked me if there was something I wasn’t telling him, I replied, “There are a lot of things I don’t tell you.”
“Like what?”
“Adult stuff.”
He persisted: “What kind of adult stuff?”
This was the moment I had been anticipating and dreading for months. “Like romantic stuff,” I said, fumbling for words.
“What kind of romantic stuff?”
Brian Rea
“Well,” I said. “Like how sometimes you can be friends with someone, and then it turns romantic, and then you’re friends again. Like with Dad and me. Or romantic like Bryn and me were, and then he and I became friends.”
“So are you romantic with anyone right now?” he asked.
I took a deep breath, knowing that my answer, and his response, would have an impact on our lives for a very long time....
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...And we have figured it out together: Jack, Clare, Dan [husband], and I. It’s a rare weekend when we aren’t piled in the same car, driving to one of Jack’s soccer tournaments. Dan makes fun of Clare for getting lost and she makes sure he always has the umbrellas, sunscreen, water nuts and whatever else we might need in a nuclear disaster.
We have dinner together almost every night. As I write this, we’re basking in the afterglow of Dan’s 50th birthday party that Clare, Jackson, and I gave, which was attended by his family and mine and many other people I consider partners in one aspect of my life or another. It was a room of celebration and unconditional love.
Mostly, the four of us laugh a lot together. Jackson has gotten us hooked on “Modern Family,” and in each episode he tries to figure out if Dan is Phil or Jay and if Clare is Gloria or Mitchell....
So I would like to consider myself a “whatever,” as Jackson said. Whomever I love, however I love them, whether they sleep in my bed or not, or whether I do homework with them or share a child with them, “love is love.” And I love our modern family.
Maybe, in the end, a modern family is just a more honest family.
Maria Bello is an activist and actor whose most recent film is “Prisoners.”
Read the whole article (Nov. 29, 2013).
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Labels: celebrities, Show Your Parents
8 Comments:
Frankly, I think the best ones happen that way. But that's just me.
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I have to admit, I've been waiting for something like this. A celebrity having a calm, simple, understated Poly coming out. I wish Bello all the best, and will watch how the media fans, and general public react with interest.
But I don't think it will be bad. It wasn't a scandalous, involuntary outing that hurts the spouse or family. In fact, when it's handled like this, and everyone involved is open and cool with it, the masses usually lose interest, because there's no drama. So I think she'll be okay. I hope so.
I don't think that Bello is coming out as polyamorous, exactly. She says at one point that she isn't romantically involved with "Dan" anymore. He is the father of her son, which makes him her partner. But her situation reflects a view central to non-monogamy, namely that many people can be partners in one's life. It's great to see people testing the assumed overlap between a single pair's sexual relationship and enduring life partnership.
I'm not getting where the polyamory is in this? Is there background information it's assumed we'd know about already?
Tara,
The writer is married and living with her husband, they obviously care for each other to be life partners even if the sex has died out (true for a large fraction of married couples), she's certainly 'romantic' and sexual with her other with the husband's knowledge and consent, and they all three work together as family. Good enough for me.
--Alan
I didn't see anywhere in the article that she is still married (or was ever married) to the father of her son, Dan. But I don't see how that matters.
However, this is 100% beautiful polyamory to me. Sounds like a loving and supportive family. Congrats to Bello.
ES
It says on the imbd that Dan is the father of her child, not her husband (no indication he had ever been her husband) and also he lives a mile away from she and their son.
Not definitive but I am unsure why people feel she is in more than one romantic relationship, she quite clearly states she is not.
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