Perhaps I should add that I am openly living my life, I'm completely out to my family, friends and coworkers, I belong to many polyamorous groups, including national associations involved in activism, have given an interview and allowed photos to be taken that identified me as a polyamorous woman.
I'm a firm believer in working to affect the changes in society to reach those long term goals, while doing what I need to do to attain the shorter term goals and the immediate goal of protecting the children in my care.
I do this knowing the risk, believing that I am lucky enough to be better equipped than many others who are in my situation to fight the battle if needed - I have the resources, the network, the connections and the knowledge of the system that it takes to survives such a battle intact, if wounded.
That doesn't mean I
want to engage in such a battle because I do know the cost would be far higher to the kids than it is to me, even if we end up "winning".
It's a very fine line to walk and I've been lucky to maintain my balance for this long.
And I certainly understand and empathize with the choice to stay out of the fray; during the time that I was actively dealing with getting the children out of the Department of Social Services' custody, I too stepped back from my activism. There was simply too much at risk.
And now that I have legal custody, there simply is no time!
I truly believe that these kids will feel happy to have been provided a safe, sane, stable, healthy and loving home far more than they will wish I had fought harder for an ideological cause, possibly at their expense.