4 Parents Fall in Love and Start a 4-Way Family, Raising the Kids “Equally”

Nowadays, the idea of what constitutes a family is becoming broader. Some people choose to live in polyamorous relationships, in which multiple partners birth and raise all of their children under the same roof. Our heroes being featured today are a good example of how such families pave their own way to happiness. They are sharing the intriguing details of their unconventional life with us.

It all started with a tight friendship.

Families come in all shapes and sizes, and this is the exact message that 2 couples and their 4 children are promoting. Their relationship, now known as “polyfamory,” started unexpectedly.

Alysia Rodgers, 34, and her husband, Tyler, 35, found themselves falling in love with another married couple they were friends with: Sean Hartless, 46, and his wife, Taya, 28.

Alysia says she and her husband were not looking for polyamory or having one or more romantic partners at the same time. “We didn’t even know what polyamory was until we started getting feelings for each other,” says Alysia in her interview.

The Rodgers, who already had kids, decided to try a polyamorous foursome, and in 2020, Alysia and Tyler moved in with Sean and Taya, and they made the decision to raise their kids together.

The kids were prepared for the new family format.

The right message was set up for the kids from the very beginning.

Tyler recalls, “Our kids already knew we were dating Sean and Taya. We told them, ’You know, Mom has a boyfriend and Dad had a girlfriend, and we’re going to move in together, and we’re all going to be a big family, and they’re going to help parent you, so we’re going to need you to treat them like you treat us — like parents.’”

The benefits of such a family structure are undeniable, the parents confess. Sean says that knowing that the kids were always with at least one of them is a “big sigh of relief.”

The polyamorous parents admit that their children get to learn important lessons about family dynamics and know all of their parents will always “love and support them no matter what.”

The “polyfamory” has already welcomed 2 new members.

Just a year after the transition, the big family expanded even more, from a family of 6 to a family of 8, welcoming 2 new babies in March 2021 and October 2021.

“I birthed one and Taya birthed the other,” Alysia says, explaining that they “did not regulate the biology,” so they don’t know who of the 2 men is the biological father to each baby.

“We’re all equal parents to all of the children, and it’s not up for debate or discussion,” Alysia says. “It’s not something that we’re trying to hide from the children either. If they want to know where their DNA comes from, we will absolutely go down that path with them. But at this point in their lives, it doesn’t matter.”

“We wanted to do everything we could to make sure that everybody feels like an equal parent,” Taya adds. “At this point, finding out their genetics would change nothing.”