(Yahoo) – Ian Jenkins, Alan Mayfield, and Jeremy Hodges are three men in love, in a committed, long-term “throuple.” They are also fathers of two, through surrogacy, and are the trio behind a much-heralded legal fight in California, which won all three men the right to be listed on the birth certificate of their first baby, Piper, who is now 3.
Now their landmark court victory and parenting journey, which includes the addition of Parker, 1, is the subject of a new memoir by Jenkins, Three Dads, and a Baby, out this month. “We all wanted to parent,” Jenkins tells Yahoo Life, “but we had a lot of hurdles to go through.”
Throuples not only becoming parents together but proudly sharing their lives with the world. It’s due in part, of course, to social media, but also what appears to be a cultural shift: In addition to the birth certificate victory in California, the city of Somerville, Mass., recently extended domestic partner benefits to include polyamorous groups of three or more.
Seeming baby steps are huge to those affected. “I think there are literally more people doing it and more people aware of it,” says Elisabeth Sheff, a sociologist who has studied poly families for 25 years and written three books on the topic,
noting that, until quite recently, “it has not been in the mainstream.” When she first started studying such families, she tells Yahoo Life, “I would hear from people who accidentally fell in love as a group, and they would often think they had invented it … READ MORE
