No. Definately not. At one time I would have had no problems with the idea. Now though, I am a full time student, and thinking about dating a childless woman difficult enough without having to work around babysitting and all that crap. I also think it would be unfair for her, I will not tie myself down while I am in college, and definately not to a situation where I will have to help raise a kid. I certainly am not going to take a risk of losing my college education. I don’t think it is fair for her to have to wait 3-5 years for me to commit, so it is best if I just forget the whole idea.
Nope. I think they should find a partner who shares similar interests. If that includes being part of the family and acting as a step-parent, it won’t be me. Sorry, I’m just not equipped for it, and I won’t put some poor kid through the trouble of trying to (or being forced to) connect with me.
I do think single parents should strive to keep their dating lives seperate from their child-rearing lives unless it’s clear that the other party is no only willing to participate but likely to be around for the long haul. Obviously, this isn’t always possible, especially for “solos” who don’t have family close by to take the child[ren] for a night or a weekend, but speaking from experience it’s pretty damn creepy, as a kid, to get up in the middle of the night in your own house to go to the bathroom only to run into some barely familiar dude walking around in his underwear. It’s disturbing, as an adolescent, to be privy to a parent going through the daily agonies of a bad love affair. And it’s abosutely fish-out-of-water wrong to have your father’s girlfriend talking in front of you, or to you, about her sexual fetishes and the things they do together. You can argue that kids have to learn about this stuff sooner or later and that you shouldn’t insulate them from it, but my opinion is that when they see this kind of behavior while they are still forming their basic conceptions and values, they’ll mimic that behavior. Do you want your children to have to struggle through single parenthood the way you do, or would you wish for them a happier, more stable, more secure life?
Remember, significant others of single parents don’t have the same objectives and prerogatives as natural parents. They don’t have any inate reason to protect or nuture children that are not their own; that’s not to say that they can’t be as good, and sometimes far better, than a child’s natural parents, but there’s no given expectation that this is so. If I were a single parent (and I’m not, so I may be talking complete nonsense here) I’d be very circumspect about dating too heavily or exposing them to casual romantic acquaintances.
Your Milage May Most Certainly Vary,
Stranger
If I weren’t married, yes, I would. But that scenario would mean I would also be a single parent. I’m 28, female, very tiny new son.
Date another single parent?
Seriously, they can date whomever they want and whenever they want, it just won’t be me.
Perhaps some kind doper can do the research on this, but all of the studies I’ve seen say that the perpetrator in most cases of physical and/or sexual child abuse is the spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend of the bio-parent.
Were I to become a single parent, I probably wouldn’t date until Abbie Jr. was out of the house.
If I decided to date before she was grown, though, yeah, I’d date a single dad, although I’d want to keep the kids out of it for as long as possible. None of this shacking up garbage and overnight stays and playing Musical Boyfriend. I wouldn’t want to meet his kids, either, unless there was a very strong possibility I’d be their stepmother.
It would also depend on WHY he’s a single parent.
Single parent because he did something stupid at a fraternity party when he was 20? I can deal with that.
Single parent because he’s a widower? Sure.
Single parent because they’re divorced, because he, at the time, was a raging alcoholic? Unless he’s got about 15 years of sobriety under his belt, not happening.
Yep. I was dating a guy while he was trying to get custody of his daughter (she was on of 3 or 4 and we probably wouldn’t have lasted long anyway) and, if he were a different person, things may have worked out. It wasn’t the daughter that scared me off, though.
I’m a single parent (almost 2 year old son), but I don’t date. I don’t really want to right now anyway but, even if I did, I can’t imagine a lot of guys would be comfortable dating me, considering I still live with my son’s father. I think that would be too hard for most people to understand, and trust would be nearly impossible for me to earn.
Not sure if I was very clear up there, but there ya go. 
Ditto. When I started dating Ginger, Matthew was just part of the package, and I accepted that. I wouldn’t want to date a woman who was willing to abandon her kids to run off and have fun with me at my beck and call. It’s all worked out rather well, helped by the fact that Matthew’s worthless sperm doner is 3500 miles away with no interest in him, and all of this will culminate in my adopting him later this year (Matthew, not his worthless bio-father).
I haven’t seriously dated anyone with kids (one or two dates is not serious). I would date someone with children, definitely. I like kids, they like me, I’d like to have one or two eventually, whether I am their biological mother or not. It’s getting to the point, anyway, that if I want to date men around my age or older (which is my preferred range) in my area, they’re probably going to be divorced with a kid or two, since I’ve reached the ripe old age of 26. :rolleyes: I’d prefer to meet the kids, or at least get to know them, after it was clear that the relationship was going to be serious.
Answering directly to the OP.
I’m 37, female, so if I am going to have kids of my own it oughta be real fast. The reason I haven’t had kids before is not that “my career was more important”, but a lack of acceptable candidates for the Daddy role. I kind of find it hard to bring myself to get pregnant from some guy who can barely take care of himself, yet insists on taking care of me (like he can, u-hu).
I’m not particularly crazy about kids, but I don’t hate them either. I consider each kid on an individual basis; I’m wary of people who say they “love kids!” because those were the ones who used to pinch my cheeks. If you love someone you don’t hurt them on purpose, damnit 
I’m open to adoption (but not to single-adoption because it would suck if something happened to me and the kid was left on his/her own again, and I definitely wouldn’t want my mother raising my kid). If the possible adoptee is my date’s kid, that works for me.
If the mother was still around, I would try to have as good a relationship with her as humanly possible. She can be as mad at her ex as she wants… I did not cause the breakup so she’s got no reason to be mad at me personally, and since her kids will be spending time in my house, I want to make sure we’re not trying to raise them in two opposite directions and driving them crazy or spoiling them.
I would not date a guy who is married. I would not date a guy who claims to be “single, single” but has 3 kids from 3 different exes. A guy who’s got kids from one previous relationship, yes.
You’re a lucky man. I think it’s pretty much every step-dad’s dream to be able to adopt his kids… it’s not an option for me, since the kids’ bio-dad is still around and does the visitation thing, and my oldest (now 13) has moved in with him…but I still consider us lucky.
We’ve had an amazing lack of rancor with the other side…everyone has remarried, and we’re mostly on the same page with the kids in terms of life and educational goals. We usually meet once every month or so just to make sure there aren’t any issues one set of parents are not aware of, and it’s not unusual to see all 8 of us (4 kids (2 shared, 1 bio for each couple), 4 parents) at a parent teacher conference or a school festival.
Even before I had kids, I dated single dads almost exclusively, from the time I was about 26. Everyone I knew had kids by then, and a lot of the guys I dated in high school and college already had kids. I wasn’t sure I wanted kids of my own, and in a long-term relationship, it seemed to take the pressure off me to have kids if he already had his own.
Now, at 34, I’m a solo parent of a three-year-old, and my SO is a single parent of two teenagers. (And we have an 8-week-old together.) Before I met him, I briefly dated a 30-something guy who had no kids, and it seemed that we had very little in common. He didn’t have any understanding of why I had to plan a bit more for outings, and that I couldn’t just pick up and go out on the spur of the moment.
Logistically, the older I get, the harder it would be to find childless men. Other single/solo parents have some understanding of the challenges and difficulties involved, so it’s just some shared ground.
It does seem simpler if the other parent is not involved. Some ex-wives/ex-girlfriends have jealousy issues with the new girlfriend, and I’m sure it works the other way, too. The only solo dad I ever dated was widowed, and his kids (12 and 13, IIRC) weren’t ready for someone new coming into his life, so it didn’t last long.
Once upon a time I would have said no. Too much to deal with. There were two girls I can think of that I would really have persued if they didn’t each have a kid. Now that I’m 35 I’ve been around a lot of my friends munchkins and they aren’t as scary anymore.
One of my best friends for 20 years divorced. She has three kids and after a year or two started dating a guy she met through friends. She told him at the start, someday you might meet my kids. If that happens and things are uncomfortable for anybody you are gone. It worked out well and they are happily married now. The kids love him, and he them. A very stable happy household. I leared a lot watching all that. It helped change my ideas about dating single parents.
I’ll chime in too that I’m finding out a lot of the single women I meet my age have a kid or two.
I am a newly single parent with 2 kids, one of which is developmentally disabled. I am dating a widowed man with two children. I would be a hypocrite to not want to date someone with kids, but I’m not sure if I would if I didn’t have kids. This is awful, but I AM SO GLAD HIS WIFE IS DEAD!!! She was psycho and a very, very bad person. I don’t think I could have dealt with her. As for my boyfriend, poor guy having to deal with my psycho ex. I admire him for being able to do it. He has no reason to feel loyalty to my ex, and hates him for the abuse he gave me. It’s hard enough for me to be civil, and I share children with him!!
This kind of chip-on-the-shoulder attitude from single parents is getting under my skin. No, nobody is saying you should avoid dating forever, just that things are different for people with kids than without, and people with kids who date are going to have to have different priorities and logistics.
The parents comments are getting under your skin? Read the comments from the “no way in hell” overflowing this thread. Until reading this thread, I always thought the whining from single parents I knew was, well, whining. Now I know better.
Look, there might be some pathalogical moms out there willing to spend the rest of their lives with say, Stranger on a Train, just so their children have a new daddy, but get real. The vast majority are looking for the same things as childless adults.
Dating a single parent does not mean becoming an adoptive parent. It means, going on dates with a single parent. What’s the worst that could happen? You fall in love with the parent and hate the kids? I’d rather have that problem than never fall in love in the first place. You shouldn’t rule out such a huge group of potential dating partners because you don’t want to be a parent, anymore than you should not date someone because he or she isn’t your idea of whom you want to grow old with. Go on a date with someone, if you think you’ll have a good time on the date.
If a serious relationship grows from dating and you find yourself contemplating a lifetime commitment, then worry about being a parent. And, it won’t be thinking “I’m no good as a parent.” As far as the kids go, you’ll be debating wanting to spend serious time with your partner’s kids. If you love your partner, you’re likely to find you love the kids, people are built that way. Ok, teenagers can be another issue. I have known childless people who can’t deal with their partner’s teenagers. Teenagers are establishing their own identity, and issues can arise. (I know one mom of four who commented that the teenage years are natures way of getting you ready for the kids to leave the house. And that’s when you are their biological parent.)
I would date a woman with kids, no problem. Hey, at my age, you don’t have a huge pool of potential dates.
However, for a longer relationship, it would definitely make a difference whether I got along with the kids. I know little of infants, and being the introvert I am, I might not deal well with some teens, so I would probably be most comfortable with kids who can talk and walk but who haven’t hit puberty.
And we pity the fool who’d fall for that. :eek:
But seriously, single/solo parents who are dating with aren’t looking for the same thing as an intentionally childless adult. If they’re looking for a casual, discrete fling, that’s another story entirely, but I’m taking dating to mean the eventual goal of a long-term relationship. For a childless adult, that means a relationship between two people. For a single mom or dad, that has to include the kids. There’s an inherent conflict there. Whether its a pathological strategy or an inevitable reality, single parents who are looking for a long-term relationship are looking for someone who wants to be with, and provide support for, their children.
Um, I’d say that’s pretty damn bad, at least from the kid’s[s’] point of view. Now the kid is put in the position of trying to please one adult and pacify the other, while trying not to be a focus for relationship problems. (And if the singleton doesn’t like the kids, that’s a huge problem.) The parent is put in the position of either defending the kid from the hatred (however concealed) of the SigOth, or isolating the relationships with the kid and the partner. Speaking from experience, that’s a rotten way to grow up.
I believe this is what people are referring to when they write of “chip-on-shoulder” or “condescending attitutes”. The assumption that “[all] people are built” to like children is a fallacy; and even of those that do, many would not make appropriate step-parents. I rather like kids (at least the bite-sized ones), and they seem to be all over me to a point of freakishness; I’m the guy for whom screaming infants will suddenly fall asleep when placed in my arms. :dubious:
But I don’t want kids. I wouldn’t be a good, consistent father figure. I don’t like being around children for more than a few hours at a time. I like–no, need–my peace and quiet that just doesn’t exist in a family environment. I have to be able to take off for a while on short notice if I’m getting to fed up with life, lest I lash out (emotionally, not physically). I know this, and I opt out of the pool of availble men that’ll date single women.
I just don’t like being told (or implied) that I’m selfish because I have a preference. Not everybody likes, wants, needs, or is good for, children.
Stranger
Single women=single mothers, right? Tell me you haven’t given up of us XXers entirerly 