A lot of people think that dating a single mother is the same as dating a woman with no children. I’m sorry to burst that unrealistic bubble, but dating is messy and dating with kids is messy with a glass of spilled milk. For the unfortunate and lucky few that get to date a single mom, here’s some stuff you should know ahead of time.
1. You are not a parent replacement.
Let me make myself perfectly clear, just because the person happens to have a child or in some cases children. Most definitely does not mean that they are looking to find a new mom or dad for their child(ren), that’s not the intention.
2. If the kid(s) don’t like you, it’s not going to work out.
Yeah there are exceptions to the rule, but for the most part if you can’t get along with the kid(s) then it’s not going to work out with the mom. Most of the time kid(s) are a pretty good judge of character and if they don’t like you after a couple of days, you might just want to show yourself the door after all they were here first 😛
3. Mom first, girlfriend second.
Of course you are important…. Ben was it? No I’m kidding, but if the kids get sick that’s where I’ll be. Cancel the date, the kid(s) comes first. You are more then welcome to come hang out at our place with us, if you aren’t afraid to catch whatever’s going around.
4. You will be introduced as a friend, nothing more.
Don’t get offended if you’ve been dating 2 weeks and you finally meet the kid(s) and your introduced as a “friend”. It’s hard balancing kid(s) but when you throw in dating it can sometimes get really confusing. We have to take our child(ren)’s feelings into account as well as our own. We don’t know how long we’ll be dating and introducing our kids to some new person as a “boyfriend” every 6 months would probably get pretty confusing.
5. Make plans.
Make some date plans, they don’t have to be extravagant. Chances are we had to get a babysitter (bribing family only works for so long, and finding someone you trust with your child(ren) is hard), and we have to pay them for the whole time we’re gone including telling them when we are returning. You aren’t always responsible for making the date plans, but constantly hearing “I don’t know, let’s do whatever you want to do” while on a time schedule is extremely annoying especially when I know I’ll have to fork out 40+ dollars to the babysitter later.
6. Sometimes we’ll have date “tag-alongs”.
We understand you want “one on one time”, but sometimes the kid(s) are going to come, we’re a package deal…Group bowling anyone?
7. Not just a mom.
Just because we are a mom, doesn’t mean that we don’t have other interests. Of course we could talk your ear off about stuff our kid(s) say and stuff our kid(s) do. Bottom line though, we also have other interests like photography, books, movies, sports, video games similar to someone that doesn’t have child(ren).
8. Bums need not apply.
If you don’t have a job and you aren’t in school/can’t support yourself financially, move on. Same thing goes for if you can’t take care of yourself (ex: cleaning up after yourself, doing your laundry, etc). We are already mothers to little human beings, we don’t want or need to take care of a grown one too.
9. We aren’t dating you for your money.
We realize that in today’s society there are a lot of woman that date simply so they have someone to support them financially. That’s not the case here, and if you think that move along.
10. Don’t try to parent my kid(s).
If you’ve been dating for a week, that does not entitle you to discipline the kid(s). Unless you’ve been told it’s okay, let me deal with the parenting and disciplining.
11. Just because we have child(ren) doesn’t mean we are “easy”.
It’s sad that this one needs to be put down here, but it’s important for you to know. Just because a woman has kid(s) does NOT mean that they’ll just sleep with you. You have no idea how we got into the situation we are in, and assuming that we are an “easy lay” because we have kid(s) you’ll be sadly disappointed.