Parent trap: drama often from adults, not the kids

The Baltimore Sun

When Rachel Sarah, 34, started dating again, she thought nobody would want her. "I was a 30-year-old single mom of a toddler," she says. "I thought, 'Oh my gosh, who in his right mind would ever think about dating me?'"

Her apprehension is understandable. Some singles are wary of starting a relationship with someone who has children. The instant family is a little intimidating. It's a little hard to have a romantic dinner for two when you have to make room for a high chair.

But, as it turns out, Sarah, author of Single Mom Seeking: Play Dates, Blind Dates, and Other Dispatches from the Dating World, was wrong. Sarah, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her 5-year-old daughter, says she has found that there are plenty of fish in the sea. "There's just not the stigma," she says.

In fact, say most single parents and those who love them, the kids aren't the problem. It's the adults. Specifically, the other parent.

Andrea Alexander, 18, of Baltimore says she has dated men with kids before. And, with her, there's usually only one drawback: "You have to go through drama with the baby['s] mother."

Lisa Thompson, who has a 4-year-old daughter, says most issues she's had when dating other singles with children are when the child's mother gets jealous of the time the father is spending with his new lady friend.

If you're dealing with a real man, the 27-year-old from Baltimore says, he'll be able to balance his responsibilities to his family and his new girlfriend. But, she says, "It's very rare to find a guy who does that."

Like Thompson, Shandrea Hawkins, 20, of Charles Village doesn't introduce her 4-year-old daughter to her dates until they get serious. But there's no avoiding the adult drama. When I asked her about dates interacting with her child, she replied, "I don't think he would be comfortable with her hanging around someone else." "He" being the ex-boyfriend, that is. And she says she feels the same way about him, too. Why?

"Maybe he doesn't know [his girlfriend] how he should," she says.

That's part of the reason why Albert Brown, 25, of Charles Village says he has to make sure that he and his date are on the same page before they start going out.

"I need to understand what kind of relationship they have before we start," he says. "Are you upset with him [the baby's father], so you're dating someone else?"

Brown should know. He says he once dated a woman who had three children and he was active in their lives, treating them like his children. When it comes to dating with children, you have to grow up a little, he says.

Either way, baby-mama drama or no, it seems that if the person is worth it, you'll figure out how to make it work. "If you choose to love someone, then you love them for everything they are and everything they bring with them, even the baggage (which we all have)," writes Tracy Newman of Canton. She dated a divorced father of three when she first got divorced. She said timing, not the kids, was their downfall.

"Unfortunately, love is not like a menu at a restaurant," she says. "You can't pick and choose what you love and what you don't if the relationship has any chance of working out."

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