Espaces pédagogiques interactifs

When I was a few years younger I had a checklist of all the qualifications that a man must have to be interviewed for that coveted boyfriend position. Of course he should be employed for starters, 6 foot tall, dark, and handsome. Well dressed, deep baritone voice, and the list went on and on and on. But of them not having children was somewhere on the top of my list of no-no’s. As I get older I’ve slowly scratched some of those must haves and put them on my wishful thinking list. I wish I could find a rich man with a nice car, abs of steel, and a big Mandingo to match. Now I’ll settle for a man who’s just got a plain j.o.b., who just has a car period, and as long as he knows how to use his peter size doesn’t matter (within reason). I can now say that I’ve dated men who were in “transition phases” at the moment. The, “I’m just taking some time to figure out what I want to do with my life before I get back to work” men. I’ve dated the in-and-out of court men who seen to always be at the wrong place at the wrong time. These men are always claiming they were wrongfully accused of something and ride in the back of cop cars like taxis routinely. I’ve dated the “my wife and I are separated” men, who in my opinion never really leave their wives. And I recently scratched another one-off of my list – the single father. A father of two whose parental duties include: spending every weekend with his children, jumping as high as his baby mother commands, and spending every last dollar on his children.

Let me start off by first recognizing the men out there who are standup fathers and do what they have to do for their children. Those few men who disregard their responsibilities have totally ruined my views on what it means to be a baby father verses a real daddy. It’s just that I have too many girlfriends who are struggling single mothers while their deadbeat baby fathers carry on with their lives as though their children will raise themselves. For those men life is just a party it seems. My girlfriends warn me about sleeping with the wrong men and having children for men who don’t want to be fathers. As a result I’ve avoided dating single fathers like the plague. I don’t like drama; and when dating nowadays is as difficult as it is adding a baby mother and child into the equation can be too much to deal with. However, as I age I recognize that the likelihood of me dating a man without a child is becoming increasingly slimmer.

So I took a chance and dated a father of two – the oldest was five and the youngest was two. He loved his children with all of his heart, and as part of his arrangement with his ex he was to have his children on the weekends. Now this is probably the same situation many single fathers are in right now. Baby mama has the kids during the weekdays while and the baby daddy rings her doorbell Friday night and drops the kids off on Sunday. Sounds like the perfect arrangement until you’re the girlfriend of a man in this situation. This means that as the girlfriend you have no rights to a free weekend with your boyfriend. This means that he needs to ask permission from his baby mama every time he wants to back out of his fatherly duties in the name of hanging out with the girlfriend. This means that as a loving, caring, and understanding girlfriend you’ve got to standby your man and babysit his children with him on his off days (that is if you want to spend some quality time with him). Call me selfish but as the girlfriend this weekend arrangement thing just isn’t cutting it.

Then there was the random phone calls from the baby mother. The “our child needs this right now” call. This call could happen at any moment and any day or time of the week. This resulted in my boyfriend jumping real high to reach the top of her list if requests. Of course as a father he was there when needed but these random calls stopped being so random. And requests slowly became demands, and then criticisms on what he isn’t doing right as a man. So as the girlfriend it became increasingly difficult for me to turn a blind eye to the frequent phone calls and emergency calls that were really minor mishaps. As the girlfriend I’m expected to just accept that when dating a man with children this is what comes with it and I just have to deal with it.

Is it selfish of me to hate that as a girlfriend to a single father I am to just accept that his money is better spent on the kids instead if me? I should accept that there will be no wining and dining, trips, or champagne and caviar for me? Splurging and surprise gifts are infrequent, pennies are pinched, and date nights become play dates with the kids in the neighborhood. I know that dating a single father means that technically I signed up for all of this but when does the balance between his family life and relationship come into play?

For the women who have been in this situation how did you cope with dating a man with children? And for the single fathers how do you balance dating and fatherhood?

Speak on it!

SBF