Single and Dating??? WTF????

So I just read a post from a blogger with his head up his ass (or both feet down his throat) entitled 13 Reasons Not to Date a Women With Kids http://blackmanx.wordpress.com/2008/02/24/13-reasons-not-to-date-a-woman-with-kids/ - I have put the link here because although he makes me want to scream he does have some valid arguments from a childless idiots point of view. Let me digress.......


1) He mentions Baby damage.... hmmm... yup.... just means we as single experienced moms expect to have a man with passion and expertise in certain areas and will settle for nothing but the best - oh ya and we KNOW what to do with our talent! lol. Maybe it isn't that he is dating stretched out women but that he's just a tad defficient on the anatomy side???

2) I can't find a babysitter - yup happens, and yup can be used as an excuse much the same as "Not tonight dear I have a headache" - point to be made here - if he thinks that it is being used as an excuse to get out of a date - maybe he is the one not desired in this relationship? Seems pretty self involved to me to think that one is so incredibly highly valued that t=making an excuse not to date someone is a reflection on the excuser??????

3)Babies interrupt sex - hun sex MADE those babies - if you don't like babies DON"T HAVE SEX!!! Nuff said!

4)Baby's daddy - so he's obviously been in a relationship with a woman with a problem ex - get over it - if she's worth it it shouldn't matter - you could try dating widows - heaven's knows there are enough of us out there - and no baby daddys to speak of in our case. Or again better yet - no mommies for you!

5)Rent - a - daddy - OMG this one made me laugh! Rent-a-daddy - lmao - dam - good one cuz all of us dumb poor hood rat girlz with babies wit no daddies are just buzy out there hunting for a new baby daddy.... dam you are a dumb ass! We don't want trash like you! Thats why you get the "Sorry no babysitter excuses!!"" HAHAHAHA!

6)The kids are still up - hun thats life! Eventually they do go to bed. Oh by the way did you ever stop to think that these kids are people too and that their lives maybe do not have to revolve around your sorry ass??

7)Double Heart Break - ya this is a sorry reality in a relationship where kids are involved but again you put it entirely from your selfish perspective alone. How about the heart ache on the kids part - you get to walk away and leave the mom to pick up the pieces of her own life with you gone and her kids.

8) Your Not My Dad - no kidding - you are not and much as you no doubt did when you were a kid - children will test their boundaries. Not only do you have to share the mom with her kids but her kids have to share their mother with you. From their perspective they are scared and confused - your an inknown entity and they will try to push you away because they are scared you will take their mom away - the onus is on you to prove to them that you are a decent person and earn their respect. Thats right - earn!

9)As far as what she will do if she gets knocked up - USE A DAMNED CONDOM!! and be honest if you do not want kids - this is not a discussion for months or years down the road. Moms need to know what to expect - discuss!

10)Bad judge of character - you speak of these women as if they are trash that will sleep around with anything that breaths - many of us single moms are not single by choice and have come out of long term relationships that ended for sometimes very unexpected reasons like the death of a spouse. If you are dating girls that you really feel are trashy then you are the trash they are after - ever consider that? Raise your standards then and stop trying to randomly knock up single mamas......

11)Unneccessary Expenditures - try paying the rent and groceries, school expenses, cloths, medical bills, birthday and christmas gifts etc etc associated with raising children on your own without any help from anyone else and generally speaking in a significantly lower paying job than a MAN can make on your own before you start whining about buying a kid and icecream cone or two.....

12)You'll never be No 1 - why should you be - it would be a pretty crappy mom who would put a new boyfriend ahead of her flesh and bloods interests. Shameful that you would even consider this an issue......and rather concieted.....

13)Tag your it! - this law has pretty much been implemented North America wide including in Canada - it is to protect the women and children from ending up homeless and starving - and although it may not seem fair - when you become a central figure in a child's life for a number of years to that child you do become like a new parent - whether you like it or not - you also have a right to visitation in cases like these, and if you were a decent person you would consider that a bonus.

As harsh as my rebuttal seems I do agree with your points in one major regard - you should not date women with children! Thats not saying that you are a bad person or that there is anything wrong with your thinking, just that you are not ready to deal with a ready made family - recognizing and accepting this is great. In my case your points above are the number one reason that I will not date a man without kids. Added to this are the following reasons not to date a childless man:

1) They don't get it and never will - as much as a childless man will tell you that he understands that time is an issue and that you can't just drop everything to go out on a date - when push comes to shove and you rally cannot find a sitter or one of your kids is sick you invarriably get the cold shoulder or some kind of attitude to suggest the man is irritated with your not being able to run at his beck and call.

2)Men want to be involved when they really shouldn't be - the last single childless guy I considered was the last - I got so sick of hearing him whine about how he liked kids and wanted to come over to my house to meet them, or watch a movie or whatever was too dense to realize that I don't want somebody involved untill I know he's in it for the long haul becuase when you break up with a man involved with your kids - they break up with him too and its alot harder to heal from a broken relationship when your kids are mourning right along with you. Not to mention that kids tend to take break-ups personal and think they are somehow their faults.

3)Men tend to expect that they will be number one - and although I really wish that I could be with someone that I thought this highly of - the reality is I made my kids and no childless man on the planet will ever understand what kind of connection this makes.

4)I really do not need another Child to take care of - there is a certain maturity that being a father brings to many men that childless men are just not capable of obtaining - that is not to day that there are not great childless men out there who have potential - but it is to say that for most the world still revolves around them and their expectations are unralistic for a mom. We are not looking for another mouth to feed or person to take care of - independance please.

The list goes on but for now this is enough! Peace all and good luck with dating!

Varsity View Woes

So reading the Winnipeg Free Press today I find myself reading an article about the damage being caused by a group of inconsiderate punks riding ATVs through the soccer fields where my daughter plays. The conflict here is that this reporting of cutting of the fences and destruction of the fields is not found in one of our crime ridden innercity neighbourhoods but in the relatively quiet, low crime area of Charleswood, previously one of the more desirable areas of the city in which to live. One may point the finger as many do at the low rental housing that has popped up around the area, or the number of grouphomes that have opened house here, but the reality is poor people do not buy their kids ATVs and dirt bikes. The real culprit here is a total lack of culpability on the part of the parents of these kids in ensuring that their dear sons and daughters are obeying the rules and showing respect for others. It saddens me as a single mom that the potential is there for my children to learn this level of dissrespect in the community because I have worked as hard as I can to teach my kids better.

The question then becomes if the parents won't teach respect and adherance to rules both legislated and unwritten, who should? First and foremost these kids and yes I have seen enough of them at this park to accurately say they are almost as a whole under 18, need to be charged by the Police and should be made to serve their punishments in the form of community service repairing the damadge they have caused. Laws about offroad ridership are meaninless if not enforced. The Police should also have the right to, and should be siezing the vehicles of anyone caught riding them out of bounds, irregardless of who is the owner. Making the parents account for allowing these kids to recklessly damage the fields and endanger the children using them is paramount. They are after all the people ultimately in charge of allowing their sons and daughters use of the quads and bikes. The schools need to be involved as well. Yes, I know they have no idea who is operating these machines, and they really have no involvement in what goes on outside of school hours but the current anti-bullying and respect campaigns carried out in the public school systems here are way too soft hearted to have any effect what-so-ever. Untill everyone, the Police, the schools and us as parent stop holding our kids hands and saying "there there its ok" when they are in trouble, this will continue to happen and contine to escalate. Parents need to know its ok and justifiable to ground your kids and take privelages away! Spanking may not be the answer now a days, and certainly wouldn't be with a teenager, but selling the quad or dirt bike or wii, xbox or  whatever may just be!

Just my 2 cents.......

Blogging and the single mom.

So life as a single mom - crazy, hectic, insane and totally worth it. (Or so we work hard to convince ourselves everyday) Fall is upon us once again and as much as many of us look soooo forward to this time a year - kids are back in school, routines become normalized it also means a return to crazy after school schedules and a huge reduction in social opportunities, not that as a single mom many of us have a whole lot of those. In my case fall brings back dragging my kids out of bed everyday way earlier than they would like to get up, stuffing them into their school cloths, chasing them to get out the door, dropping them off at school not for a couple of hours peace but so that I can either race off to my part time job or to University because my life isn't psychotically crazy enough without adding my own education into the mix, racing back to the school to pick them up, racing half way across town for soccerswimmingdancelessons, then finally home to make supper and chase the kids to do their homeworkchoreslaundry, then finally put them to be and collapse exhausted onto the couch just to realize I have  paperexamstudying to do. Argh! And just when I think its all over and I can relax the alarm bell goes off.

Sound familiar? I am sure it does. So given the lack of getting out of the house in the fall without kids, my love of writing and a need to vent, and my desire to share the many tips and tricks that I have developed over the years to make life transition a little smoother I thought I would start blogging - just to add one more activity to the dizzying aray of items that I have on my "to do" list. I swear I have become so used to being unbelievably busy that I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I actually had free time!

If you have a story to share or a tip for making the most out of a dollar, and life as a single parent please feel free to comment on the posts I put on here and welcome to my blog!