Roslyn Car­ring­ton

As much as we love chil­dren, we have to ad­mit they can put a damper on ro­mance, es­pe­cial­ly if it's very ear­ly in the re­la­tion­ship when you and your new man are just get­ting to know each oth­er. You're on your best be­hav­iour, try­ing to im­press. Ask­ing your­self, "Do I take a chance on him? Is he worth the risk?" Now, add chil­dren to the mix...his, not yours. Sud­den­ly, things get com­pli­cat­ed. He can't stay out late be­cause it's a school night. Trips to the beach don't con­sist of a blan­ket, a book and a bot­tle of wine, but a trunk-load of in­flat­able toys and a game of slap-and-slap-back. If you're re­al­ly lucky, some­body throws up even be­fore you get there. Dat­ing a dad. Can you han­dle it? For most of the women, the an­swer is, "It de­pends." How full is his nest? "How many kids we talk­ing about?" a su­per­mar­ket em­ploy­ee in her ear­ly 40s asks, her eyes nar­row­ing skep­ti­cal­ly. "Yeah," her friend chimes in. "One child or five?" The amount of en­er­gy ex­pend­ed car­ing for kids in­creas­es ex­po­nen­tial­ly with each new ar­rival. For every two more, pre­pare to have your fraz­zle-fac­tor dou­bled-and the time they need to trash your liv­ing room cut by rough­ly half.

Do I have to look af­ter them?

Oth­er peo­ple's chil­dren are like rent­ed en­ter­tain­ment sys­tems. You can have a blast with them, eat, drink, play and rel­ish the role of World's Best Aun­tie...and when you're tired you just ship them back where they came from. But if things start look­ing se­ri­ous with your new love, you're not on­ly go­ing to be see­ing more of him, but you'll be spend­ing more time with them, too. Are they go­ing to see you as just "Dad­dy's girl­friend" or are you go­ing to be­come "Mom­my 2.0"? When they start run­ning to you for scratched knees and the an­swer to ques­tion Num­ber 4, it can be both scary and heart­warm­ing. Un­less the man's just look­ing for some­one to dump the dirty work on. "I'm not pack­ing any lunch kits!" our su­per­mar­ket work­er warns.

Are the kids go­ing to be af­fect­ed?

One house­wife, who be­came preg­nant while her fi­anc&ea­cute;'s chil­dren were very young, re­mem­bers the pain she saw on his daugh­ter's face when she re­alised her par­ents weren't get­ting back to­geth­er. The child was with­drawn, cried a lot and was so mis­er­able that she un­der-per­formed at SEA. Years lat­er, the woman still has the un­easy feel­ing that the dis­rup­tion caused by her re­la­tion­ship with the girl's fa­ther still echoes though their home. "I try with my step­daugh­ter, but I al­ways feel we could be clos­er."

Is the oth­er woman in the pic­ture?

A pro­duc­tion line su­per­vi­sor says she'd be will­ing to date a sin­gle dad...as long as there's no ba­by ma­ma dra­ma. Back­ing her up is a mas­sage ther­a­pist in her late 40s, now mar­ried to a fa­ther of three, who re­calls her ear­ly ex­pe­ri­ences of dat­ing her new love, while his chil­dren were liv­ing with their moth­er.

"I was will­ing to have a re­la­tion­ship with the chil­dren, but their moth­er made it hard. She used the chil­dren as a bar­gain­ing chip with their fa­ther, and wouldn't let them see him just to pun­ish him. My re­la­tion­ship with her is still very strained." Will he be more un­der­stand­ing about your kids? A 37-year-old of­fice main­te­nance work­er who mar­ried a man with chil­dren thinks dat­ing a dad is ac­tu­al­ly a good idea for a sin­gle moth­er. "They un­der­stand the pres­sure you're un­der," she ex­plains. "Child­less men don't get it when you tell them you can't do this or that be­cause you're busy with the chil­dren. They think you just not tak­ing them on." He'd al­so be a good per­son to turn to for ad­vice if you're hav­ing prob­lems with your own kids. "He done go through all that al­ready," she says. "So he's bound to have good ideas."

Can you share the lime­light?

At­ten­tion hogs be­ware: when your man has chil­dren of his own, you're not like­ly to be the cen­tre of his world. Son­ny-boy's first crick­et match and Dad­dy's girl's grad are al­ways go­ing to trump your ro­man­tic date for two. The key, as it is in most sit­u­a­tions, is to "know thy­self". If you're an at­ten­tion junkie who gets jeal­ous if the lime­light isn't al­ways on you, do your­self and his kids a favour: ei­ther get used to be­ings light­ly low­er on his pri­or­i­ty list, or hit the road. Be­cause if you go in­to Di­va mode and pull the "it's me or your kids" rou­tine, you'll lose. But if you love the man enough to love his chil­dren too, and are will­ing to be one more plan­et in his whole swirling uni­verse, you just might be the kind of woman he's look­ing for, and the kind of step­mom his chil­dren de­serve.

Wom­an­Wise Poll

We polled a few sin­gle women on our Wom­an­Wise Face­book page about whether they would date a man who has chil­dren. Here's the feed­back we got.

No of women Re­sponse

7...................................................No thanks, no ba­by dra­ma for me

2...................................................On­ly if they lived with their moth­er and don't de­pend on him.

2...................................................On­ly if they are well be­haved

1...................................................De­pends on the age of the chil­dren and his re­la­tion­ship with

the child/chil­dren's moth­er.

1...................................................Yes, but on­ly one child prefer­ably over age four.