Why would the “new guy” be scared of fathering another man’s children?
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Once upon a time, I was on Twitter lamenting about not finding love. I was saying how I attract emotionally unavailable men. Out of nowhere, this dude that I have never interacted with comes along and replies:
“Children scare men.”
It took me a moment to figure out what the hell he was talking about. I presumed he meant that the concept of having children was not desirable to men. But then my brain started playing around with the idea and I imagined my two kids dressed up in monster costumes standing in a dark hallway deliberately trying to cock block me.
That was pretty funny.
Though I was relatively certain what he meant by the scared children comment, I wanted to confirm that he was making a mass generalization before I retaliated. I asked him what he meant and he said that when a man finds out that a woman has children, he becomes afraid. I prodded him and wanted to know what he meant by “afraid.”
This was seriously one of the weirdest interactions I’d ever had on Twitter.
I felt like he was making a lot of assumptions. Every man is scared of children? Children are not scary. They are fun and weird and sometimes they lose their teeth and get money for it. They love chocolate and ice cream and they say weird, funny stuff. Why would men be scared of children?
But then I realized that he was kind of right.
One time I joined a dating website for 24 hours. I was chatting with a nice guy. We spoke about our random jobs that we had in our three decade adult lives, our pets, hobbies, and favorite movies. Then he found out that I had kids. He stopped replying to my texts and disappeared. I started to believe that weird Twitter guy was on to something.
I still don’t know why men are terrified of children, but I do know that it’s lame.
Single moms want to have romance and some semblance of a sex life too. Why should the fact that I have children make me any less attractive?
I think that is discrimination and it’s just plain ridiculous. I love my children and they also drive me crazy. But, they are a big part of my life. They come with this package that is Sarah Fader. So, if you love me, you love them.
You also love chocolate pudding pie. I’ve decided that you do.
Men, please stop judging women if they have children. Don’t write off a woman as undateable just because she has two little shorties she lives with.
Those children are her universe and there is also room in it for you.
If she likes you.
♦◊♦
Photo: Till Westermayer/Flickr
This piece originally appeared on James-Writes.com
Sarah Fader, as a childfree man, I don’t judge nor do I look down on any woman who has kids. I quite simply don’t want kids. Not my own and not anyone else’s. That doesn’t make me silly or lame or childish. I’m just not compatible with anyone who has or wants children. I have absolutely no desire for kids. So it makes perfect sense for a guy like me to avoid women who have or want kids. And as you said, a guy can’t have you without having your kid(s) too. You are a package deal. I don’t want… Read more »
Ain’t gonna happen. From my experience on GMP, whenever a writer gets their words handed back to them an a plate, they usually opt out of the discussion.
I’m going to set aside all the other super important traits that you need/want in a potential partner and just focus on mum/dad stuff…
For me, a single mother, who is also a kick ass mother (who screws up like everybody else) is such a frikkin’ turn on! Doesn’t mean you jump in, but it’s another massive tick in the “pro” column.
Find a guy that thinks your kids will be an awesome bonus, not baggage.
Sara, “Single moms want to have romance and some semblance of a sex life too. Why should the fact that I have children make me any less attractive? I think that is discrimination and it’s just plain ridiculous.” Yes. It is discrimination. As a matter of fact, DATING IS ITSELF ONE MASSIVE PROCESS OF DISCRIMINATION!!!!!!!!! When you look for a partner, you seek out someone with the traits you want. When you meet someone, and they don’t have the traits you want or have traits you don’t want, you choose to not date them. If you choose not to date… Read more »
Some great points. A shame the writer has not come back to address the points raised here.
Sometimes, men can feel as though they’re being sought out as the next husband/father/provider, rather than being taken on just for themselves.
This comment sums up everything.
The fact that one is sought out as a Father/Provider first rather than accepting them for themselves makes Men who aren’t married, second hand.
It is very off-putting.
Angelguy
I am a digital nomad. I joined the military at 16, and retired out right about the time the financial crisis went Boom. I spent two years getting a Masters Degree in Public Administration / Health Care – and promptly left upon it’s completion. In reality, I never should have come back to the States after my last deployment – it was a mistake – I did it because I was working at Harley Davidson, and I loved that job. In the 20 years since I first signed up to the military Reserves to when I left – I spent… Read more »
I remember when I was 36, splitting up with someone I had been with for 6 years. I felt scared at the thought of ‘starting again’, and my soon to be ex said to me, ‘you have one great advantage over most women – you haven’t got kids’. I don’t think it’s that men are ‘scared’ of the other man’s kids thing as such, it’s just that they aren’t interested in it. By ‘afraid’, they men ‘afraid of the commitment, afraid of what the whole thing might entail’. If you’re not particularly into children, it’s quite a big deal to… Read more »
Certainly, not all kids are adorable or fun to be around. That annoying kid in the super market you don’t know who is banging his cart into yours while Mom smiles on like it’s the most adorable thing ever, certainly isn’t endearing. But usually when you’re in a situation the requires you to spend time with someone else’s kids, you get to know them on a deeper level, you see who those kids are. You see their humanity. You see them as individuals. You see how they share qualities with the person your dating or in love with. And that… Read more »
Well put, Craig.
I do this little exercise when I see such things. I simply flip it. If it stinks when I flip it, it stinks.
Sigh, it’s not a male vs female thing, it’s about who is willing to begin a relationship with someone who has kids.
Try putting the shoe on the other food and enter the following “Dating Profile”. Professional Male, 58, by all accounts a good guy, funny, honest, oh and PS is a full time single dad to 2 typical teenagers.
I could say say that I don’t know why women are terrified of children but I know that Parenting is a big responsibility and not one to be entered into lightly, and appreciate that fact.
Going to raise a point here. Looking through the single dad’s eyes I think there is less sexism then there is practicality when he avoids single moms.. The circumstances are very different. Men lose custody. She is a family; he a lone wolf. She’s investing in him, he will be involving himself in another family. Very murky waters. He’ll be supporting one, living in another. H’e already experienced a loss in that area so forming another bond with kids not his own seems a monumental task. He’ll have a tenuous relationships with his own children while interacting with new children.… Read more »
I still don’t know why men are terrified of children, but I do know that it’s lame. So do you want to understand or are you just going to go along with declaring we are wrong and not worry about why? I married a single mom so I’ll try to shed some light on this. 1. The whole, “this means she won’t be able to give me 100% of her time” wasn’t a factor in the least bit. 2. A major part of the issue was wondering if she would ever be willing to give me the chance earn the… Read more »
I write single mums off as undatable for the simple reason that I don’t want kids. Also afraid of children could easily mean not wanting to commit to having or raising children. Raising another mans child could easily end in disaster for the guy. There’s nothing discriminative about men avoiding women who have kids. It’s simple incompatibility. If you don’t want kids or maybe you just don’t want to commit to kids that aren’t yours, then avoiding women who do have kids makes perfect sense. All women on this earth who want or already have kids are no go zones… Read more »
Sarah
I am not for monarchy , Kings and queens but I live in one, still I hope you will look at this video ( or the beginning).
The crown prince of Norway choose a single mother as his wife.
She had never been married,
One day she will be our queen.
They now have three children, her son, and the two they have together.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2jIBWkDGZtw
It seems the link does not work , but I sure you understand what I mean 🙂
@ Silke,
Hello!
I did watch it. It was very lovely, indeed. Thanks for sharing this with us Silke.
Btw, to see it you must remove the “s” from https and remove the “m” and “.” in front of the word youtube.
I do not have kids. I will never have my own kids. I’ve never wanted kids. I didn’t even like them when I was one. And my own issues and anxieties make me a poor match for them anyway. However, I’ve recently discovered a new demographic. Dig this: Women my age who had kids in their early twenties now have kids in high school or college. That’s way different. These are young people. Young adults. And, I relate to that age group. Not to sound conceited, but I’ve accumulated some decent wisdom from my time on this planet. And I’m… Read more »
I still don’t know why men are terrified of children, but I do know that it’s lame. When I was dating, despite making it clear that I didn’t have children and didn’t want them, I still had single parents contacting me. When I pointed out what my profile clearly stated regarding children, some were gracious about it but I still had a number who felt they had a right to challenge me over how I choose to live my life. As a man who is child-free by choice, I am under no obligation to justify myself to anybody. You might… Read more »
Sarah, I actually broke up with a man once because I always knew I could easily adopt, and love a child that biologically wasn’t mine, but he told me that he couldn’t. I’m not sure if I will have kids of my own or not or end up adopting or doing both. I’m leaving that up to God. But I know that I could love an adopted child just as much as a biological one. And so I realized that I’m looking for a man that has a heck of a lot of love in his heart, like I do.… Read more »
@ Erin
Men definitely have the capacity for love. They don’t want the obligation to love, which comes when there is a “package deal”.
@ John Anderson, I am going to disagree with you John, partly. Maybe you are correct. However, I also think it is a fear of the unknown which is the “package deal.” Obviously, it is a different situation which calls for a different approach. I think men simply find it easier to “navigate around” this situation instead of embracing it. I had a two and a half year relationship with a single mother of an 11 year old daughter. I was able to embrace this situation because I too had a teenage boy at the time. So, I had knowledge… Read more »
@ Jules I think some guys look at it that way and I don’t necessarily think they are wrong. Some of the examples you gave are a but on the extreme side, but that’s because I was raised to believe that it’s rude to eat while other people starve especially children. You might believe that also, but many people don’t have that problem when it’s a stranger involved or if they felt little or no obligation to them. I’ve also heard other stories. There was an instance of a mom who’s husband wasn’t the biological father of the child. I… Read more »
John, I never, ever, ever, ever said that men don’t have the ‘capacity for love’. I never said that and I never thought it. What I am saying is that when a human being is able to love someone that doesn’t carry their DNA, and love them as if they did, that is infact an evolved way to love. Loving a child because it has “your” DNA is pretty easy to do. Loving a child who doesn’t, takes a different kind of heart. It requires a more open, inclusive, vulnerable one that isn’t exclusively dependent on the requirement for DNA… Read more »
Erin, I think, mostly, it’s a question of attachment regarding age. It is to my belief much easier to grow an attachment to a child that enters your life as a new-born (more or less), than one that enters your life at, say, an age of 8-10 or more. And I believe this is pretty much regardless of your own gender, and your DNA connection with the child. I have a bunch of nieces and nephews, and also a bunch of friends’ kids, that I love as my own, that I love more than life itself. Because I’ve held them,… Read more »
I completely disagree FlyingKal. That kind of love does and can develop with someone you meet at age 10. It happens every day for people who adopt older children. A child’s age, gender, race should not prevent your ability to love them. Human beings have a greater compacity for love then you give them credit for, then you even give yourself credit for! There was recently an article about a man that adopted a bunch of children of varying ages. I think he would be insulted to be told that his ability to love them is less then someone that… Read more »
@ Erin For me it’s not an issue of can or can’t. It’s an issue of effort and obligation. Can I grow to love a child who isn’t “mine”? Certainly, do I want to be forced to or at least go through the motions because I love their mother? Well that might be asking a bit much. I knew a guy who was engaged to a woman. He got an eye infection and in three days he was legally blind. He was a salesman and needed to travel so lost his job. We wondered whether his fiance would cancel the… Read more »
I suspect that if you feel ‘forced’ to love the child of a woman you are seeing, you aren’t the right man for her. If I had a child, and the man wanted me, but didn’t love my child, he would be rejecting a piece of me. And to me, that isn’t even real love. Any woman with a child probably does not want to be with a man that would consider her child an ‘effort of obligation’. I don’t see how loving a child that isn’t of your DNA is ‘asking a bit much’ but you’re the only one… Read more »
Silke, if I was Sarah, I wouldn’t ‘be thankful’ about men treating me with more respect just because I was a mother. Sarah probably wants to be treated like a desirable, attractive woman. Not like she is simply someone’s mother. I think her situations offers unique and difficult challenges and I don’t think it’s fair to tell her that she should be ‘thankful’ about it. Did you notice how many men with children themselves said that they either didn’t want to date a woman with children or found it less then ideal? It seems a bit hypocritical that a man… Read more »
Hi Erin
I do not have any children.
After my divorce it was clear to me that men treated me different from other divorced women with children.
I was treated worse.
@ Silke,
Hi Silke!
Why do you think this was so Silke? Do you think men treat divorced single childless women worse than single mothers?
Hi Jules
I rather not go look back..
And it I likely that men in my country see things differently than men in America.
I am certain that they do, and those men here that choose to bring in a wife from another country often choose a woman with a child. Or maybe it is the Thai and Russian single mothers that take the chance and marry a stranger in another country ?
I have never seen any statistics that say that single mothers remain single for long unless they want to.
Typo
I rather not look back…
@ Erin, “It seems a bit hypocritical that a man with children would want a woman to accept his children but wouldn’t want to accept a woman’s children.” Yes, it is indeed hypocritical. A lot of men feel this way out of fear of the unknown or simple insecurity. I am not trying to excuse this behavior by any means. I would characterize myself as such when I was much younger and single. As I got older, experienced at life, and had a child of my own, I learned/discovered that one need not feel so. What men need to realize… Read more »
It also might depend on who has custody. If the children spend 90% of their time with their mom it will have a bigger impact on her and the person she’s with than the father and the person he’s with.
Sarah
I think men here have given you good and honest anwers to your question.
But as I woman I think you overlook one thing.
Men most likely treat you with respect because you are a mother. I mean they maybe want causual sex or just a fling but move on when they hear you have children.
Having children is also a protection against certain kind of unwanted attention .
Be thankful.
I would agree that most women in America in their 30’s and 40’s have kids, and that my dating pool would be infinitely small, adding to account that I got a vasectomy at 18 ( I hate kids, I hated being one, I am never having them, and I do not want a life with them in it – they are wholly avoidable) so now drain out the girls that never want kids, that NEVER want to get married, and that I would find attractive AND that would be interested in me .(because I am short, old, and more than… Read more »
Hi Boris
Hmmmmmm, that sounds like sextourism .
Maybe you one day will write an article here on GMP and tell us more about your life and the countries you have lived in.
Wait a minute, Boris.
You can’t just leave us hanging on how you’re pulling the whole “new country every year until I die” thing.
Are you retired? Independently wealthy? An E-worker?
“Single moms want to have romance and some semblance of a sex life too.” I had to chuckle…seems to be the exact opposite of what married moms want.. Anyhow… I think men who do not want to date women with kids do so because they see the kids as “baggage.” In essence, the woman has baggage. This is a terrible way to view things. I think it is because of the fear of the unknown. These men simply fear all that comes with dating a woman with kids. They so fear it because they do not know and/or understand it.… Read more »
I will explain here what I told a close friend. Women who are dating are a no go. First and foremost you have to look out for number one. If you cannot take care of yourself you should not be looking to get others involved. As in dating anyone. This applies to both sexes, yet part of the dating dynamic still holds some more traditional assumptioms that fall particulary on guys. Good job, good car, house or appartment, spending money for woo, etc. So you are not number 1 to her. Second reason, the guy whom she had children with,… Read more »
Matt I am certain you are totally wrong about lot of women here. And sometimes it sounds like men in US see women as persons with no job, no car,no income ,no home,no nothing while the fact must be that most of them do have a home , a car, education and if they have the child then that child also have a father that contribute economical to that child and this title household . And what on earth makes you say that she had nine months to decide if she wanted the child or not? Do women in your… Read more »
Matt
Excuse me for not understanding you correctly Matt.
It suddenly understood you said “nine months” because she can give the child up for adoption.
That thought never crossed my mind, since women in my country never do that.
Here we have to go abroad if we want to find a child to adopt.
Rather than rendering the mother less attractive, I think it would be more accurate to say that children often make the potential relationship seem much more daunting. Even if you like/want kids, even if they aren’t your own, the whole scenario gets catapulted into a sort of “high risk, high reward” mentality. You feel a sort of pre-guilt at the idea that a failed relationship might cause collateral damage. Not saying it’s entirely rational or reasonable, but there is a thought process going on. Also some men (or women for that matter) may simply not want kids, in which case… Read more »
We men think it’s discriminatory that our height scares away equal amounts if not even more available women. So for some of us amongst the 5’6″ crowd who already have kids from a previous marriage, and the even smaller crowd still that insisted on a 50-50 co-parenting schedule, it’s actually preferred you have kids as well. Because you know what is bestowed upon parents – and so do we. Boris – does have a point though, even among the short dad loving family dudes – there’s an equally smaller amount still that don’t want to invest in a single mom… Read more »
The problem is in assumptions and maybe outright facts. Must guys assume that women date looking for an LTR. Maybe you even told them you’re looking for an LTR. It’s tough enough to commit to a woman. It’s really tough to commit to a mom and kids. Most guys won’t bother. Why make an investment if the return you expect isn’t what you want? That’s the best case scenario. The worst case scenario is that she stockpiles kids as a career move. A guy I know ex has three children with three different high earning men. He’s convinced that she… Read more »
For me, the thing is that if you are a single parent in your 30s, there are a lot of people that will be in the dating pool that fall into one of two categories: – Never want kids – Have kids of their own and don’t want more kids When I was a single dad of three, I felt like the perfect woman for me would be a lady that wanted kids, but couldn’t have kids as I wasn’t interested in more kids and I knew blending a family with someone with kids of their own would be a… Read more »