Dating the single father

By JACKSON BIKO Posted Friday, June 25 2010 at 15:53

Let’s face it, the single father is an underdog, mostly ignored, underrated, and in some cases, even blamed by society which has harped on for so long – and so hard – about single mothers that mentioning a single father is like mentioning a disease that was (supposedly) expunged long ago. But single fathers (amazingly) still walk the earth and they find themselves in that situation through either a fault of their own or others. They face the same challenges like single mothers – sometimes even worse because they are not as equipped with those inherently maternal parenting tools as women are. And for this reason, they stagger through parenthood, clueless and quite often bewildered by this gargantuan responsibility. Through all this, they ask for no sympathy or even medals even though some of them are truly deserving. Guided by the noble intentions of raising a child in virtue and good sense, they make mistakes as is only natural.

In fact, they make many mistakes that are graver than literally throwing out the baby with the bathwater…or lacing the milk with a drop of wine to have them sleep soundly. But such is parenthood, they say, if you can’t find fun in it, then you might as well try pig farming. So is it a struggle, this massive responsibility of raising a tiny tot on one’s own? It must be. Is it redeeming, raising a child who is well-adjusted and not some serial killer with crossed eyes? “Massively so,” they chorus.

But like in the quaint Garden of Eden stories, such milieux are never quite complete – or, if men are candid enough – interesting without the presence of a woman. Most women come into the single father’s life with sympathy, and quiet often – and unfortunately – a manual. They come in wanting to be part of his situation (which they imagine is somewhat broken and hopeless), a situation they can fix like everything else that is unbroken but which women want to fix nevertheless. It’s as if they are being summoned by unforeseen powers to “fix” it. Although, to be fair, most just want to fit in, some come in with a long prescription on how that cookie will crumble when they are done with it. The results, sadly, are always disastrous if not all together embarrassing…for her.

Here is a fact that our women need to learn; if dating a man is hard enough, then dating a single father must be like dating two children. It’s like walking a minefield (or is that a “poopfield”) and that calls for careful treading. Four single fathers interviewed informed this piece and together, they offer pearls of wisdom that will help women date single fathers without remarking with a long face, “I feel like I’m competing for your attention with your child.” Which no doubt makes him feel like he’s dating two children.

Easy with all the kissing and touching.

Children take great exception at you kissing and touching their dad in their presence. This is how children think, “Daddy belongs to me, and only me. There is no room for anyone else. Anyone who is kissing my daddy is trying to take him away from me and is the axis of evil who I shall deal with by hating or throwing up on.”

Farouk, 35 and father of a six-year-old girl says, “I noticed that every time my girlfriend showed physical affection towards me, my daughter would become withdrawn and sulk. She must have felt that she was taking me away from her, and so I asked my girlfriend to go easy with all that kissing and touching infront of my daughter.” Joy Wango, a child therapist says, “It’s normal for children to behave that way especially when their lives are centred around their fathers,” Joy calls it passive aggression. So the only person who is allowed to say, “ I just want to cuddle,” should be the baby…er, the real baby, not you.

You can’t afford to be the bad cop

Granted, there are children who are spoilt and ill-mannered. Children raised and weaned by Homer Simpson. But if this child belongs to the man you are dating, you perhaps should save on those disciplinary ambitions for your own child. Felix Njenga, father of a 10-year-old son talks about an experience. “I dated a woman who thought I was spoiling my son, that I had lost control and he was headed to hell. So one day, when my son was messing around as he usually does, she shouted at him angrily, scared the poor guy into tears. We broke up a month later because she always felt like my son was a brat and it was upon her to instill some discipline.” He says. Felix adds that it’s improper for a girlfriend to discipline her man’s child because it’s a “delicate” matter that should be left to him, the father. So if the man you are dating wants to watch his kid turn into an unschooled miscreant, please let him.

Don’t be jealous of the ex

Most women imagine that, just because the man has a good relationship with the mother of his child, the two have a romantic involvement. Tim, divorced father of a four-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old son says one of the things that put him off dating is the “suspicion and insecurity” with which the women he dates regard his relationship with his ex-wife. “There is a very good reason the marriage ended but she still remains the mother of my kids, and that calls for a certain level of civility between us. The woman I’m dating should not feel insecure about that.” Felix says that the women he dates almost always want to hear gory stories about his ex-wife for them to feel secure. Sometimes the person with the gory tales might be the man himself.

Don’t insist on sleeping over…at least not yet

You’ve been dating him for four months; you think it’s time you started sleeping over at his. But he seems reluctant, and typically you start asking the question women ask when they want to rock the boat a little, “where is this relationship going?” Truth is, it won’t go anywhere if you keep up with the gallant wolf cries. All the single fathers agree that it’s in bad taste to have a woman over for the night with the kids in the house. Felix says: “Unless the relationship has got to a point where I see a future together, I wouldn’t allow my son to see different women spend the night at my house. I think it’s a bad way to socialise a child, and it’s a shame when women take that personally.” In short, there is more to a relationship than sleeping over at his place.

Fighting for time with the child

Every single father blocks some time for father-child bonding. It’s called quality time. If it was meant to involve the third part (read, you) then they would have changed the name to quantity time. Tim says, “ When a woman I’m seeing starts to compete for time with my child, when she starts causing a stink because I’m spending more time with my child than her then I know for sure that I won’t be seeing her for much longer.” It’s not a competition, and if you turn it into one, the child will clearly be the victor. So let the man do his fatherly duties, support him to be a good father and while you are at it, don’t ask – even in moments of utter frustration, “ Between Martin [his child] and I, who would you save from a burning house.” There is only one answer to that question and you don’t want to hear it.

Don’t try to mother his child

Tanui, whose wife passed on a two years ago leaving him with a nine-year-old daughter says, “It’s very tricky for a woman you are dating to try and take the place of the mother of your child. I have experienced women who naturally want to take on that role by trying to act like they are the mother of my child and the reaction they get from my daughter is very ugly. Even if I remarried, my daughter knows she will always have one mother and she is dead.”

Felix also adds that it’s quite endearing to try and bond with the child, but it should be done delicately and moderately, “When you try and force yourself on a child by insisting on taking them to lunch, or the salon or wherever else , it makes the child suspicious. If a child wants to warm up to you, they will even if you see them only once a month.”

Inappropriate behaviour

So you smoke and have the language of a truck driver? That’s fine, but not in front of the children, the single dads say. “I smoke,” Felix admits, “But never in the house or in the car when my children are in. If I’m dating a smoker, I would want them to respect this rule. It’s not like I’m asking you to quit smoking, just not when the children are around, it’s not only a health issue but, I don’t want to give my children the impression that smoking is cool.” Or give his son the impression that dating women who smoke is the new cool.

On cursing and using foul language, Farouk says it all boils down to common sense. “Anybody will tell you that using curse words in front of children is irresponsible.”

The common feeling expressed by these single fathers is that if you want to date one, you will need to have patience and good sense. No petty jealousies, no fits of hysteria (because there is only one child in that arrangement), no walking around in his house – no matter how entertaining that might seem- with nothing on but a magician’s hat and high heels and certainly no potty mouth. Granted, these conditions might seem like a pesky check list before visiting the outer space, but they are vital because they bring sobriety in a relationship that involves three or more people, some who are allowed to behave their age.

Source: Daily Nation