Would you date a single mother/father?

[Powerogue]

I'm not sure about it, I'd have a lot of trouble coping with the fact that it's not genetically my child, but still trying to raise the kid. Especially if the kid is really young and the mother tries to convince me to pretend I'm his biological father.

[Lemons]

Hell no. I wouldn't want to deal with all the "you're not my real dad!" bullshit. If I ever raise a kid they're going to be my own flesh and blood.

[Madness20]

You sound very young. What if someone had been dating all through high school and got married at 21. She got pregnant at 24 and now has a child at 25. Her husband left her because he cheated on her. That makes her irresponsible? Live in the world a few more years and you'll see people aren't so black and white.

I'm not really young, and i also don't see everything as black and white as you might think, theres millions shades of grey of course.
I don't know where you actually live, but in my country at 25 close to no one is married nowadays, and it just happens if they accidentally get the girl pregnant. And yes, she clearly choose the wrong guy again, without making evaluation on the character. I can say i would never cheat on a woman, and it's actually very easy to predict either if a man can cheat or not.
That is exactly what i'm talking about. These kind of people take decisions based upon fantasies and not based on correct evaluations. So in my opinion, she wouldn't also be someone i'd like to live with and marry.

Single parent at 19, 20, maybe even 21 I can see most were probably irresponsible. 25 a lot of people are settled, married, thought their lives were solid until their spouse showed their true colors.

And that's was also one of my points. If they married and have kids with someone they didn't know their true colors, well, what else shows irresponsability?

Also, there has been a lot of research lately about women in the workplace and a shocking amount of women WANT to be the providers now. They enjoy making more money than their husbands, they enjoy working full time, and the amount of women with good jobs staying single is skyrocketing.

Well, now i'm serious. Tell me your country and i'll migrate there. Really, i never heard of something like that and i was on sciences' university where most girls are not that "social"/promiscuous and are some of the smartests around, and i've NEVER ever heard of a girl wanting to be a provider, even there. Share the bills? Ofc , i know some, but are very very rare. Now, the woman being the provider would be an anomaly here.

You are basing all your information off what you randomly think instead of what's actually going on in the world. The amount of holes in all your arguments... It comes down to 'I don't have the life experience to make any of these assumptions but I'm going to make them anyway!".

Sure because internet doesn't also get you to know other places and other people too, am i right? The problems in my country are as big as the problems in any western country, which is promiscuity and irresponsability destroying the fields of loving relationships and the very notion and belief in love itself, and people conceding their integrity and wishes because they just give up on finding someone.

[PizzaSHARK]

And that's was also one of my points. If they married and have kids with someone they didn't know their true colors, well, what else shows irresponsability?

PEOPLE CHANGE. You're clearly too young to understand this. They aren't "showing their true colors," as if they were planning all along to cheat on someone or turn into a sexless blob and leave their partner hanging out to dry. You really need more experience with relationships; you'll understand that your concept of "people are always the same, they're just hiding themselves," isn't particularly truthful.

Sure because internet doesn't also get you to know other places and other people too, am i right?

Internet friendships are hogwash. Unless you've met the person, spent a lot of time around them, spent the night sleeping on their couch, played with their kids and their dogs, and done all the usual real life interactions that take place as part of a normal, healthy friendship... you don't really know them. There are so many things you cannot read and cannot transmit without direct, face-to-face interactions. So much of our communication is done nonverbally and can't be properly picked up on through text or webcam chat.

The problems in my country are as big as the problems in any western country, which is promiscuity and irresponsability destroying the fields of loving relationships and the very notion and belief in love itself, and people conceding their integrity and wishes because they just give up on finding someone.

Promiscuity is not an issue, and I'm not sure where you're getting that Puritanical idea from - the Puritans got kicked out of England, not Portugal.

Love itself is something of a misnomer. There's no mystical feeling of "love," it's all just a mixture of several concepts that are much easier to express with a single word. Love is a combination of trust, of lust, of need for a feeling of security (which itself is related to trust), and of what's more or less a glorified herding instinct.

A healthy, successful relationship requires a rock-solid foundation of trust; without that trust, nothing can happen. You can keep adding crap on top of it, but eventually the whole thing's gonna collapse into a pit if you can't trust your partner. You have to be able to trust them not to hurt you, whether it's physical or emotional. You have to trust them not to ruin your shit when it's time to move in together. If you choose to link your finances, you have to trust them to be financially responsible. You have to trust them not to cheat on you; even in an open relationship, you still have to trust them to be honest about who they're seeing.

And when one or the other inevitably fucks up along the line (because it WILL happen, there isn't any such thing as a "perfect" relationship, or a relationship devoid of problems), you have to trust them to be understanding and willing to forgive. Or your relationship will crackle, it will crumble, and eventually it will collapse and probably ruin half your fucking life until you can begin building anew.

Being in a relationship that failed isn't called being irresponsible or lacking in intergrity - it's called fucking reality. The important part is, what did you learn from that? Mistakes are a part of life, and making a mistake isn't grounds for a permanent and immediate vote of no confidence.

[Jetstream]

No, but not because having a kid from a previous relationship bothers me...

I just LOATHE children.

Can't stand 'em. Drive me nuts.

[Nanotech]

This is very hypothetical for me cause I'm engaged to a wonderful child-free man already BUT I probably wouldn't date a single father. The only thing that could possibly change my mind about this is if I was so head over heels in love with him already, but that's a long shot since you kinda have to date and get to know each other to get to that point and I probably wouldn't give him a chance to get there. Children are really not my cup of tea and I also dislike dating people with a lot of emotional baggage from previous relationships, messy divorces, child custody hearings, property fights etc. I find that it hardens people, makes them more cynical in relationships and I am still at an age where I am romantic and sensitive and look for that in a guy too.