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s/o dating with kids
This is a touchy topic but I feel like diving into it today. What is the right time to introduce someone to your child and when will you know?
In my situation, XH has minimal involvement so whoever I ultimately end up with will have to be someone who has a great relationship with P. Obviously it's important to me to have someone who is great with him. It would be a drop dead dealbreaker if someone was not.
I also realize though, that he is 2 1/2 now. He's incredibly smart and I would never want to introduce him to a parade of men. I know that could be potentially damaging and I simply would not do it.
So when IS the right time to introduce someone? How will we REALLY know if someone can handle being a parent until they're around our children? How will we know if they can bond with them? I've seen so many situations where someone pretends to like the child, only to end up being the evil stepparent later on when their true colors come out. All of these questions go through my mind, often.
So what says SO? This is a tough call.
Re: s/o dating with kids
My youngest just turned 2 and isn't that aware of people yet. He's friendly, but wouldn't know if we were with a male stranger (to him) or female at this point. Since I work at home and have him with me 100% of the time, I'm not against going to lunch with someone I'm seeing. My 6 year old is a whole other story. It will be a long time before I expose him to my dating life...unlike XH who lives across the country and has been having DS talk on the phone to his GF (whom DS has never met and probably won't meet) when he visits (I lost my shiit about this, by the way).
Beyond that, I am terrified of the long term. How many times have I heard the term "abusive stepfather" in my life? It scares me that I might think I know someone and then find out too late that they're not what I thought they were.
This is a tough question because you don't want to "waste" time with someone that ultimately won't be the right fit for you and your kid. I know the general rule of thumb is 6 months, and I agree with that as far as spending a lot of time together but I've introduced my son earlier to get a feel for how they are together. And also for how I am with my son. Because I cannot be the same person I am when I am just with other adults when my son is around.
This was back when I used to date normal guys that is. My son's not a typical kid so it takes a special kind of guy to understand him. And they have to be willing to listen to what I say is different about him and not be all... "oh all kids are like that". The last serious boyfriend that I had had two special needs daughters as well and he was really great with my son. I wish things had worked out with him.
We sort of touched base with this issue in this post.
http://community.thenest.com/cs/ks/forums/thread/64945463.aspx
I know it's different being a mother though, than a father.
I can follow up my PP by saying that since I met his daughter, my feelings have gotten much deeper. I felt like I needed to do that to see "all" of him, ya know?
Maybe we could take a group outing (ladies of SO) to a zoo/amusement park with potential serious BFs and test each other's men around all the toddlers. The group setting will not make the children anxious and they will be less likely to think of it as a "date" thing.
At the end of the day we will send the men home, put the kids to bed and discuss what we observed. At that point we can determine if the man is ready for a relationship with a mommy and if so WHEN we can introduce them to the child as a SO/BF.
Problem solved.
Sounds perfect. Gavel down.
My response is going to be different since I am dating a smaller pool of men locally that knows sign language which means, within the deaf community. It is kind of hard to hide ds to begin with. The deaf community is smaller than a small town and there are deaf events going on all the time and running into people who knows each other.
With that said, I don't plan including ds on a exclusive date for 6 months is what I am hoping for. What I mean by exclusive date, just the 3 of us.
However, a lot of the deaf events are child friendly and I enjoy bringing ds to have fun with other children. It is likely that the future person I am dating would be attending these events as well. In this case, I would be a mom first in these social events. It is also a good way to gauge the future SO how he handles children. I am not going to avoid these events as soon as I start dating someone.
If I was to meet a random stranger that knows one knows about, it would be different.
I still -- and always have -- believe to wait at least 4-6 months and then start in groups and in doses is the way to go.
My ex forced a relationship with his gf on ds and you can tell by the way he rolls his eyes when she asks for a hug (he's almost 6) that it is forced. Luckily ds is super friendly and gets along with anyone (that was seriously a teacher comment on his report card), so he has found his way with her.
I, on the other hand, decided to introduce them and then let them find their way together. They definitely stumbled through it at first, but now -- about a year later -- ds will get home from school and go lay on the couch next to bf. One day I got out of the shower in the morning and bf was helping ds with his homework. Or I will be cooking dinner and they will be playing a game together. They formed this relationship on their own, and bf has told me he loves my ds and ds gets sad when he doesn't wake up in time to give bf hugs before work.
All that to say, you need to know the person is responsible and such (my situation was easy on that front because bf had to do a background check both for his job and his volunteer work and wouldn't be able to do either if any tiny red flag popped up). But after that, you have to give it a little time and let the guy and your ds form their own relationship. It won't happen over night, just like your relationship didn't happen over night.
I'd like to believe I'll know when I'll know....but I've been known to be wrong before! I introduced my kids to XH at 2 months because we were in lurrrvvveeee and gonna be together forever (my kids were 2 and 7 at that time). In retrospect, it was too early and I plan to wait longer the next time.
Thing is, how somoene interacts with kids is one thing and how they interact with mine is something completely different. I have certain ways I parent and the guy I'm with needs to see that and be on the same page. I guess I might even be leary of a guy without kids of his own as really understanding what full-time parenting requires would be hard without having some experience. On the other hand, dating someone with kids might be challenging if our parenting styles aren't congruent, and how would you know without having them interact with your kids?
I guess what I'm saying is....I don't know if there is a "right" timeline for everyone. I think we are all doing the best we can for our LOs and I think the awareness of finding the "right time" says a lot about us!
This is a good point. My cousin is dealing with this with her new dh now and it isn't pretty.
My XH brought 2 kids into the mix as well and we had VERY different parenting styles. It was one of our biggest issues, well outside of the whole cheating thing. Blending a family with significant differences in parenting is nearly impossible, especially since you then have additional parents outside of your home that have their own parenting style too.
I love this idea and can't believe no one's thought of it sooner!
I think it is different depending on how often you have your child.
I think it's hard to say but after 6-8 months seems ok if you are the parent who has the child most of the time. You should be exclusive and they should be someone you would date long term.
If I was dating a single parent who saw their kids every other weekend and introduced me to them really quickly I wouldn't like it... I think the focus should be on his child who he has really limited time with.
I wouldn't like to spend the night / next day with the child if I wasn't engaged to the man. I am just thinking from the viewpoint of a child and can imagine how uncomftorable it might be to have some strange women sleeping in the bed with my father. I would want to make sure the child gets a lot of alone time with the parent and that I am not intruding.
I think that you know when to introduce your kids. I think that the relationship needs to be serious. I think that BF needs to understand that meeting you child or children is not just for fun. I married someone who never had children. He wanted to be a step parent and even wanted to adopt my children. Thank God that never happened. We waited until we decided to get engaged to had him meet my children. He loved them or so it seemed. He did activities with them to give me a break once in a while. Once we were married, he assumed he would now be their dad. He chose to discipline my children in ways I did not agree with. Ultimately, he decided to leave our marriage, stating he thought he wanted a family, a marriage and to be a step parent, but he changed his mind. I am a widow from a great marriage that lasted 17 years and we were together 8 years before the marriage. This second marriage really through me for a loop.
After he left, I found a book called step parenting for dummies. I say that the first two years of a new relationship with a child should just be spent getting to know each other. I thought this was a good perspective.