Reason #965,281 to not bother with single moms...

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Is there a list with all 965,281 items on it? I'd be curious to see it.

The people who think the ex shouldn't be paying child support also seem to be people who think that it's okay for him just to walk out of their lives.

Losing a father who has shown such love, care, and attention to them is tragic for these two boys. As adults we know that people we care about will meander in and out of our lives. That's an accepted part of being an adult. Children don't think like that, and any parent will tell you that when the other parent goes away for a while the child is full of nothing but thoughts of that parent - where are they? What are they doing? Do they still love me? Not only that, but I suspect this man probably does still want to have contact with these children. It would be cold of him not to want to maintain being the father figure for them despite whatever went wrong with their mother. Should he then be allowed that contact but have none of the responsibilities? Should such contact be banned on the basis that he is not their biological father? Should the boys be made to feel the torment of his rejection because of such arbitrary biologically based judgements? To see how the sudden absence of a parental figure can affect a child's life one has, surely, only to peruse threads in The Haven and on self-help websites for those who struggle with life.

The sad fact is that finances and child-raising are always competing priorities. The working parent resents the 'easy' life of the other parent. The other parent resents the fact that the working one can spend their days in a place where adults can converse and not throw food over one another. I'm sorry to say that once a person makes a commitment to be in the life of a child as a parental figure, they should face the responsibility to follow that through. And yes, that goes for women in relationships with single fathers, and indeed for gay couples regardless of the gender involved.

Further, to suggest that getting into a relationship with a single parent should somehow not involve getting into a relationship with that parent's child seems to be so show a rather scary
lack of understanding of what it is to be a parent. That lack of understanding is fine as long as one obeys this thread and stays away from single parents.

For those of you who want to know why I'm getting involved in this thread, it's because I teach EFL to a child who exhibits attention seeking behaviour of the worst kind. This is because he's basically unwanted by everyone in his life. His mother walked out on him, his father is too busy and rarely, if ever, sees him. His aunt and uncle don't particularly want him, and I seem to be the only teacher who can spend more than five minutes in his presence without getting exasperated with him. I make a deliberate effort to be calm with him, but even then, I can foresee a future for him where every school he attends or teacher he meets simply wants to pass him on and make him Somebody Else's Problem. Adults who get involved in the lives of children have an obligation to do their best for those children. Children don't respond well to being forgotten about.

This is one of the things for the aspie males "unable to get a partner or get laid", they have that advantage, so they don't have to worry about it, for the time being.

I hope the law doesn't change in the future to include childless men (especially if they are single and 'sexless') to pay for child support or something like that, a little bit paranoid I think

Maybe that guy should fight for full custody of the 2 kids then... Then he can turn around and get child support from her... but if the courts deny his claim to custody, it is absurd then to hit him up for child support.

My ex was a single mother. I know you might think why bother with someone with "extra baggage", but I was really really in love with her, so I accepted that she had a son. Her son, being 2 and a half when I first met her, was quite a handful. We only had a relationship of 4 months (not because of her son). She wanted me to "play dad" right away, so I did small things for him like fix his food, change his diaper, put him in the car seat, get him dressed, and of course play with him. I did this because I wanted to make her happy and I also wanted to be a good role model to him. It kind of made me realize what a great thing a child can be, even though he wasn't mine. She thought that her perfect guy would be like one in a romance novel, so she kind of pressured me to act that way. It was exhausting to say the least. She's a wonderful person, an amazing mother, she just had a distorted image on what her perfect guy would be.

Being a father figure to him was a great experience, I got a lot of joy from it, despite the difficulties. It got me thinking if I could be a father, but I wasn't sure. I'm still not sure. I grew somewhat attached to him, so it was somewhat difficult when we broke up. After we broke up we still remained good friends, and we'd still hang out, and I'd still see her son. Currently, I don't bother with her because she used me even after we broke up and I got sick of it.

So it's not really not a bad thing. It taught me a thing or two about raising children and was a great experience for me.