A
male
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:I'm a 24 year old male. I have recently been spending a lot of time getting to know a young mother, she's 19. We have tons in common and we seem to be a great fit for each other. Does anyone have any insight for me as to why or why not to possibly date this girl? Any help would be great! Thanks! Reply to this Question
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reader, anonymous, writes (27 March 2013): Why you shouldn't:
-You can't handle being second best to a child and see it as competition.
-Her free time is very limited and often she will be exhausted when she does meet up.
-The father may still be in the picture and you can't handle that he'll always be a part of her life.
-You don't like kids.
-You want to be the kids new daddy.
-Alone time with her will be punctuated by a child that needs attention.
-She will have no ability to be spontaneous or just go crazy for a few days drinking and partying.
-Her life will be strictly routine and she can't just drop everything to see you.
-She can and will have to cancel at the last moment due to babysitter cancelling, child having a temperature, child not settling, sheer exhaustion of just being a mother that day.
-She most likely won't want anything serious with you for a long while.
-You probably will have nothing to do with her child for ages and maybe you'll feel she's too closed off because of that.
-If you do get serious you may feel very hard done by if she chooses not to label you as her boyfriend to her kid, maybe not ever. Sounds strange but people can be weird about needing someone's kid to know they're the boss now.
There are a few others OP but you get the idea. If you can't handle even one of those things, please don't waste her time on anything other than a mutually agreed upon casual fling.
A child is part of the package, she's a mother first and a woman second. She can love you just as much but differently (romance vs motherhood) but you'll never be the most important person in her life and that kid will never be the most important in yours.
I did it and I accepted all those things and it was great, a little restrictive of course, the cancelling dates at the last minute thing was a tad frustrating at times but never a big deal.
A
female
reader, k_c100  +, writes (27 March 2013):
 I guess it all boils down to the question - are you happy raising another man's child? Do you want a child in your life right now?
Eventually if you have been together long enough then you will meet the child, and if you allow that to happen then you have to start to take responsibility for your impact on the child. Children need a strong, stable presence in their life, they cant have people coming in and out of their lives all the time. So if you meet this child you have to be 100% certain you are in this for the long run, that you want to be part of the child's life and you see a future with the mother. As time goes on the child will get atttached to you, so you have to recognise this and ensure that both you and the mother want to give this relationship a shot, that you both want to try and make this long term.
You will always be second best to the child, so you have to be prepared for that. She wont be able to just go out whenever you want, she wont be able to stay out all night partying...she has responsibilities, and sometimes the fact that she has a child will impact on the things you would like to do and may stop you from doing certain things together.
Aside from the child issue, there is also the issue of her age. At 19 she still has a lot of growing up to do, while she may be a bit more mature than most 19 year old's because she became a mom so young, it also shows that she is a bit reckless and irresponsible by becoming a single teen mom - she may well turn out to be hard work. At 19 she wont know what she wants from life, she became a mom way too early so the chances are as the child gets older she will be able to start living her life a bit more, and she may want to make up for lost time so to speak. At 24 you should be quite settled, still young enough to want to have fun but you probably know where your life is heading and what you want to do with your life.
She is still finding out all of these things, and her plans at 19 may well change by the time she is 22. Think back to when you were 19 - were you capable of a long term, committed, serious relationship? The answer is probably not, at the time you might have thought you were all grown up and mature but I bet you look back now and think you were still a baby really at 19.
If you do decide to date her, I'd take things REALLY slow. Keep it very casual, just lots of dates and see how things go. DO NOT meet her child until you have been dating for at least 6 months (ideally longer than that) and you are 100% sure that this is a serious relationship. Take your time getting to know her so you can judge her maturity and how capable she is of having a serious relationship.
Beware with this one, I think you could get into a messy situation if you are not careful where you get attached to a child, the child gets attached to you and then the mother all of a sudden realises she was old before her time (this is when she gets to about 22/23), she wants to re-live her missed youth and wants to be single and out partying every night.
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A
male
reader, CMMP +, writes (27 March 2013):
It's a pain in the butt, because her child will (or at least should) come first. So unless she has a parent who will be willing to regularly babysit you'll be spending a lot of time at home.
That being said it's not a deal breaker for me either, it's just not ideal.
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