Dealing with a breakup

[mjl]

I can't tell you what to do in your case, but I can say for certain that eliminating single mothers from the potential dating pool will eliminate a tremendous number of wonderful, caring, beautiful, desirable potential partners.

Well, yes, but do you think that single mothers are on average more wonderful, caring, beautiful, or desirable? We're on a baseball statistics site here, let's get some critical thinking going. Keep in mind that both Mother Teresa and Hitler were single mothers, so there's a pretty broad range there.

My analysis would be that single mothers are pretty representative of the entire dating pool, with the possible caveats that you already know that they've been in at least one majorly failed relationship (although you don't know how much of that is their fault). In general I think single non-mothers are probably less of a headache for the reasons described in the initial post. So depending on how big you think your pool of dating possibilities is, if you don't think you'll miss the removal of some (relatively small) percentage, I would say go for it.

Also depends on your age and the age of your potential partners, of course -- if you're looking at 40-50 year olds, it's possible that the ones who've never been married have some other major flaws rather than just not having gotten around to it yet, and the percentage of single mothers in that pool might be a bit larger and more relevant.

Single mothers: they're single women, but with kids. Is that a net benefit?

- Mike

[billbuckner]

Hitler was a single mother?

[Bob Kohm]

Hitler was a single mother?

You'd be cranky too if you had to push Hermann Goering out through an opening the size of a bratwurst.

[Fresno Bob]

You'd be cranky too if you had to push Hermann Goering out through an opening the size of a bratwurst.

and then later having to give Jesse Owens 4 gold medals for doing it faster, Poland never had a chance...

[mjl]

Hitler was a single mother?

It's actually pretty well known among serious WW2 historians. I'm surprised you haven't heard about it. Did you know that Hitler insisted on giving birth via Caesarean because of his respect for the Roman emperor, and the Valkyrie conspiracy was only foiled because he brought his kids to work that day since the day care was closed and they were playing under the conference table where the briefcase with the bomb was hidden?

- Mike

[Gregg]

Well, yes, but do you think that single mothers are on average more wonderful, caring, beautiful, or desirable? We're on a baseball statistics site here, let's get some critical thinking going. Keep in mind that both Mother Teresa and Hitler were single mothers, so there's a pretty broad range there.

My analysis would be that single mothers are pretty representative of the entire dating pool, with the possible caveats that you already know that they've been in at least one majorly failed relationship (although you don't know how much of that is their fault). In general I think single non-mothers are probably less of a headache for the reasons described in the initial post. So depending on how big you think your pool of dating possibilities is, if you don't think you'll miss the removal of some (relatively small) percentage, I would say go for it.

Also depends on your age and the age of your potential partners, of course -- if you're looking at 40-50 year olds, it's possible that the ones who've never been married have some other major flaws rather than just not having gotten around to it yet, and the percentage of single mothers in that pool might be a bit larger and more relevant.

Single mothers: they're single women, but with kids. Is that a net benefit?

- Mike

It would seem to me that one of the issues in dating single mothers is that you have to expect that their children must come first, always. Well at least until they are full grown. If you are a strong enough man to handle that, dating will be easier. If not stay away.