Dad Accuses Friends Of 'Judging' Him For Not Telling The Women He Dates He Has Kids Until Being Together For 1 Year
He says he's not telling dates he has kids to protect them, but his friends say he's being deceptive.
Stockbakery, Prostock-studio, Krakenimages.com / Shutterstock Dating when you have kids is fraught no matter what the situation, but one dad online is handling it in a way that has left his friends — and tons of strangers online, for that matter — shocked to say the least.
At issue is the question of when to tell dates about the fact that he has two kids, except he sees it as an issue of whether to tell his dates he has kids. His approach has led to him accusing his friends of being judgmental and his friends accusing him of basically being a catfish.
The dad's friends called him out for not telling his dates he has kids until they've been dating at least a year.
"I recently started dating again and told my friends that I was finally putting myself out there and wanted to settle down again," he wrote in his now-deleted Reddit post. So in preparation to re-join the masses on all the dating apps, he showed his profile to a couple female friends for their feedback.
Photo: @arlenparsa / Twitter / Reddit
But right off the bat they noticed a glaring omission: there was no mention of his kids. The dad's hesitance is understandable — getting back into the dating pool is a big step for anyone, let alone someone with kids, and introducing your kids to a new partner is delicate business.
But it's also fundamentally dishonest to not disclose that you have kids, and it's sparked quite a controversy within his friend group.
His friends say he owes it to his dates to inform them he has kids, but he insists it's 'wildly inappropriate' and 'not relevant.'
"One [friend] (let's call her Sally) told me that I should disclose that I have two kids from a previous marriage," he wrote. It's pretty standard dating-profile stuff, after all — you don't want to waste anyone's time, including your own, on someone for whom dating someone with kids is a deal-breaker.
But this dad totally disagrees, and almost seemed to consider it a privacy violation that the question was even asked. "I thought this was a wildly inappropriate thing to say to me," he wrote, going on to ask Sally why she even thought his kids were relevant to the situation.
The dad says he is not telling his dates he has kids because he wants to wait until he knows they're worthy of knowing his children.
The reason his kids are relevant to his dating life is pretty obvious — because the women he's dating have a right to know. That's pretty much what his female friends told him. "She tried justifying her position by saying things like, 'it's only right to be up front with any women I date,'" he wrote.
That's pretty hard to argue with. Doesn't not being up front start edging into catfish territory? There was an actual episode of "Catfish" basically about this.
But this dad feels strongly that "if a woman rejects me on the basis of having kids then she was shallow anyway and I dodged a bullet." And he feels he's owed at least a year before he reveals his kids to make sure the women he's dating "have proven themselves to me."
Experts say it is wise to be cautious about introducing kids to new partners because it can be a difficult experience for them. But most feel this dad not telling dates he has kids is way over a line.
The instinct to guard against ending up with a partner who doesn't like or respect his kids is a good one, as a parent embarking on a dating life can be really hard on kids.
For this reason, professional matchmakers Alessandra Conti and Cristina Conti Pineda recommend single parents not introduce kids to new partners until they can "seriously see yourself marrying them" or have "official boyfriend or girlfriend status" because "children get attached quite easily and too many 'new' Mommies or Daddies who they meet could cause them to get disillusioned, defensive, and bitter."
Of course, there is a huge difference between holding off on introductions and obscuring the fact you have kids in the first place, not to mention waiting an entire year before you spill the beans.
People on Reddit were absolutely not having it, telling the dad he was not only wasting his dates' times with his dishonesty, but wasting his own in the process.
Photo: Reddit
Honesty is the best policy, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. Otherwise, you run the risk of everyone involved having their hearts toyed with — not to mention potentially ending up on an episode of "Catfish."
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.