Don't Let Your Backbone Play BlackJack in Vegas - a New Primer on Dating with Kids

Switching my Snowbird baseball cap to backwards....

Dating with kids, though.... I haven't figured out the magic recipe for their level of involvement...  Has anyone?

On one end of the spectrum, is the parent (probs most often the dad) who chooses his partner totally independent of his children and tosses everyone - including the new GF or wife, in the emotional deep end, figuring they'll all be able to adequately swim and later Kum-ba-yah together.

On the other end of the spectrum, is involving the kids in dating patterns from the outset and giving them a sense on who is spending time with mom, or sharing their attention.  Out of this, the shallowness of one's children will often be revealed:

"What kind of car does he drive?"

"Does he have good hair?  He has to have good hair."

"Yeah - but does he lift?  Is he fit?"

"Does he SKI?  I mean, does the bro really ski?" 

"Is he cool?  Can he hang?"

I'm ashamed to think what my children focus on first.  We need to work on this.

Anyone who knows us well, knows that my home is filled with laughter.  Right or wrong, we all roast each other a bit -- it's a sign of affection between us -- so you can imagine my single / dating life offers up prime roasting material.  It keeps everyone laughing really hard - including me.  As long as we can laugh together, it's so worth including them.  It helps us feel closer, too.  I'd like to think it helps them feel safer - that I'm not going to get serious with someone in a way that's going to dramatically impact their lives, without them participating in some way - even if just hearing about some things, from the beginning.

Oh - it's super fun when my 16 year old daughter dishes out dating advice to me  - especially when it takes on a lecturing tone.  She talks from the perspective of someone who has clearly never fallen in love and consequently never had her heart smashed into a gazillion pieces.  She speaks with quite a bit of authority on the subject, though.  Sometimes I scratch my head and say, "Wait, whose the parent, here?" 

My children have been easy through this.  The challenge for me has been, managing men's expectations around the level or non-level of my children's involvement.  One man insisted by the third date or so to take my kids to ice cream.  A well-meaning neighbor had taken the kids back to their house, thinking I'd appreciate the alone time with my date and probably wanted to spare my kids from the perceived stress of meeting a new man.  This turned circus-like when my date arrived to me alone in the house, folded his arms across his chest and said:

"Where are the kids?"  

I was all like... (nervously laughing) "Let me explain my neighborhood.  Everyone basically lives at each other's homes and my kids are all down the street and...." 

"Well let's go get them."

Awkward silence.... disbelief fills my body... I think I heard my backbone literally say "Buh-bye.  I'm off to Vegas-- you are on your own."

"Really?  I'm not sure that's such a good idea" I say, "and it would be nice for me to get out and away from them for a bit...I mean I do have them all of the..."

"Let's go get them."

"Wow. Okay."   (by this time my backbone was sending me selfies by the Bellagio Fountain). 

So awkward visit down to the neighbors we go, where I wasn't exactly ready to unveil my first kind of dating relationship yet - I mean the first one to last more than two dates... and now, the neighbors have to / get to meet this guy, while I attempt to retrieve my kids...who don't really want to go with us - they want to ride Vespas and play hoopes with my very cool neighbors.... Frankly in that moment, I did too.

After bribery with FroYo, my seven year old son...and the toddler... come along on the ice cream social...  It's all a very horrible memory for me.

Fast forward to a season later where a different man I knew as a teen but who I hadn't seen in 26 years flies across the country to visit and explore a romantic connection, and we have an epically long weekend jam packed with my kids normal life of activities and football games and dinners...  this man hadn't had kids of his own, or spent much time around them per say, so he was a little oblivious how to just BE intimately around them... but he insisted on maximum kid time in the planning - after all, he was very serious about me as a 16 year old so we must still feel this way about each other at 40, right?!?

In fairness to him - he bit off more than most people could chew to presume he could waltz in and manage himself around strong personalities of my particular children.  Let's not minimize the noisy toddler and the effect this can have on someone who has not had to spend intensive time around one of these specimens before....  All while trying to evaluate how he felt just being around me - while in FULL BLOWN MOTHERING MODE.  My kids may have put him a bit through the ringer. Meanwhile, I was so busy making sure my kids were okay that I couldn't take a sec to ponder, how did I feel about this man and myself around this man?  What a mess that felt.

Again - in attempt to see where this relationship might be headed, I lost all traces of my backbone... Like my backbone was once again playing blackjack and craps in Vegas and maybe handing out dollar bills, I dunno.

It's not always this way...I suspected one man became totally skittish when he knew my kids knew anything at all about his existence in my life.  All of these share a couple things in common:

1. They were out of balance with reality.
2. My role as mother who knows best for her kids and family was not trusted at best, undermined, at worst.

Why does my strong mothering backbone take a vacation when I'm dating?

Because I don't have any idea how to do this... Because maybe I've been too much of a "people-pleaser" in this process.

The right thing to do with children... is probably someplace in the middle.  My backbone needs to be on duty and on call.. no vacays allowed...

I think the most responsible thing a parent can do - or what I'd like to do going forward, is to spend a handful of times with an individual and decide - together -if this connection is going to be at least a little more committed than the others have been.  Then decide - together - what everyone is comfortable with on how to move forward and allow space to see if the kids can form a meaningful connection and bond with the new person in my life.    

I've been on - no joke - like 75+ dates last year.  A majority of these occurred before my mother's passing last year.  I really needed a hiatus to take emotional inventory after she died.  There were weeks where I went out 2-3 times for breakfast, cocoa or dinner with different people.  Where I couldn't thoroughly Google a man or had limited information on him, I often met him out in public to minimize people coming to the door to fetch me and to maximize my family's safety and privacy regarding my address.  I also live in a tight-knit neighborhood where people notice coming and goings and I've been trying to minimize chatter.

I have also determined online dating is the crutch newly divorced people use to force themselves to get out there, or people who are too shy to approach men or women in their normal course of activities.  I'm gathering that many of us who have used it were those left by spouses, whose egos and senses of self took big hits and we needed a platform to regroup and survey the scene while still being authentic Nervous-Nellies in real life about getting back in the saddle.

I've absolutely abandoned online dating because I've morphed into a more confident sense of myself that I can now flirt and make conversation at Whole Foods, the gym, the ski hill and any other place I find myself in... I've come a long way in a year.

Now it's time I get more serious about getting more serious, though -- I want to.  Which is why I'm laying better groundwork now in regards to my children.... musings and introspect on why I haven't yet become more serious about getting more serious is coming in the next post.

Ciao.

Pink Flamingos and Sabre-Tooth Tigers

This is a Public Service Announcement (PSA) and an update on my life and thoughts swirling around in my head since my last post.

I've taken to private journaling in recent months - all pages that require burning.  It's all good.  I do have a filter on my public writing.  It's been the first 12 months following a divorce and death of my mother and much of that processing and growth has not been something I've wanted to share with anyone.

Ski racing season is over and it's spring here in sunny Utah.  I'm a little tardy on getting my gardens weeded and mulched.  At one time that may have caused me stress - "what the neighbors thought" and all - that doesn't affect me as much now.  I'm busy working and raising mindful kids.  I'll get to it when I get to it.  Major rebellion in my conservative neighborhood would require pink flamingos in the front door yard.  I've thought about this.  Today I think I'll don overalls though, be compliant, and weed some.  There is some safety and comfort in some compliance.

My 16 year old daughter is dating.  I think she has a male suitor at every ski mountain she raced at this year; Sun Valley, Jackson Hole.  She was taken to Italian dinner in Idaho, ice cream in Jackson Hole. She's headed to Vermont to visit her dad in a few weeks and I've had to put her father on notice that about three young men are hot to trot to see her while she's there.  Someone joked "like mother like daughter".  Not really.  But I'm grateful that I have seen a bunch of male behavior in regards to my own experience that I can properly advise her as things come up as a single woman in ways I would not have if my marriage had remained intact.

In just a year, I've dated some incredible men.  I have been asked out on a Wednesday for a Saturday and had the most intelligent intellectually stimulating conversation with men with interesting careers who want to talk about them over filet minion that cuts like butter.  I've dined in the best ethnic restaurants in town.  I have had sweet tailgate takeout dates in styrofoam that cost under $10.  I've been taken on hikes to the most beautiful spots in Utah.  Been taken to the divest greasy spoons with the best $2 breakfasts in Salt Lake City and have felt entertained.  I've been walked around temple perimeters as a man queried me and considered me for marriage.   I've had doors opened for me.  Jumped on my trampoline and laughed until I almost cried.  Been picked up at my front door before a date.  Walked to my front door after a date.  I've had a man insist on walking on the road side of the sidewalk to keep me out of possible harm from traffic.  I've had a man flinch in a sketchy dark parking garage and place me under his arm when shady characters watched us get into a car.   A man I knew from back east got on a plane and flew across the continent to spend time with me.  I've been taken to the theater.  I've had a man shred the heck out of bounds with me on skis - and then insist on not only carrying my skis to and fro my car,  but strongly offer to remove my ski boots for me on the tailgate of my car.

Maybe it's Utah culture. I don't know, but these are men who put themselves out there every day and shield women from that first possible rejection that comes with vulnerability by offering their own vulnerability via chivalry first.  That's manly.  That's kind of hot.  Remember with vulnerability comes just a slight bit of attachment and when either gender can protect the other from hurt in the early phases, this is where intimacy is built.

For every one man who is capable of the above, there are TEN men who look exactly alike and it goes something like this.... professional texters who text like it's their job.  Never quite pull the trigger on accelerating things to a date let alone a grownup relationship seeped in juicy vulnerability and intimacy.  Their notion of a date is in fact, a beta female, who will bring takeout sushi over for both of them and watch a movie.  In his bed.  And still not call it a date.  That's actually the smartest bit in this sequence... because it's not.

A woman who does this has a couple of things going on 1) she has low self esteem and a false idea that this will actually turn into something meaningful  2) her bio clock is ticking whether she knows it or not and she degrades herself physically and emotionally to increase odds that this will turn into something meaningful.

LADIES, STOP!  STOP RIGHT NOW!  This is breeding an entire population of men with great potential who never quite live up to it.  Men who become lazy with women.  You are ruining it for me.  More importantly, you are ruining it for my daughter.  My son.  I'm telling you strait, that a man who behaves this way...is not over an ex, or into someone else, or been so successful texting women into his bed and acclimated to aggressive maneuvers by women that he's lost his primal hunting instinct around obtaining a mate.  You don't want this in a husband.

I don't know if you women have considered this yet, but I'm clear that I want a man who is going to know how to fend off a saber-toothed tiger at the cave door rather than look at me and wait for me to make a decision or do something.  I want him to show me these skills while dating me.  For a long time.

If dating is to explore marriage and evaluate the partnership potential of a dating companion.. and the saying goes "Happy Wife, Happy Life"... I'm suggesting that dating a man who demonstrates laziness in the dating relationship, will make a woman REALLY unhappy in her marriage.  SO GET PASSIVE.  Stop thinking so much and start just watching them.  Please.  Give these boys time and space to grow up into men who wield big fire sticks or clubs.  Until then, don't take sushi to their house.  Not ever.  Just watch them and remember YOU decide if you are going to partner with a man who treats you to fire-pit saber-toothed tiger or you instead become the meal.

I have a responsibility to my teen daughter, and son - to show them what it looks like to not settle for laziness in a man just because biology has her own agenda.  I've been tempted to make excuses for men.  I've been tempted to give men the benefit of the doubt while they ask me to be their travel agent and plan an entire excursion.  No thanks.  I should be a travel agent.  I'm quite skilled at making fun plans. I do it all the time for my kids.  I did it routinely in my first marriage.  I want a partner who knows how to entertain me,  because when a long marriage becomes at risk, I want to know that the man I selected has the skills and tools to fight for it and for me when I just don't have it in me anymore.

I no longer have that biological chemical pressure - I mean, I have chemical pressure as my own ticking clock winds itself down lending to a strong desire to find a meaningful partner I can have long term sort of "relations" with and do it soon.  But I generally can make mindful dating decisions without hormonal pressure like I had at 21.  Middle-age and it's resulting loss, grief and sucky experience that 20 or 30 somethings just don't have yet, lends itself to knowing who I am and what I want.  I know my limitations and my deep desires in regards for connection and a companion.

There are so many incredible people out there.  Enjoy your sushi in your own company until he finds you, club and passport to Cuba in hand, ready to dance in Havana.