Dad’s House

When SingleMomSeeking and MsSingleMama began remodeling their sites, it struck me how blogging is kind of like single parenting. Your site is your own, you make your own choices about the what/when/how/where/why, you live with the outcome, good or bad, and you’re happy and grateful for the chance to go it alone.

Imagine two bloggers merging their existing sites, trying to blend content while keeping their individual voices, all while not stepping on each other’s toes. (Honey and Lance don’t count, they started from scratch.)

It’s like two single parents trying to date each other.

Single parents have strong opinions on whether to date in the breed or not. Kat Wilder is a single mom who thinks it’s great to date single dads. She likes how they already “get” parenting. Chatanika, on the other hand, doesn’t date single dads. She’s seen separately evolved parenting styles clash, and worries about favortism for one set of children over another.

Enter Jorge Fitz-Gibbon and his blended family. Jorge, a single dad with half-time custody of a 10-year-old, and his girlfriend, a single mom with a 4-year-old, moved in together last September. So far, the blended approach is working, though he admits it’s an altogether different experience.

In an email, Jorge wrote that single parents going it solo develop rituals and routines with their kids. “You learn to focus on your own child and develop a unique bond.” When you add a partner and another child, “the routine becomes disrupted and changes. It requires both partners to make an adjustment for themselves and their child.”

He said the trickiest part is maintaining a partnership with your own child. It takes conscious effort for him and his girlfriend to “build in some time with each of our children, while focusing most of our time to interacting as a family.”

Jorge feels the alternative approach, where each parent spends significant time with their own child while limiting family activities, is a mistake. “For me, the time management has to lean toward the family unit, although time with your own child remains important and even vital.”

Before creating his blended family Jorge dated quite a few single women who didn’t have kids. He often felt they didn’t “get” the priorities and lifestyle of a parent. At some point he focused on surrounding himself with single parents, both as friends and partners

He says a blended family is a delicate balancing act. But dating for any single parent involves unavoidable emotional risks, both for yourself and your child. He’s definitely happy he went the blended family route.

“I believe my son is better off now because we both took those risks, and found a woman — and another child — who fits us. Could we have gotten here with a non-parent as well? Possibly. But why limit the field?”

Follow Jorge Fitz-Gibbon and his views on single parenting and blended families at Parents Place at LoHud.com.

(Editor’s Note: My clever lead-in for today’s post was supposed to be about my date with a sexy flirty Hottie Single Mom this past weekend and my fast-forward fantasies for a blended family of my own. But when her sudden (cue the air quotes) root canal (roll the eyes) prompted her to cancel on me, I had to improvise a new lead-in. Hope it worked.)

Coda: Chatanika admits her grandparents were single parents who created a blended family. “They are the most amazing, in love, phenomenal people I know,” she said. So why not go the same route? “Maybe I’m just afraid I’ll never rock it like that!”

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