This is a guest post by Sarah Fader, who called me out to write a post for The Goodmen Project. So, I called her out here.
Once upon a time, I was on Twitter lamenting about not finding love. I was saying how I attract emotionally unavailable men. Out of nowhere, this dude that I have never interacted with comes along and replies:
“Children scare men.”
It took me a moment to figure out what the hell he was talking about. I presumed he meant that the concept of having children was not desirable to men. But then my brain started playing around with the idea and I imagined my two kids dressed up in monster costumes standing in a dark hallway deliberately trying to cock block me.
That was pretty funny.
Though I was relatively certain what he meant by the scared children comment, I wanted to confirm that he was making a mass generalization before I retaliated. I asked him what he meant and he said that when a man finds out that a woman has children, he becomes afraid. I prodded him and wanted to know what he meant by “afraid.” He went on to say that men do not want to raise another man’s children.
This was seriously one of the weirdest interactions I’d ever had on Twitter.
I felt like he was making a lot of assumptions. Every man is scared of children? Children are not scary. They are fun and weird and sometimes they lose their teeth and get money for it. They love chocolate and ice cream and they say weird, funny stuff. Why would men be scared of children?
But then I realized that he was kind of right.
One time I joined a dating website for 24 hours. I was chatting with a nice guy. We spoke about our random jobs that we had in our three decade adult lives, our pets, hobbies, and favorite movies. Then he found out that I had kids. He stopped replying to my texts and disappeared. I started to believe that weird Twitter guy was on to something.
I still don’t know why men are terrified of children, but I do know that it’s lame.
Single moms want to have romance and some semblance of a sex life too. Why should the fact that I have children make me any less attractive?
I think that is discrimination and it’s just plain ridiculous. I love my children and they also drive me crazy. But, they are a big part of my life. They come with this package that is Sarah Fader. So, if you love me, you love them.
You also love chocolate pudding pie. I’ve decided that you do.
Men, please stop judging women if they have children. Don’t write off a woman as undateable just because she has two little shorties she lives with. Those children are her universe and there is also room in it for you.
If she likes you.
Sarah Fader recently released a collection of her essays from around the Internet and you already love her because you read this article and you want to buy her book.
Learn more about Sarah and connect with her at sarahfader.com
