Dating and Parenting Are Not Mutually Exclusive

For the parents who love to use their children as a way to protect themselves from the "danger" of a relationship: quit it.  You’re only hurting yourself and preventing your children from having the opportunity to learn from another loving person.  I was raised by a single mom after my dad passed when I was little.  While I respect that my mother was able to handle it all on her own, she also missed the opportunity to be loved by a man and denied me the chance to have another father figure in my life.

“No one will want to date someone with (so many) kids.”

One, two or ten children, parents need love just as much as anyone else.  A friend of mine married a man with six children when she had none herself.  She delights in being a stepmother to his children, and finds fulfillment that she wouldn’t have with a non-parent.  Sure, blended families have their unique challenges, but that doesn’t mean that everyone isn’t better off for being together. My friend’s marriage just goes to show that just because you have children, even if you have lots of children, it doesn’t eliminate the opportunity for you to find true love.  If her husband had believed that, she never would have met him and found the happiness that they share.

“I’m worried my partner will try to raise my children for me.”

This might seem like a wise parenting decision, but it’s more an excuse not to put yourself at risk, rather than protecting your children.  Obviously, if you find yourself with a partner who wants to weigh in on your parenting, you should listen but remain in control of your decisions.  Another person’s input may actually be a good thing, especially if they’re coming from a place of love.  You hold the power to veto anything you don’t agree with, and set boundaries that your partner needs to respect. 

“I don’t want my children to be forced to share my attention with another person.”

This is a sticky one because while your children should be at the top of your priority list, they should also learn that you are human, and deserve to have a loving partner.  This excuse would never even come into play if you were in a nuclear family scenario.  Mommy and Daddy aren’t doing anything wrong by loving each other when baby comes along.  More importantly, no good comes from children who never know adversity of any kind, and frankly, if sharing your attention with another person is their greatest challenge, they’re doing great.  A balance between togetherness time with the children and alone-time needs to be a priority, so that the kids feel loved and nurtured, but so does your relationship with your partner.

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Eating Candy in Fat Prison

I used to be morbidly obese. I was what I would call mega fat. I mean, crazy, ridiculous, can-barely-move fat. It was an awful life. My body was became incarceration for my soul, rather than a vehicle to express it. My body was a prison made from fat that I could not escape. Just getting out of the recliner was a heavy-ho effort that often made my back and knees creak painfully. I was well over one hundred pounds overweight by my twenty seventh birthday and had the energy level of a terminally ill senior citizen. My life was miserable.

I went on a business trip when I was at my heaviest and the seat belt barely fit my belly. I was horrified. I am a nervous flyer and MUST HAVE my seat belt on for sanity’s sake. I kept it painfully buckled over my enormous lap, cutting into my stomach rather deeply for an eight hour flight. It was a wake up call that took almost another year for me to finally see as such. My denial was so strong that I actually blamed the design of the plane rather than accept the idea that I was getting too big to fit in an airplane seat as a short, twenty-something woman. I was fucking delusional but had no idea that I was.

I wasn’t overweight until after I lost my father at age seven. Emotional overeating is certainly a common way to deal with grief and I used that coping mechanism to my best advantage. I sought comfort in pizza and Mike 'N Ike's with reckless abandon. 

My family members were also overweight and so there wasn’t a good example of how to eat nutritiously as much as how to eat for optimal flavor. Our portions were huge, sweets and carbs were plentiful and fresh produce was rare. Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve gained and lost more than 300 pounds because my upbringing and the way I viewed food. My fat battle has raged on for decades because of long-held beliefs that were working against me. Several times over, I’ve steadily climbed up in weight, lost a bunch and then gained it back, with interest. It was infuriating. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just stay slim. It looked easy for other people, but I was hiking uphill all the time.

I started dieting in elementary school but couldn’t stick to it until high school. After going through my sophomore and junior years of high school at over 200 pounds on my five-foot-one frame, I wanted to get into better shape for my senior year. I knew that I wanted to have a fun, active lifestyle and the only way to do that was to start exercising. I lost seventy pounds that summer – by starting to jog a mile every day and eating only chips and salsa (bizarre choice, but they’re my favorite!). Oh, and I smoked two packs of Marlboros and put down a six pack of Diet Coke on the daily. When you’re seventeen, you care about being skinny, not being healthy.
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