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Dec. 26, 2013 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
59:58
2570 The Dangers of Dating a Single Mom
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So, a couple of questions from guys who are either involved with or interested in dating a single mom.
And is there any philosophical perspective that may be helpful in this area?
And I think there is.
I think there are many philosophical principles that can be helpful in just about every area of life, which is one of the reasons why this show has so many wide-ranging topics.
Philosophy, it's like saying, what aspect of matter does science not apply to?
Well, it's really no aspect of matter, energy, or the effects thereof that science would not apply to.
I feel the same way about philosophy.
What area of life does philosophy not apply to?
Well...
I can't think of any offhand, but there could be a few.
Now, I mean, I'll get my sort of biases and prejudices up front.
I'll sort of try to overcome them as we go forward in this part of the conversation, but I was raised by a single mom who had...
My mom was a beautiful woman physically, and she had no shortage of gentleman callers, shall we say, and...
So yeah, I grew up with this stuff floating around, and I have sort of an inside-the-volcano look at the child sacrifice situation.
This is not, of course, to say that all single moms are like my mom, and there will, of course, blah, blah, blah, exceptions to the rule.
Now, Walt, not all women are like that.
So if this doesn't apply to you, then think of all the other people it does apply to and consider yourself content.
People who take generalizations personally are not particularly rational.
They're about as rational, you know, when I say the average human height for Caucasians is like 5'9 or 5'10 for men, and people get offended because they say, well, I'm 5'4 or I'm 6'3, and therefore that's all nonsense.
We're just talking about averages, and if you're an exception to the rule, blah-de-blah-de-blah.
I also grew up around a lot of single mothers.
The matriarchal manners, as I called them.
It was the rent-controlled, low-rent neighborhood where I grew up in.
Basically, housing from the 70s onwards was all basically about trying to find ways to house single moms.
The divorce rate just went through the roof in the 1970s.
It went up like 300% as a result of Of feminism and the welfare state and all this.
Have you seen feminism drove the divorce rate?
I don't think it did.
I mean, obviously I had some justification for it, but as I've mentioned, oh, probably more than a few times on this show, ideology follows self-interest.
And once the government begins providing, you know, free healthcare, Free, indoctrinating babysitting in the form of public school education and rent control and welfare and old age pensions and all these sorts of subsidies.
Subsidies for men tend to go to the military-industrial complex.
Subsidies for women tend to go through the welfare state and the educational system.
So, all of this, and of course the other subsidy that the state provides women is, I mean, the women are paid to get divorced, right?
Whatever you subsidize is going to increase, and whatever you tax is going to decrease.
And you have taxed men in the form of alimony.
Child support is different.
Alimony is ridiculous.
Alimony is like demanding to be paid for a job after you quit.
One of the things that happens when you quit a job is you tend to not get paid anymore.
I mean, I even notice this.
My donations go down if I don't regularly pump out the shows like sweat off a lap dancer.
Of course, alimony is being paid for not being a wife, particularly if the woman, as most divorces are initiated by women, 70% or 80%, depending on how you count it.
And the number one reason is, I'm unsatisfied.
Dissatisfaction.
Not quite right.
Let's blow up the family, because things are not quite right.
And...
But women are paid for this, right?
Because they don't have to put up with a husband, but they get the money, as if they were.
Whatever you tax diminishes, whatever you subsidize increases, which is why You have this issue these days of men on strike, men not wanting to get married.
Why?
Because marriage represents a huge and incredibly dangerous liability for a man and represents an enormous positive for women.
This is why women want to get married and men don't.
Women are paid to get married and certainly paid to get divorced and men are charged to get divorced and that charging.
I think in California after 10 years you basically owe alimony for the rest of your life.
As you get married at 20, divorced at 30, and you live to be 80, you're paying 50 years because you were married to someone once when you were young.
That's a nice deal.
For the women, it is just not a nice deal for the women who have to come after them because men are not blind to this.
I think a lot of men are waking up to just being disposable ATMs and being forced by the state.
You know, sisters, if you're going to do it by yourself, stop appealing to the state.
Basic principle.
But so I've had some questions about single moms and dating single moms and so on.
And I... You know, resolutely resist telling people what to do.
I will suggest going to therapy and things like that because I think I like to follow the science.
Therapy is very beneficial, helping people be happy.
But I'm not a big fan of telling people what to do.
You know, it's the old thing.
Give a man a fish and he eats for a day.
Teach him how to fish.
He eats for a lifetime.
You tell people what to do, maybe they'll listen to you, but then so what?
It's like pushing a rock.
Once you stop pushing it, it stops again.
The whole point is to give the rock wheels and a motor.
I can't tell you what to do.
I would never imagine telling you what to do.
A few things you shouldn't do.
It violates the non-aggression principle and so on.
I will certainly tell people, don't circumcise your children.
Don't spank your kids.
Don't yell at your kids.
Don't neglect and abandon your kids.
No problem with that.
But as far as should you date...
I don't know.
I can tell you my thinking about it.
So, when I meet someone, if you would like a sort of visual, if I meet someone, I sort of see them like the base of a tree, which is not really a great way of putting it.
Let me put it another way so it's going upwards.
I think of them sort of at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
I think about them at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
And the Eiffel Tower, of course, the very top bolt on the Eiffel Tower is there's a whole bunch of support structures and cross-sections and all that kind of stuff, right, at the bottom, which leads it to the top.
And these are all decisions, decisions that people have made in their life that lead them to be where they are.
Decisions that people have made in their life that lead them to be where they are.
So if you meet a guy in New York and you know he's driven from the West Coast, Then you're aware that he has taken a whole bunch of roads to meet you in New York, right?
And he didn't take a whole bunch of other roads, right?
When the road forked, he took the one that pointed towards New York and not the one that pointed towards, say, Alaska or Beijing.
Okay, a little hydroplaning in the latter example, but when I meet someone, I look and I see, sort of radiating behind them, I see a whole matrix and roadmap and support structure and root structure of choices that they've made to leave them or to have them end up where they are.
And it's really important to understand.
We sort of take people in the moment, what young men do in particular, and this is mostly for younger men.
But y'all look at things in the present, like, oh, this person is here.
And most people, this is a very, very important fact to know in life, most people will sell you a story of victimhood.
Most people will sell you a story of victimhood.
Very important to understand.
And single moms, in my experience, Are about the worst offenders in this area.
They'll sell you a story of victimhood.
And not the true story of victimhood, which is what was done to them as children, but they will try and tell you a story of victimhood, which is they will talk about the faults that everyone has in their life without telling you that they chose those people to be in their life.
For me, it was the age of 15.
For other people, it's probably older.
It's not that great to do it at 15.
But I've been on my own since I was 15.
My brother and I basically invited my mother to move out.
And it really helped her along to achieve that.
And so she did.
She moved out to the other side of the country.
And we took in roommates and we had jobs and we just, you know, we struggled through.
We made it work.
And once you achieve your freedom, and, you know, 18 or 19, legally or whatever it is, you can go out on your own.
After that moment, everyone's in your life by choice, including your family.
Everyone is in your life by choice.
When you're three, not a lot of options, right?
There's not really a lot of options for you to vote in somebody else in your suggestion box to take over the parenting duties, should they not be to your liking.
But, you know, 20, 18, 19, 20, 21, or whatever, everyone who's there, who's in your life, is in your life by choice, by choice, by choice, by choice.
I don't care if they've been a stay-at-home mom for 18 years, 18 years in one day, they're in your life by choice.
I hope they've been a great parent and I hope that you want them desperately to stay in your life and you love them to death.
But the reality is there's a transition point.
Everyone after that is in your life by choice.
Now, I fully understand that we've all been conditioned to prior But, you know, the templates of mom and dad and teachers and preachers and all that kind of stuff.
We've been conditioned to expect certain things, certain templates.
I understand all of that.
But nonetheless, you cannot tell me that a 20-year-old has the same amount of volunteerism in his relationship as a three-year-old.
Three-year-old, all the relationships are completely involuntary.
Don't like that?
Three days old.
You can go scale down to however you want to the point where your relationships are not voluntary.
I guess if you're a teen, if your parents are really bad, you can file for illegal emancipation and all that kind of stuff, in which case you're exercising choice a little earlier.
But certainly by the time you're in your late teens, everyone who's in your life is there by choice.
Is there by choice.
And And therefore, after your late teens, you don't get to claim victimhood anymore, right?
You don't get to claim victimhood anymore, right?
So if you were in some society where you legally had to be married for someone for 18 years, And then 18 years and one day, you could just walk away with no repercussions, no filing for divorce, no courts, no custody, no alimony, no child support.
You could just walk away.
Then for the first 18 years of your life, if you were brutalized or victimized, then you would be a victim.
And then...
18 years in one day when you can walk out with no negative repercussions, in fact, with only positive effects if the situation is abusive, but then you're not a victim anymore.
Now, I get, you know, you're patterned and you've been broken down and this and that and the other.
I understand all of that.
I really do.
I'm not trying to diminish that, but the simple fact of the matter is you cannot claim the same status of victimhood as when you were three, right?
Now, why am I hammering this point so much?
Well, because when I see people and I see the matrix and cobwebs and convoluted lower intestine map of their choices that have led them to be where they are, then I accept that they can't claim victimhood, right?
So I was set up to date a woman once.
We met in a coffee shop.
Coffee's good because you can order a small and gulp it down and escape with a burnt tongue should the thing prove disastrous.
It wasn't disastrous.
She was a nice enough woman, I guess, but basically within 10 or 15 minutes, she was launching into how much her ex-boyfriend had Run up her credit cards and then run away.
And she was, I don't know, $20,000 in debt on her credit cards.
Not particularly a great situation.
And she wasn't like, you know, if she made a million dollars an hour, sure, right?
But she was not a big earner.
She was okay, so middle of the road.
And so what I saw was A whole bunch of choices and branches that had led her to where she was, sitting across from me in a coffee shop.
And because I have respect for adulthood, and because this is the way the law is, society can't tell me to say to people, you're not responsible, right?
Of course.
Because society holds 18-year-olds responsible for their crimes regardless of their history.
There's no, I had a bad childhood and therefore I don't have to go to jail.
So we're all very comfortable with that as adults that we are responsible for our actions once we each reach the age of majority.
So either we get away with sentencing people who've had bad childhoods or we accept that there's responsibility for adults.
We're just responsible.
100% responsible once we hit that age of majority.
And of course, if we have patterns in our life that remain problematic into our 20s, that's because we have chosen not to deal with our histories, that we have avoided dealing with our histories, right?
So this woman, of course, you know, I think she was in her mid-20s and she...
She was telling me all about this, and naturally she was telling me the tale of woe, the helpless and hapless innocent maiden of infinite victimhood, that he seemed like a nice guy, but then he just up and...
He seemed like a nice guy, but then he just hauled off and hit me one day.
He seemed like a really nice guy, but I woke up and I was $20,000 in debt.
Seemed like a really nice guy, but he abducted my cat.
Seemed like a really nice guy, but...
Then when I broke up with him, he turned into a real stalker.
Seemed like a nice guy, but after I became pregnant, he took off on me, right?
Seemed like a nice guy, but it turns out he was drinking in secret.
Seemed like a nice guy, turns out he had a whole bunch of other women on the side.
Seemed like a nice guy, turns out he had another family.
Seems like blah blah blah, right?
You get all this.
It's all just lies and foolishness and nonsense.
People make these, you know, ungodly mistakes.
There's just horrendous mistakes in relationships.
And then they will say that they're victims afterwards.
That seemed like a nice guy, but right?
I saw this...
My God, I saw this woman on Dr.
Phil.
Her boyfriend...
You know, would like lock her in the trunk of her car and drive around if he thought the police were coming over.
He held knives to her.
He stabbed her.
But she literally said, but he was a really great dad to my son.
I mean, how...
I mean, God, it's not...
I don't even know what dimension these people are living on.
The opposite land, right?
Where my podcasts are short and on point.
Anyway.
So, I look at all these threads that...
Lead people to where they are.
So this woman in her 20s, she dated a guy who turned out to be a predatory financial sociopath or whatever, some complete monster.
And so what that tells me Either she's a terrible judge of human character, which means she lacks self-knowledge, empathy, the ability to process her own instincts.
She has not processed anything in her past and probably has someone financially irresponsible and predatory in her history, maybe her dad or something like that.
In which case, the relationship is going to be a complete disaster.
Because if she's a really bad judge of character, then she's never going to fall in love with me because she's not going to be able to judge me as virtuous.
So either she's a really bad judge of character, which means that, right, because you look forward, right?
Look forward down the road in relationships, you know, I mean, unless you're looking for a quickie.
Look forward down the road to the relationships.
If she's a really bad judge of character, what kind of people is she going to bring into my life?
Or she's a good judge of character and she likes financially predatory sociopaths, right?
In which case, she's not going to like me, right?
So that's important.
Now, the other thing, of course, since she wasn't a big earner and she's $20,000 in the hole in terms of credit card debt, which means the interest is, I don't know, what is it?
Crazy, right?
You know, $500, $700 a month just for interest.
So, if she's already $20,000 in the hole, what that means is...
I'm going to have, like by the time she's finished paying it off, like $30,000 less of fun with her, right?
Because I'll say, hey, let's go away for the weekend.
Oh, I'm sorry, I can't afford it.
Hey, let's go to a movie.
Ooh, not in the budget this week.
Hey, let's go to a concert.
Not in the budget this week, right?
So I'm going to have like $30,000 worth of less fun with her.
And this is assuming she pays it off.
Or I pay for everything.
While we're dating, in which case, like I'm essentially paying her debt off, right?
Because if I take her places, she doesn't have to spend money on going out.
Instead, she puts the money on her debt.
I'm basically paying off her debt.
I might as well say, well, you pay for half of our dates and I'll pay off your debt.
Whereas if I pay for all of her dates and she uses that money to pay off the debt, it's exactly the same.
Yeah, you just hand over the credit card debt for me, but, you know, just pay half of when we go out.
So, no thanks.
So, there's just so much information in little tiny scraps and bits that occur.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Little tiny bits of information in scraps and bits that occur.
Now as far as single moms go, I've never dated a single mom.
Just to be fair, because when I hear single mom, you know, you literally see a Steph-sized vacuum where the air used to be, and you may catch a heel flickering, you know, 10 or 11 blocks away around the corner.
But I simply won't get involved with single moms.
I'll tell you my thinking about it, and, you know, obviously you can do whatever you want, but I'll tell you my thinking about it.
Well, first of all, it means that They either had a really terrifically, horribly bad relationship, which means that they're attracted to evil guys, mean guys, terrible guys.
In which case, what are they going to want with me?
Like, I'm a considerate guy, a thoughtful guy, very gentle, and all that, and I have very high standards for myself in relationships and so on.
So, if she had a relationship with a complete monster, To the point where she just had to leave him, then that's who she's attracted to, to the point where she actually had a child with this person, so she's just not going to be attracted to me.
Now, if he was a nice guy, like a really nice guy, You know, thoughtful and considerate and so on, she just got bored, then she's the monster, right?
Because you don't break up a family just because you're going through a bit of a yawn spell, right?
But also it means that she's not going to be that interested in me because I'm a nice guy and therefore, if she had, you know, if she left some nice guy before, she's just going to leave me, right?
Because I'm a nice guy and a very nice guy.
I was a great guy to date.
I really was.
And so, there's just nothing, I mean, no positive indicators whatsoever that can come out of that single mom thing.
She's also most likely to be broke, and she's also most likely to be desperate for money.
And again, you know, with all due respect to whatever noble intentions there may be, she's just going to have a heck of a lot less money to spend.
Of course, right?
She's just going to have a heck of a lot less money to spend.
Because she's got a kid to pay for.
And kids are, like, I mean, pretty expensive.
I mean, to say the least, they are enormously expensive.
And, of course, she's a single mom, which means that her career and her education are most likely on hold.
In which case, you know...
Some guy, I shouldn't laugh, it's just tragic, but some guy I met once, he went on a date with a single mom.
The bill came for dinner and he offered to split it and she gave it to him 15 bucks short, right?
And she said, well, sure, but I mean, you know, somebody's got to pay the other half of the babysitting bill, right?
I'm paying 30 bucks for a babysitter, and so you've got to pay 15 bucks for that.
Because I have a kid, and you knew that when you asked me out.
Oh my!
Oh my!
Wow, on the first date you're asked to subsidize the kid.
That's really quite astonishing.
So, this is really important.
It speaks to someone's judgment.
And yes, it's true that sometimes people change, but you know the number of people who change in life is incredibly tiny.
It's a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage.
And you know when they've changed because they will tell you about it, right?
And they will say, I went to therapy for years, I have...
I've worked on this part of myself.
I recognize, and they'll take ownership for their decisions.
You know, they'll say, I married, I came from an abusive background.
I married young.
My parents approved of the abuser.
That's all I was used to at the time.
It was still my fault and my responsibility.
I should have thought and gone to therapy ahead of time, but when, you know, when I realized the marriage wasn't going to work out, When he was beating me, I didn't have kids because that would have been crazy.
I left the marriage and I went straight into therapy and I am 100% responsible for everything that happened.
That's never going to happen again.
So they'll take ownership and they will tell you what they have done to prevent recurrences.
The moment somebody claims victimhood, he seemed like a nice guy.
He beat me.
He ground me down.
I tried my best to be supportive.
I tried my best to help him.
I worked my fingers to the bone, but he just kept turning on me, kept being mean.
The moment somebody claims victimhood, they are clearly telling you, as clear as clear can be, they are clearly telling you I'm going to do it again.
This is going to happen again.
Victimhood is like scratching that LP. So you get, sorry, squire the record's stuck.
Sorry, squire the record's stuck.
Sorry, squire the record's stuck.
Right?
You understand?
The moment somebody claims victimhood, they're telling you it's going to happen all over again because they're not taking any responsibility for what happened.
The moment somebody blames somebody else for their troubles, they are telling you that they're going to do it again, most likely to you.
So if somebody says, yeah, well, my marriage ended because I had an affair.
I was completely shocked and appalled at my own behavior.
I had to figure out why I would do something so hurtful and so harmful to others.
And therefore, I did this.
I went to therapy and blah, blah, blah, whatever, right?
But if somebody, usually a woman says, well, you know, I guess I ended up having an affair because my husband was just so emotionally unavailable and not present and we just, we slowly drifted apart and grew apart and I desperately tried to get things back together but I ended up seeking solace out of desperation in the arms of another man, right?
This is somebody who's claiming victimhood, who's taking no responsibility and they're Telling you as clearly as if there was a 72-point font Arial tattoo on their forehead, I will do it to you, right?
Especially affairs, man.
If they do it with you, they'll do it to you.
So, yeah, single mom is someone who dated a guy, who got married to a guy, who chose to have a baby with a guy, and then found out that the guy was an unfit father.
Right?
You understand?
That tells you everything you need to know about judgment.
And, you know, they're either going to take responsibility for that or they're not, right?
Now, if they take responsibility for it, then you'll see it very clearly in their actions.
And, um...
Also, if a single mom is dating you, they'll be upfront and open about what they're looking for and the challenges that lie ahead.
Let's talk a little bit about that because I think that's important.
We'll take the simplest example.
A single mom with one kid.
Now, we're going to assume that there was some sort of relationship, maybe even a marriage, that produced the kid.
If it's like a one-night stand, then this woman Or if it was a sort of brief relationship or a fling or something, then...
I mean, that's just even more of a red flag for me.
It's just even more terrifying to imagine.
You know, playing Russian roulette with a human life is so ridiculously irresponsible that, to me, it's just completely sociopathic.
Like, if women just go around, when they're fertile, having unprotected sex, then...
I mean, my God, I mean, that's insane.
I mean, that's just beyond insane.
I mean, you know, for 10 minutes of pleasure, you're going to bring a child into the world without family, without stability, without money, without a father, without...
I mean, that's just astonishing that you will create another human being out of that level of completely narcissistic and selfish irresponsibility.
Well, guys are responsible for birth control.
Bullshit.
Women are the gatekeepers of sex.
Women are the gatekeepers of sex.
Women say yes, women say no, and that's what happens.
So, yeah, men have their faults.
Absolutely.
I have railed against men's aggression and warlike tendencies and abusive tendencies.
Absolutely.
But, ladies, you are the gatekeepers.
If you get pregnant, that's on you.
Because there are like 12 different types of birth control.
And only one of those types is demands responsibility.
And guess what, ladies?
Guess what?
You can see if he's using it or not, right?
Condom.
You can see if he's using it or not.
Oh, the condom broke.
Well, don't be retarded.
Before you have the orgasm, then check the condom.
Pull out, check the condom, go back in.
But that's not hard.
Or, Use a condom, which is even safer, pull out and have your orgasm some other way, right?
Lots of great fun stuff you can do without, you know, hitting the baby-maker bell, right?
So, people say, women say, well, accidents happen.
Well, you know, accidents do happen, but they really generally only seem to happen to very irresponsible women.
And I'm mostly, I mean, I generally just believe it's a lie, right?
So, The pill is like 99.9% effective.
So that's not going to be an issue.
And if you have any concerns about that as a woman, then...
Have the man wear a condom as well.
A condom plus pill, you ain't getting pregnant unless the Holy Spirit himself goes down and decides to make some other water-walking Jew or something.
That's not going to happen.
I generally think that, with good reason, that a woman who says, well, I was on the pill but it wasn't effective, just forgot to take the pill.
What's more likely?
That someone forgets to take a pill or you're 0.01% of women who get pregnant in a year on the pill?
What's more likely?
Somebody forgets or that tiny percentage one?
And I assume that that tiny percentage is women who claim to have taken the pill but didn't.
Right?
So, I mean, if you get pregnant and you're a woman, that's 100% on you.
You chose the guy, you chose no birth control, or you chose unreliable, quote, birth control, like the rhythm method or pull-out method or whatever, which is not, I mean, it's not reliable at all.
I mean, semen, sperm come out in the pre-ejaculators where you don't have to ejaculate.
Nature's greasing the wheels before she fires that final shot, right?
So, any woman who was not in a stable relationship and not in a position to have a baby who gets pregnant and keeps the baby, right, doesn't abort, doesn't give the kid up for adoption, and then, you know, I mean, without a father, without stability, without marriage, without commitment, is just staggeringly irresponsible.
And I'd never wanted to be within a million miles of somebody that irresponsible.
That's like going on a date blindfolded with somebody swinging a ball-peen hammer around in a tiny room full of porcelain.
Somebody that irresponsible, it literally feels like they're just...
Throwing cricket balls at you while you're blindfolded.
You just don't know what the hell is going to come next.
This is somebody who lacks empathy, who lacks responsibility, who lacks any sense of gratification control or the deferral of gratification, who has severe impulse problems.
I mean, to want whatever the hell was going on in the bedroom that produced the baby, which is so easy to prevent, just have non-vaginal sex, for God's sakes.
Anyway, I mean...
There's such problems with impulse control that it staggers the imagination.
It completely staggers the imagination.
And I just would never want to be around.
They're too dangerous.
I mean, it's like that quote in The Great Gatsby, right, that these Daisy and I can't remember the guy's name, they smash up people accidentally.
I mean, yeah, they just...
Selfish, monstrous narcissists who just go around satisfying their own gratifications and, you know, screw the people around them, literally, and, you know, screw the consequences.
And so I just...
Anyway, so as I was saying before, so the woman who was like 20 grand in debt, this is like 15 years ago when 20 grand actually meant something, but, you know, she's just going to have a whole lot of less fun.
Now, a single mom...
I mean, either she's going to put her children first, which means you're never going to take priority in her life, which is, you know, being a better parent, but a worse girlfriend, right?
You don't know the kid's going to get sick.
He's going to have a fight.
He's going to fall down.
He's going to be upset.
You're just going to get dates canceled all the time, and you just don't know what the hell's going on, right?
And that's because she's putting the child first, which means you are a distant, inconsequential second, right?
I mean, if there's a conflict between you, your needs, and the kid's needs, she's not going to flip a coin.
You come in half the time.
I mean, she's not even going to flip the coin one out of ten times.
The kid is always going to come first.
That's how it should be.
The kid is always going to come first, which means she's incredibly less available as a girlfriend.
And why would you want to date someone who's incredibly less available?
You know, it's literally like saying, well, there's a girl who lives down the block, and there's a girl who lives in Thailand, and they're both equally attractive to me, so I'm going to date the one who lives in Thailand.
I mean, are you crazy?
Are you crazy?
So she's going to be broke.
She's likely to be uneducated.
And if she's a good mom, she's going to be putting the kid first, which means you are never, you're not even a distant second.
You're not on the map.
If it works out with the kid, if it's convenient to the kid, then you will get some time and attention, but that is completely unpredictable.
I mean, why?
Why would you even want to bother?
And she's going to be broke, which means she's going to be spending $20,000 a year on the kid, or $10,000 a year on the kid, or whatever, which means there's that much less money for you to mutually have fun with, right?
For you to go away for weekends, the other, right?
Anyway, so let's say that she puts you first and the kid second.
Okay, you get more attention, but from somebody whose priorities are so completely screwed up, you know, that they're as likely to push your head first into a wood chipper as they are to give you a back rub.
Right?
I mean, because then she's a better girlfriend and a terrible mother.
And is that really what you want?
You know, spinning around on your naughty pots.
I would hope not.
I mean, that's just gross.
Knowing that you're, you know, well, my kid has the flu, but I propped him up with an iPad and I thought I'd come out dancing with you.
I mean, anybody with any decency would be like, oh my God, go back and take care of your kid.
Are you crazy?
What the hell are you doing?
Don't be out here.
No!
Mama wants to shake her groove thing.
Shake your money maker.
Right?
I mean, good God.
Good God in heaven.
How terrible would that be?
Now, again, I'm sort of fast-forwarding over a lot of stuff, but so, a history of really, really bad decisions, history of being attracted to bad boys or dumping good boys, in which case, if you're a decent guy, there's nothing in it for you.
She's got time constraints, financial constraints, you're always going to come second, and that's just the tip of the iceberg, right?
So...
Your kid, her kid, what's your relationship going to be with her kid, right?
I mean, are you just going to pretend like he doesn't exist, like never go over to her house?
Well, that means you've got to do all the entertaining and all the cleanup and have all the stuff stocked.
You know, when people come to your house, you don't charge them for food, right?
So if you can't ever go to the kid's house, then you've got to pay that much more.
Now, maybe she's got split custody with an ex, in which case you'll have a little bit more time.
But if she's got custody, then she's going to be over at your place all the time, which means you've got to pay that much more.
And you've got to do the cooking likely and the cleanup and all that.
I mean, it may sound petty.
This is not stupid stuff.
It's important.
It's important stuff.
You know, whereas if you have a single woman, you can go to her place, she can cook for you, and then she's bought the food and she's doing the cleanup unless you do the...
I usually do the cleanup if somebody else cooks, but whatever.
And then she'll come to your place, you cook, you do the cleanup or whatever.
It's just back and forth, you know, but you can't ever do that.
Now, and I tell you, that kid is most likely going to hate your guts.
I mean, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry about that, but that kid is most likely going to hate your guts.
Why?
Because as you start moving in on his mom, then that is basically pissing on the flickering candle of his hope of a true parental reconciliation, right?
And that's a problem, right?
And if the mom is really great, like if she's really a great mom, despite all possible odds of bad decisions and bad boys in the past or whatever, but if she is a really great mom and a really nice person, then her kid is going to love her and then you're basically going to be treading on holy ground when you come in to start pawing her and mauling her and all that kind of stuff.
In which case, there's going to be a problem.
Now, if the kid doesn't like his mom, Then he's going to have no respect for you for dating his mom who he doesn't like, right?
So, I mean, almost no matter what, you're either squelching his hopes of parental reconciliation or you're interfering with his time with his beloved mother or you're dating the mother he doesn't like.
There's just no way that you end up with anything positive, you know, coming out of that.
You know, Jerry Maguire is fiction and fantasy in so many ways.
Oh, my kid's so charming, he's going to win over the man.
Plus, you know, if you weren't, like, factually and statistically, if you weren't around for the first couple of years of that child's life, you will never be the authority figure.
Ever, ever, ever.
You cannot be the disciplinarian, for want of a better word.
You cannot be the authority figure.
It simply will not work.
Because they've always got the, you aren't my real dad card, which is true.
Now, if her ex is a nasty guy, then hey, guess what?
You now have got yourself embedded in a family situation with a nasty guy who resents you being there.
Ooh, that's not going to be overly comfortable.
Hey, kid has a baseball game.
My ex is coming.
You want to come?
Because you've got a relationship now.
Some creepy, thuggy, tattooed guy staring over your shoulder and taking note of your license plate.
Yeah, that's great.
That's going to be fabulous.
Lovely, fabulous!
And you don't want that.
Now, let's say the ex is some nice guy.
Well, I don't know exactly how that works because, I mean, if he's a nice guy, why does she divorce him?
Why is he not in the picture anymore?
Right?
Is she not nice?
So the odds of him being just some nice guy...
Very low.
Very, very low.
And if he is a nice guy, then he probably left her for being a not nice woman, in which case you're toast, right?
You've got laser sights on your nads, and all they're doing is powering up the sun-baked generator to blow them clean away.
But also, if you're a really nice guy, sorry, if the ex-husband is a really nice guy, then the son is going to resent you moving into his place even more, right?
And that's not good.
Now let's say that things move along and you are being won over by the winsome charms of the single mom and she's got a kid or two.
Well guess what?
You get to be thrown into being a dad with no preparation, no warm-up, right?
I mean I think it's a fairly good rule of thumb that You should be dating, married, knowing each other substantially for at least five years before you have a kid.
And that's not going to happen with you.
If you marry some single mom, you are a dad before you even get married.
You've got no chance to warm up.
You've got no chance to get to know each other outside of children.
You've got no chance to discuss parenting styles.
You're just going to be A parent.
And you're going to be a dad who isn't even a real dad, I mean biologically, in which case you are, with no preparation or warm-up, you are thrown into the most challenging parental situation, which is to be a stepdad, right?
And the older the kid, the worse the situation.
So, you know, it's like taking somebody who's never put on skis before and catapulting them with a giant slingshot down a double black diamond super mogul cliff of death, right?
The least experience with the most challenging situation is a recipe for disaster.
And that's exactly what happens when you get involved with a single mom, is you have the most challenging parental situation and you don't get warm up.
You don't get to sort of go through the years of getting to know someone without kids and then the pregnancy and then you don't get to bond with the kid as a baby and learn your parenting as you go forward as the child develops and so on.
You're just thrown bang with no history into the most complex parenting situation that can be imagined.
I mean, you get that is the recipe for disaster, right?
It's just, I mean, God, how could it go other than catastrophically?
And if you've got any kind of money, then dating cash disparities is really tough, right?
There's an old Friends episode, which is actually pretty good, where the people who have money get complaints from the people who don't have money.
I said Joey, Phoebe, and I can't remember, but the other two, they all have money.
Chandler and Ross, they have money, and Joey and Phoebe don't, and they're like, oh, every time we go to a restaurant, you want to go to some expensive restaurant, we can't afford, and it's a problem, right?
Well, if you're dating someone who's significantly different from you in terms of money, then that's a challenge.
It's a huge challenge.
And if you get married and there's a huge disparity of income, then what?
Are you going to go down, live low rent?
If the single mom lives in some $500 a month studio apartment next to the van down by the river on a steady diet of government cheese, what are you going to do?
Are you going to go live in there, pay your $250 a month rent?
No, it's crazy, right?
Eddie Murphy is an old bit mfufu.
He talks about, you know, he makes $10 million for a movie, and then what is his girlfriend going to come in and say, oh, here's the $75 that I got from doing people's hair.
Well, I don't know that that's really going to work very well.
So, that's a pretty important aspect of things.
So, either you're going to go totally low rent, in which case, what the hell was the point of working so hard and saving up all that money, or You're going to pull her up to your level, at which point you are paying a huge amount of money for the privilege of being an instant dad in the most challenging situation with a woman Who is really attracted to bad boys?
Can you hear the incoming rumble of the flickering lightning of financial disintegration?
I think we may, in fact, see that coming.
Single moms are resource vampires.
And I'm sorry, it's just true.
Children take a huge amount of time and money and resources.
They just plain do.
And if you're a parent, I mean, in some ways, you really don't care where they come from, where it comes from.
And I've certainly known a couple of single moms who, in order to attract a man, pretended that they were doing better than they were, but they did that just by going into debt.
You know, oh, she's a single mom.
She has a Lexus, so she must be doing all right.
Well, not if she can't really pay for it.
But they're just like...
I had this toy when I was a kid.
It was like a little tiny coffin.
And you put a coin, pushed a button.
And this little bony...
And it actually glowed in the dark.
This fluorescent bony hand came out and clawed the coin into the coffin.
And the single moms that I grew up around, they were just like that.
I mean, they just fastened on and just try and get money because they just needed it.
And, you know, God bless them in a way.
I mean, I get it.
I really get it.
You just need the money.
And it just warps the woman's decision-making.
It just does.
I mean, if you've got any kind of money, you don't know if she's in it for you or for your resources.
Like, I'm sorry.
It just...
You know, if some guy's been on a Mars mission, you know, he's been gone from female company for like two years, he steps off the capsule, eyes you in the crowd and says, I find you enormously enticing.
Would you like to have sex?
Is it you that he finds enormously enticing or is he just heavily backed up from not wanting to bump into his own zero-gravity sperm for two years, right?
Well, a man who's that sexually desperate...
I guess you could think it's you he wants, but it's probably some piece of you that he wants more than you as a whole.
And when you're a single mom, you have that neediness.
I mean, you just need resources.
You need some time.
You need to maybe work from home.
You sort of work at nights when you come back.
You just need resources, which is why there tend to be black holes of resources.
And single moms just pull people in to help.
I mean, they have to.
I mean, again, this is not a blame for the situation.
It's just a fact.
It's a reality.
You know, extendo family, friends, mothers, whoever, right?
Just come help, come help.
I need this.
I need to be driven around.
Somebody's got to pay for these skates.
I don't have the money, right?
I'm exhausted.
I mean, it's just such a 20-year marathon to be a single mom.
I mean, my God, it's such a horrible life.
I mean, from what I've seen, again, I was in a pretty low-rent district, so I guess being Mrs.
is Ivana Trump maybe a little bit different but it's a hell of a rough life so these are sort of considerations that run through my head when I'm thinking about or when I would be approached by a And there is, you know, I mean, there was, at least for me, this was a kind of desperation, you know, like, and of course a loneliness, right?
I mean, being a single mom is very lonely.
Yeah.
And so there's just a hunger, not just for sex, but for, although there certainly was that, but a hunger just for adult conversation and companionship.
I mean, they did seem to me quite a bit like, you know, drowning people grabbing at corks and bits of wood and barrels and, you know, and again, I do mean this with some sympathy for the situation.
I'm completely responsible for the situation.
But, you know, once you're in the situation, that is the reality of what it's like.
So, I do say that with some empathy and some sympathy, but it just wasn't for me.
Now, the thing to remember, of course, is not, you know, not what's there, but what's missing.
You know, the art of economics, economic thinking, is to not look at the visible benefits, but all the hidden costs, right?
You know, the old thing, like the government created 100 jobs, but it prevented the creation of 200 jobs.
It created 100 temporary jobs, prevented the creation of 200 permanent jobs.
You don't see the jobs that weren't created because they're just missing, you know, any more than you look at a mountain range, look at the gap between two mountains and say, oh my God, that's a huge mountain that's missing there.
No, it's just a valley, right?
But with dating single moms, I think what's important to understand is the opportunity costs.
You know, there are lots of great single women With no kids and no debt and, you know, all this kind of stuff, right?
No creepy ex-husbands, no dependency on alimony or child support.
I mean, geez, you start dating a single mom, what happens if the guy who's paying her child support stops paying it?
Right?
What happens?
Well, sorry dude, you are the closest wallet around in that sinking ship situation.
Let's say he even wants to, but he just loses his job.
And you still have your job, you are going to face an intense amount of pressure to pick up the slack.
And again, this is not to say that it's evil or predatory, it's just, you know, children need resources, and what's going to happen?
You know, if she's getting alimony, let's say you get married, Well, she ain't as rich as she used to be now, right?
Because you get married, her husband doesn't have to pay alimony anymore, right?
At least usually.
And that's not great, because suddenly her income may drop by a third or a quarter.
Well, who's going to pick up that slack, right?
Well, it's going to have to be you, again, unless you want to scale yourself down.
You know, you start dating a waitress who's making, you know, $600 a week, and you make $2,000 a week, well, what are you going to do?
Are you going to go down and live with a $600 a week situation, or are you going to raise her up to $1,500, right?
That's all very significant economic decisions.
It is a subsidy.
If you are ambitious, a single mom is very unlikely to get ahead in her career.
This is really important to understand.
If you're an ambitious go-getter and you want to rise to the top of whatever it is that you want to do, I mean, I am that way.
I always have been that way.
I mean, to me, if you're not going for gold, don't show up at the track.
And if you're dating a single mom, Either her child is her priority, in which case her career, for whatever it's going to be worth, is going to be secondary and whatever.
She's not going to rise much above a lower middle class income or position.
Or she's like a real career-hungry barracuda at the expense of her kid, in which case you're just dealing with another kind of monster.
So don't do that.
Don't be doing that.
Oh, I'm not telling you what to do.
Don't be involved with a monster.
I'm willing to tell you that.
I'm not proving that all single moms are monsters, but I'm just sort of giving you the stuff to take into account.
Because you've got to look at relationships.
Are you going to be in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years?
You want one for your life, if you can get one.
I mean, they're the best.
And so, you know, if she's...
If she's a single mom who's like a receptionist or something, well, I can guarantee you that if her kid is 10, then in 10 years she's still going to be a receptionist, almost for certain.
The other thing, too, is that the single mom whose kids are all kinds of cute because they're like 6 or 7 or 8, see, that's the latency period, right?
Latency period from sort of around the age of 4 or 5 to about the age of puberty, right, 10, 11, or 12.
This latency, and they're all kinds of cute and much more malleable, you know, not rebellious, not feisty, not talk-backy, not, you know, but I tell you, if bad shit went down in those kids' infancy and early childhoods, like from sort of zero to five, you know, they may be all kinds of cute and compliant when they're six, seven, eight, nine, ten years old, but boy, oh boy, you know, they start to hit the post-latency period.
All the bad shit, all the terrible stuff, or even just uneasy stuff that went down in their infancy and early childhood will come roaring back with a vengeance.
And those sweet, toe-eyed, relatively obedient, let's play Monopoly kind of little kids are going to be, you know, slouchy, mother, messy, smelly, disobedient, ferocious monsters in their teens.
So again, that's what you're signing out for, right?
Damaged, hurt, acting out dysfunctional teenagers and you with little to no parenting experience and no authority at all.
I mean, come on.
So think about all the things you're missing if you date and get involved with a single mom.
You're missing the opportunity to date a woman who's not a single mom, right?
You're missing the opportunity to have your own kids, most likely.
I mean, most single moms can't even imagine having another kid if they've got one or two that they're struggling to raise.
And so you're giving up the chance to have your own kid.
You're going to spend a lot of money on someone else's kids while they may go off and have another family.
And you are missing the opportunity To have your own kids, to have a relaxed, egalitarian, in terms of time and money, dating situation with a great woman who's not encumbered and who doesn't have exes and babies and child support and alimony and all this kind of stuff, right?
And, you know, who probably would be obviously keen about having kids if that's what you both want.
And so you're putting your fatherhood skills...
Into the most difficult situation, really an impossible situation.
Being a stepdad is fundamentally an impossible situation.
I like being a stepmom.
It's fundamentally impossible.
So you're wasting all your skills on an impossible situation.
Rather than, you know, being there for the decision to have children, the conception, the birth, the infancy, the raising and all that, you're not going to be there for that.
You're not going to ease into fatherhood in a situation where you have natural authority and your skills can develop automatically.
Along with the development of your child and all that, and you are bonded by blood and there's no creepy exes and legal crap and all that floating around.
There's not this massive financial disparity.
You can both be ambitious if you want, although it'll be much harder with whoever stays home.
Once the kids come along.
But you're missing out on all of that, right?
And I just, I can't imagine that anybody with any real sense of security, with any sense of, dare I say it, after my recent interview, self-esteem.
I just sort of use that as true self-respect.
Why would anybody with any self-respect put themselves in an impossible situation, an expensive situation, an emotionally volatile situation, and with their certain acts as a potentially dangerous situation, Where they end up paying and being legally responsible for some other man's children.
A man who the woman despises enough to have dumped him as a father.
You're raising his kids.
Right?
And you're also, you had no control, you have no quality control over children.
That you meet later on in life.
If you're the father and you're at home during birth, infancy, toddlerhood and so on, you are the master of quality control.
You can control the quality of that child's environment, make it high quality and thus guarantee yourself an enjoyable life of parenting.
But...
If the kids are young and there's been a divorce or a split up or no dad around, then they have been short of resources because of a single mom.
They have been short of a father or there have been some fractious, horrible divorce or something like that.
In which case, you are inheriting children who have been severely damaged by their early childhood and infancy.
You are going to end up paying the cost for that as a stepfather because you'll be the most convenient target for whatever age and ferocity is embedded within their amygdalas and is unrestrained by their neofrontal cortex.
You are going to be the one who's going to have to pay that bill.
And man, it's a brutal bill.
It's brutal.
You simply are not going to have much fun at all as a parent.
Whereas if you are a parent and you've had that kind of quality control over the early childhoods of your children, then you can sort of relax and enjoy Being a dad.
Because you've sorted it all out.
You've been there for the quality control.
You have bonded.
Your kids, you have the natural authority of being a father.
And, oh man, why would you even conceive of doing it any other way?
And, you know, I think it's sad because I think obviously stepdads can be a positive influence to the stepmoms' kids, but why would you ever conceivably want to do that if you want to be a dad?
I mean, do it where you're actually a dad and have all of the fun associated with that and all the authority associated with that.
At least for me, I was never even remotely tempted to go the other way.
I think the only thing that you'd ever want to do it for is just for sex alone, and I think that's really using people in a very vile kind of way.
Anyway, I hope this helps.
Please let me know what you think.
Tell me where I've gone madly astray, as usual.
And have yourselves a wonderful week.
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