Single dads – a love magnet? No way. The only perk is sharing the cost of a babysitter

Date a single dad? No, thank you. I don’t see the appeal. Of course, getting together with a “superdad” has crossed my mind. I’m a single mum of two girls, Lola, seven, and Liberty, five, and the last time I tried to date a man who didn’t have children, he ran out of my flat exhausted to watch the football in the pub. I haven’t heard from him in two years since a follow-up trip to a small petting zoo in Battersea.

But I find many single dads even worse. The only perk I can see to dating them is splitting the babysitter at £15 per hour for a night out.

Yet according to a recent survey, men who already have children from a former partnership are like catnip on dating sites. Dating site Zoosk found that single dads receive 22 per cent more first messages than men without children, which suggests that women are actively seeking them out. Given that a staggering 83 per cent of single women say they would be willing to date a single dad, according to the report, the huge popularity of this demographic is evident, but what is interesting is the assumptions that single heterosexual women are making.

“Single dads are stated to be so attractive to single women because there is an association that they are responsible, nurturing and can prioritise those who are most important to them,” says Sarah Louise Ryan, the dating and relationship expert for Even – a new dating app for single parents. Meanwhile, a survey undertaken by Perspectus Global in May 2023 revealed that nearly a quarter of people believed that single parents have the qualities they tend to look for in a potential partner, such as “independence, reliability, and selflessness”, while almost two-thirds (63 per cent) of Brits looking to date are happy to look beyond the single-parent label.

So, you might imagine that as a single mum, I’d be on the prowl for a handsome single dad with his own brood in tow. After all, one of the big problems of having children is that you lose nearly all your free time. Dating a single dad solves that problem – in theory – because you can hang out with your offspring together. To see a man being hands-on with childcare is highly attractive.

But the truth is, I’m ignoring calls from at least two single dads who on paper are intelligent, funny and charismatic. Why? Because, in my experience, their romantic appeal is a trap. Only last week a single dad left his five-year-old daughter at mine for a sleepover because he had a family crisis. When he finally rocked up at 11.30am the next morning, I’d done all the early breakfast duties for the children, taken them to the park and was preparing lunch.

Another single dad asked me to look after his boys last weekend as he zoomed off to the airport for a trip to Australia, leaving us at an indoor trampoline park in Acton. I am fond of his children – and him. But it all got too much when one of the boys lost his shoes – after one hour of searching high and low, I had to walk him back to my car in just his grippy socks. Meanwhile, once back at my flat, the beautiful ex-wife couldn’t pick them up for hours as she was on a date on the other side of town – then stuck in “tons and tons of traffic”. I found myself waiting by the window while the children wreaked havoc, staring at every car, praying it was hers.

Then there are the single dads who always have to make an urgent phone call, leaving me with all the children in the playground. All I can see is a baseball cap bobbing up and down in faraway hedgerows and an ear glued to the phone. Worse is when there is a work emergency – it’s funny how these never arise with my mum friends. And, while I sympathise with the juggle – which is part of the attraction of a single dad for me – I sometimes wonder if he’s just gone home to watch a movie.

If you don’t have children yourself, then single dads can come with another problem. The US author Ellie Slott Fisher, who has written several guides to dating including Dating for Dads, and Mum, There’s a Man in the Kitchen and He’s Wearing Your Robe, says that one of the big issues that can arise in such situations is rivalry. “Single childless women may look at a single dad as nurturing and responsible, finding the fact that he is a father to add to his attraction. But they don’t want to compete with his children, especially ‘daddy’s little girl’.” When a single woman dates a father, she is unquestioningly dating his offspring too, she argues. “It requires her to lavish attention and compassion on his children. Not only are the children acutely aware of this, but so is their dad.” Yet, if a woman does have children, then single dads are likely to find them particularly appealing. “These men assume that these women, by virtue of being parents themselves, will show more interest in their children,” she argues.

Not that this means it’s always plain sailing. Toby*, 42, a London-based IT consultant with two sons aged five and eight, claims he’s never been hit on because he’s a single dad. “It’s not the children’s fault, but it’s not a good situation for anybody if you and your new partner end up spending all your free time with your children,” he says. At a party, he says he will come straight out with the fact he’s a single dad to a prospective girlfriend. “It’s initially off-putting to them,” he says. “They can’t handle it.” Should they become open to it, they tend to “fall in love” with his offspring, a problem opposite to the one identified by Fisher, which is problematic when they split up as she misses them terribly. “Usually it ends because she wants her own children and I don’t want more,” he admits.

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Of course, for some women becoming a stepmum is their last chance for a family. One in five British women now reach the age of 45 without having their own children. Saskia*, 53, a Russian-born photographer living in London, says part of the attraction of her first husband was that he was a single dad and she wasn’t sure she’d ever have her own children, or if he’d even want more – she was over 40 and she’d had four failed IVF cycles with another partner.

“If I see a man is nice to his children, I automatically assume that he will be nice to me,” she says. “Since I was 19, I’ve had single dad boyfriends.” But “a big pull” for her mid-life, she says, was becoming a stepmum and having a family.

“I helped him raise his two daughters – they were aged six and nine.” She was desperate to have her own children, but this was “the second best”. When he left her six years later, she met another single dad – with a six-month-old baby.

“We had his baby son twice a week,” she says. But just over a year later, she got pregnant naturally – their son is now eight.

“I still go on holiday with all my stepkids,” says Saskia. “They will always see me as family.” Matchmaker Ryan has had plenty of scenarios of women telling her they would like to be matched with a man who has children because “either women can’t have children naturally... or it can come down to having a successful career, feeling they don’t want the lifestyle of having a newborn, or energetically they don’t feel available to do it”.

“There are many women who just don’t want their own children but like the idea of having a big family with a future partner.”

Of course, many happy couples who have taken on each other’s kids are joyfully happy. The rise of the blended family is surely a good thing for the children too, in some instances – an estimated one in three families (around 1.1m children in England and Wales) live in a blended step-family. But surely you’d need a very big house?

It’s true single-parent dating apps take the stress out of normal dating – you don’t have to worry about being ghosted when you say you have children. But I think I’m going to leave it to fate and take the labels – including single parent – out of dating. As the saying goes, love happens when you are least looking for it.

*Names changed