Not everyone should have children or even wants children or is able to have children. That’s okay. However, I am a package deal. I have children, several, and it ain’t easy. Even if I don’t have my own children around at times, I have other people’s children. It is a rare occasion to be alone anywhere in this apartment. I realize it is a hard thing for anyone to take, to understand or to even consider being part of. It’s my life. It is what I do. It is a part of who I am. I don’t hold anything against anyone who wants no part of me or my brood.

I don’t expect anyone to walk into my life and become utterly taken with my kids. I don’t expect a man to be in wonder over the wonders God gave me. Half the time I stand right in the center of it all and wonder what the heck I am doing here. My kids are unusual and unique and strange and interesting. They make me a crazy a lot of the time, yet, they are the most interesting people I have ever known. I am sure they will have conniption fits over me writing this if ever they bothered to read it.

Recently, the unexpected happened. A man came back into my life and met them for the first time. He has no children. It made me a bit nervous as other parents can scare me enough, but those who have no wild things of their own, make me wary...especially meeting my brood.

“They’re amazing! I love your girls!” Wow. That threw me completely. He saw what I see. He saw their fieriness, their passion, their intelligence and their picture of the world they live in. It amazed me because a lot of people do not see that right away.

I get nervous at the thought of most men meeting my children. It is one of the reasons that I rarely introduce them. It isn’t because I find my children so distasteful—I truly don’t. I find them to be extraordinary. I just know not everyone will see it that way. The funny thing is, they are an awful lot like me.

“They are you! I see you in them.” That’s what he said. I appreciate that thought very much.

It isn’t easy being a single mother or father dating in this life. It never is a choice of just what I want. Decisions are never only about me and the focus of a relationship cannot be solely on that relationship but instead on every person involved or affected by the relationship. There are a lot of people who cannot understand this and there are just as many who do not want to be involved in that. I’m okay with that, as long as I find out in the beginning.

I don’t really care if someone has children or not, just don’t expect me to throw mine away. Nor do I want someone to date me based on how my pretty my feet are. There is much more to me than that.

Monika M. Basile