I grew up in a single parent home. My mom dated and periodically had long-term boyfriends. We liked some. We could have done without others. My dad’s love life was a bit more remote, and he quickly met and married my step-mom. Happily, she was a keeper. But it was a different time, and I think how the kids felt about the situation was low on the list of considerations.

It’s different now. I have single parent friends who gave up dating until their kids were teens. Some of them dated furtively until they were sure it was an important relationship, worried that if their kids met someone and then lost that person to a break-up, it would be another loss that would mark the child and his or her future ability to have healthy relationships.

Darling Son was 14 when I first dated, and I told him I was dating from the start. The man I dated for 5 months had a son the same age. But he didn’t tell his kid he was dating. It was this hidden thing. I don’t know why. At that age, kids are pretty much done with their parents, anyway. We can say very little of interest, and our decisions are usually bogus. My son’s first comment when I told him I was dating this guy, and that he had a son the same age was, “Oh, God! Step-siblings!” Which was guffaw inducing. In talking to his own shrink, my son said his biggest concern was having to be obedient to another adult. As if he is obedient to his existing parents at all.

I’ve been seeing Mr. Right Now for over a year now. He and my son get on great. He views his role in my child’s life as the person who should introduce him to things like George Carlin’s Seven Words You Can’t Say on Radio or TV, fart jokes, and double entendres related to sex. It’s like having two teenage boys at the dinner table sometimes.

I think Mr. Right Now will be in my life forever. If not as a romantic interest, as part of my extended family. I’m not worried about his impact on my son — other than his penchant for teaching him tasteless jokes that Darling Son can then share with my brother.

I know people who trade partners regularly, for whom a long term relationship is a few months’ duration. I suppose someone could earn a Ph.D. based on the impact that transient romantic relationships of parents has on a child’s future.

Mr. Right Now has a daughter who has been close to girlfriends he had in the past, and she seems perfectly normal — if a tweenager is ever “normal”. I’m another friend to her. And friends do sometimes come and go.

I don’t know if there is a right way to parent while dating and date while parenting. I think my son is enriched by this relationship. I think Mr. Right Now is, too.

I’m curious about the long term impact on kids. Anyone out there date through their children’s adolescence, chime in. How did dating impact your children? Did they ever tell you that you did it wrong? Or should have done it differently?