Let’s pretend: you’re a single mom with one child—and daddy is not involved. You meet a man, you like him and now you’re engaged (however long this timeline is to you). When can he start parenting YOUR child without needing your consent

In this scenario, you can decide how old your child is. You decide if it’s a boy or girl if that really matters. I know some of you will ask about this—you decide.

Anyhow: jump to the engagement. And future husband wants to parent your child. Can he? Is this too soon? Will he ever get the opportunity to call your child “our child”?


What’s your thoughts and feelings about this.
Remember, no answer is the wrong answer.

It really depends on the person and situation. Imo I think at the beginning everything should be told to mom. But I feel like if you guys been together for over a year and seems like something serious then maybe sure he could help parent. But it’s more of how the kids look up to this man.

Depends I guess, it’s all down to you! X

Think this totally depends on the age of the child and the length of our relationship. If we were engaged we would be living together so there will be rules to follow in our home.

If he takes on the role of dad and wants to be involved and help, I see no issue. If he doesn’t engage with the child much other than to discipline then we wouldn’t be engaged much longer 🤷🏻‍♀️

When he proves himself. He should be imparting knowledge and care to both of us immediately. Nothing to do with our relationship status. If I didn’t respect him we would not progress. Start as you mean to go on.

If he doesn’t make a good parent then he should just leave it to me.

I don’t want to train him it’s going to be pretty black and white.

Either now or never.

I think discipline and major decisions would ultimately be up to the mother and have to be run by her. I also think she should have final say. Still work together as a united pair but all the big things up to mom

For me, I think I would need to see something BEFORE saying yes to the engagement because if I ever was a single mom I would never want to put myself or kid in the scenario that this person does too much when I’m not around, we don’t have the same discipline style, or I think they might act funny towards my kid if we had more kids. So I’d probably say around a year of dating I’d allow it so I can make a decision early whether this is the best for us.

this hypothetical is about you. How would you handle this fake situation?

I feel like I'd want him to take on the dad role before engagement as myself and my child would be a package deal.
My stepdad helped raise me since I was 4 years old and I see him as my dad. He's been more of a dad to me than my real dad has ever been

For me, if im engaged with a child, it’s because this man has already proven to be fit and already gained my trust to parent my child.

It would be more of a time thing rather than anything but I'd want to know how he parents with me pre engagement. It'd probably be a few years dating tho

Idea probably do little steps first. Like make meals for child, I don't think I would truly trust another man to bathe my child. I also wouldn't leave child alone with this man until child can talk and speak up for themselves. You just never know who you can truly trust. He can make appointments, fold laundry, read bedtime stories, pick out bedding,little stuff like that. Like others said disciplining and major decisions should be left to bio parents, but he can suggest things to her or report "oh so and so did this today, how would you want me to approach it next time?".

I think the answer is when I start feeling comfortable? And I don’t want anybody doing too much because I’m very protective over my kids. I don’t even like when DAD disciplines them!

It depends! My grandmother met her husband when my dad was 2 and raised my dad when he was around 8 he asked if it was okay to adopt my dad because well he’s been raising him… my uncle did the same he was fully involved with his wife’s children since they were a year

I think before marriage makes sense so that you have an idea of how he will parent.

I met my boyfriend when my son was 6 months. By the time my child needed “parenting” (really just redirecting) I felt comfortable with my boyfriend doing so without me okaying it. However, I have gotten to watch my boyfriend be a dad to his two kids as well so that helped my trust with it a lot

It all comes down the the child’s age what he thinks discipline is and how you feel my dad in every relationship he’s never disciplined his step kids idk why they were all in preteen ages

Based on your scenario he can begin parenting during the engagement, if he hasn't already.

If you are planning on marrying this person, “Never. Not his kid”, shouldn’t even be an option. You and him are deciding to create y’all’s own family including that child, a unit. Not your family and this dude, that doesn’t even sound right. I’d be so sad to hear someone I want to be around forever not look at my child as there’s after a while, and it will get so awkward if y’all had one together. Now when they go to do for one are they going to say no to the other cause it’s still not their kid? Does that mean you’d never leave your child around them alone? Yikes. Even a babysitter has more say than nothing.

This is why I chose to stay single. Another man telling my child want to do makes me RAGE differently. But tbf when her dad use to tell her what to do it use to piss me off too

I think if he is happy to adopt my parenting style and knows all the house rules and boundaries, I'd be comfortable with him enforcing them.

I would only choose to date then marry someone who would be able to competently fill that role. If they aren't as amazing as my hubs now, I don't want um. And he's set the bar quite high.. so it would be unfortunate if I found myself single, because I may be single until my kids are old enough- like high school or even adults because I don't want my kids to be vulnerable while I'm in a dating state. I could have a different opinion later though, if that tragic reality happens 😥

I think he is there to support you.your the parent you have the final decision

It depends on what you mean by "discipline"?

I have a 3 year old, and if he threw a toy, I would want ANY adult in his life who witnessed this to sit him down and tell him that is not ok and what we can do with the toy instead.

Running everything like that past me before doing anything will NOT get the message across to my son that his behaviour is not ok and just sounds fudging exhausting for me.

after they build a proper bond with my child and really have become a father figure

I agree with @Hannah as far as that type of discipline since I too have a 3yr. But when it comes to older kids I feel as though we (the whole family/any adult who watches the child) have multiple conversations as to what to do in many situations.

I feel like even if you are starting a relationship you should go ahead and talk about the current discipline steps that you are taking. So that way they aren't turning to you every 5 secs for what to do. If the child did something different (like start hitting people constantly) then use grounding/toy taking the first time. Afterwards have a group convo on what you want to do about it for the future.

My partner and I are engaged and he still asks my permission to parent her. We’ve been together years and he is so cautious and respectful of me and my boundaries and my daughter. I personally think we’ve been together long enough and we have a child together so I am happy he parent both girls the same

I actually have been through this. I personally need to see that in action before I commit to marriage. It’s one of the pit falls of being a single mom. You have to test the compatibility not only with yourself but your children.