Host: Do single parents with kids have to meet other singles with kids?

Gloria Macdonald: Lots of single parents tell me when they are starting to get out there and date again that they only want to meet someone else who has children because they feel that that's the only person who could ever possibly understand their crazy, busy lives and their commitment to their kids and then I have other people who tell me, "I have got a child or I have got a couple of children and I don't want to meet someone who has children because I don't want to have to blend families.

"I highly recommend that you stay totally open minded because you just don't know what might work for your situation. I have a couple who's married today, he came to me through my dating service and he had two teenage daughters, early teen, say 13-14 and he was absolutely positively convinced that he could meet a woman who had children because that would be the only woman who would ever understand him and his daughters.

This was so important to him. I remember spending a long time on the phone talking him into meeting this woman who didn't have any children, but I knew that she had wanted to have kids. It just never happened for her and I just sense that she would be incredibly nurturing and understanding of his situation and his daughters. Well, he finally, finally, finally decided to meet her and they are married today and incredibly happy.

I thought that actually happened on numerous occasions. So, you need to be as open as possible because it is already challenging enough to try to bring to someone else into your family when you have kids so don't limit yourself. Be open, there might be an incredible human being, a man or a woman who doesn't have children, who loves kids who would be fantastic with your children or it could be that there is someone who has children who will fit perfectly into a blended family. You just don't know, don't cut yourself off, don't be limited.