Vixen Manual - Karrine Steffans [14]
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This isn’t to say that independence has no value. There’s worldbound independence, where you are able to hold your ground professionally just as much as a man. That’s fine when you’re on the phone handling business or brokering major deals. When your man walks through the door, however, there’s a softer, more homebound independence that you can show. It means you know how to cook and clean, and you don’t need someone like his mother (or your mother) showing you how to do so. You can do laundry without turning his whites pink. He can relax in knowing that his woman has mastered their domestic terrain. Just don’t look up and find yourself lonely because you were trying to be too worldbound and dominant at home.
Men need to plant flags and claim a place of their own in the world. If you make him feel there’s no claim he can stake with you in your world, he will move on to a woman who’s more open and accommodating.
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Recap
The thing about independence is that too much of it can be a bad thing.
Be careful how you present your independence.
Don’t be afraid or ashamed to play the helpless damsel on occasion and let your man take care of you.
Don’t look up and find yourself lonely because you were trying to be too worldbound and dominant at home.
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Chapter Six
The Single Mother
Dating as a single mother has to be one of the trickiest forms of dating. There is so much to consider and so many pitfalls to negotiate.
First off, there’s always the underlying guilt of leaving your child for a night out with some guy you may or may not like. The whole time you’re on the date, you’re wondering if your little one has awakened during the night and is wondering where his mommy is. You feel as if you’re doing something wrong, as if you’re choosing this man you’re out with over your child. While that hopefully isn’t the case, what it means is that you have to be strategic about introducing the element of dating into the secure world you’ve created for you and your child.
As a rule, dating should happen only after your child’s bedtime and before he or she wakes up. That’s when you should plan to have the sitter on hand. Your child should never even see the sitter in the initial stages of your dates. In my case, my son would be in bed by 8:00 p.m. I always scheduled my dates for 9:00 p.m. and would have my sitter arrive shortly before. In the event I thought I’d found the love of my life (insert chuckle here) and wanted to stay out overnight, I made sure to return before my son awoke. Even during my dating frenzy, I believed my sitter should never be the one to rouse my son out of bed, prepare his breakfast, get him ready for school, or anything else. I never wanted him to see the sitter come or go, especially when he reached school age. At that point, his sensitivity heightened as he became more cognizant of my actions and our schedule as a family. Everything I did, if not properly handled, had the potential to become detrimental to his feelings and behavior. I don’t believe your children, during their young, formative years, should ever see you leaving for or coming back from dates. Your departures can be traumatic for young children as it is. If they see you leaving for a date, it may seem as though you’re picking someone else over them. If they never see it happen, then they never even know you were out and won’t be impacted by it.
Despite knowing this, there was still a time when I was so sure I had found the man I’d spend the rest of my life with and, without thinking, allowed him and our relationship to take precedence over my better judgment and my responsibilities as a mother and the figurehead in my young son’s life. I lost myself in the moments of excitement brought about by his private jets and fancy red-carpet events. Like many of us, I felt I wanted to be more than just a mom. I wanted to enjoy life and find my own identity, one that was not attached to the PTA and play dates. On paper, the theory looked solid, but in actuality, by the time my son