I wonder how many men on here had single mothers or lived in matriarchal households.
I did.
Anyone else?
Here's my take on this. When I'm referring to single mothers I'm mostly referring to women who had a child out of wedlock and where the father has little to no involvement with the child's life. A good example would be what you've commonly seen with black people over the last several decades.
With that said, I believe there is a very big difference between what I mentioned above with say a woman that was married, had children and got divorced. Women in this bracket are typically receiving child support from the father. They also are going to typically be much older, as in 30+, and really not in the dating bracket of a young man.
I believe that you'll notice some very key differences between these groups. The first group usually consists of women who had their first child very young. Chances are she is from a more lower class background, has lower levels of education, etc. I've noticed many women in this category are a bit trashy and the fathers of their children are also often from very bad backgrounds. I've seen a lot of these women reproduce with drug addicts, criminal types and just losers in general lol.
The divorced women are in a totally different bracket. The fact that these women got married is already a much better sign compared to the previous example, it's just that they may have gotten into a marriage that did not work out for a multitude of reasons. You are much less likely to find the behavior in the previous example with women like this.
I believe that a young, or at least relatively young, man should be looking for women that are single and childless. A guy that is 34 could still realistically date a woman that is as young as 24-25, and many of these women are still single in this age range. The issue with dating women that already have children is that you will always come second to her children, which is natural on her end. However, the problem is that you are in a situation like this with children that are NOT your own, which I believe can result in some animosity/jealousy developing.
One way I could see a relationship with a single mom working out is if you already had children of your own. Say you are 42, had a kid or two with another woman that you divorced. At this age, you are realistically going to be dating women that are at least 30, so if you were to find a woman that was divorced with kids I believe it could work out, as you've already reproduced and have your own.