Beware The Inflated Hype Of Dating The Single 'Superdad'

Men with children are booming in popularity on dating apps. But for single mum Charlotte Cripps their appeal is a trap

- Charlotte Cripps

Date a single dad? No, thank you. I don’t see the appeal. Of course, getting together with a “superdad” has crossed my mind. I’m a single mum of two girls, Lola, seven, and Liberty, five, and the last time I tried to date a man who didn’t have children, he ran out of my flat exhausted to watch the football in the pub. I haven’t heard from him in two years since a follow-up trip to a small petting zoo in Battersea. But I find many single dads even worse. The only perk I can see to dating them is splitting the babysitter at £15 per hour for a night out.

Yet according to a recent survey, men who already have children from a former partnership are like catnip on dating sites. Dating site Zoosk found that single dads receive 22 per cent more first messages than men without children, which suggests that women are actively seeking them out. Given that a staggering 83 per cent of single women say they would be willing to date a single dad, according to the report, the huge popularity of this demographic is evident, but what is interesting is the assumptions that single heterosexual women are making.

“Single dads are stated to be so attractive to single women because there is an association that they are responsible, nurturing and can prioritise those who are most important to them,” says Sarah Louise Ryan, the dating and relationship expert for Even – a new dating app for single parents. Meanwhile, a survey undertaken by Perspectus Global in May 2023 revealed that nearly a quarter of people believed that single parents have the qualities they tend to look for in a potential partner, such as “independence, reliability, and selflessness”, while almost two-thirds (63 per cent) of Brits looking to date are happy to look beyond the single-parent label.