Clive Taylor: Why I’ll never date a woman with children again

Recently I went on a second date with a woman I found seriously attractive.

Tall, slim and blonde — and a partner in a law firm, meaning she was both intelligent and solvent.

She was also the mother of two teenage boys, which at the time I didn’t think twice about. I’ve got two girls myself, aged 23 and 22.

I planned our Saturday together carefully. A country drive and a romantic pub lunch, with plenty of time to get to know each other.

It goes without saying that I’d pick up the bill for everything, probably well into three figures, as well as buying her flowers to mark the occasion.

And, yes, I imagined that if things went well we might end the day at mine, getting to know each other in a different way.

My hopes were quickly disappointed. The evening before we were due to meet, she texted to say our leisurely drive would now include a plus one.

Her eldest needed a lift to his Saturday job at a garden centre. When we dropped him off, there was no “thank you”, just a “see you guys this afternoon”.

Afternoon? It turns out his mother had promised we’d be back at 3pm to pick him up. our day together was downsized to a quick bite to eat, with my date all too obviously watching the clock.

You might ask what makes me think single mothers are queuing up to date me anyway — I’m nudging 60 after all — but I know I’m a bit of a catch.

After playing dad taxi for the day, I decided not to ask for a third date. She wanted to be a good mum, and I respect that.

But I’ve been there and done that with my own two daughters, and now 59, I’m at that selfish stage of my life.

I want to be the priority — and that’s why I’ve decided I’ll never again date a woman with children under 16.

I know this won’t be a popular opinion. But in the eight years I’ve been single, since splitting from the mother of my two daughters in 2016, I’ve learned that dating women with children just causes more havoc than it’s worth.

And however incendiary my views might seem, I’m certainly not alone.

Recently, research from dating app Even revealed that one in six single Brits would not be open to dating a single parent because they might come with emotional baggage and messy relationships with their ex.

Many singletons also say they’re not ready to take on the caring responsibilities associated with dating a single parent — and I’m with them on that, too.

You might ask what makes me think single mothers are queuing up to date me anyway — I’m nudging 60 after all — but I know I’m a bit of a catch.

I’m tall and keep myself trim thanks to my love of extreme whitewater kayaking.

Every spring I head to the Alps to kayak the snow melt — you need a strong core and decent upper body strength.

Professionally, I own a publishing company. I have my main home in the Cotswolds as well as a cottage on Exmoor.

I earn a decent salary, just shy of six figures, and I’ve worked hard for it.

When I first started online dating eight years ago, I never dreamed of filtering out women with children.

After a string of disasters and disappointments, I can now see how very naive I was.

Many failed at the first date stage, like the woman who talked constantly about her son’s exam grades and homework, or the one who kept pulling the conversation back to her custody issues and problems with the childminder.

I want to hear about the woman sitting in front of me, not the mum she turns into when she gets home.

Another problem is endlessly having to organise around the children’s lives. Believe me, showing up late for a date because you are driving your young son around his paper round does not scream “gosh, I fancy you and want to have sex with you”.

But these issues are child’s play compared to what happens when things get more serious. one woman I dated, and genuinely liked, had an 11-year-old daughter.

When I was finally invited round for a cosy evening in, needless to say I hoped it might turn into something more.

We settled on the sofa with a glass of wine to watch a romantic film, my arm around my date’s shoulder.

Then the living room door flew open, and without asking, the daughter plonked herself down next to her mother.

Each time I attempted to touch my date’s hand or thigh, the daughter sparked up a running commentary. “Mum, he’s touching your thigh!” or “ugh, Mum, Clive’s got his arm around you.”

It felt like I was in an Attenborough wildlife documentary. My date’s half-hearted “sit down and be quiet” had zero impact.

In fairness, she did try. But the evening was a disaster and, halfway through the film, I cut loose and left.

I told them both to go before the daughter destroyed the rest of my home.

Then there was another woman, let’s call her Lexie, who had a 10-year-old daughter. Lexie seemed perfect: in her late 40s with a lovely figure and a great sense of fun.

When she invited me on holiday with them after just a few weeks of chatting online, I readily agreed. But small things quickly started to go wrong. Within the first 24 hours the keys to my hire car went missing, a few days later my passport was mysteriously found in the recycling bin.

It was as clear as day to me that her daughter was jealous of our relationship. My new girlfriend wrote the incidents off as childish mischief, telling me to ignore them.

I tried to do so — until the day, a couple of months in, when I invited Lexie (who naturally arrived with her daughter in tow) to stay in my beautiful Cotswolds cottage.

I took them out on a sightseeing trip for the day, not realising the little girl had left the shower attachment lying on the floor, still running. We returned home to find my bathroom in the kitchen.

The water had destroyed the floor and the entire bathroom had come crashing down through the ceiling. outraged, I told them both to go before the daughter destroyed the rest of my home.

On reflection, the mum had been single for a while, and no wonder. After that, I told myself I’d only date mothers of teenagers.

But older children bring their own problems. Take the time I invited the woman I’d been seeing, and her teenage daughters, to spend a weekend at my home and meet my own girls.

My daughters were horrified to have to discreetly point out to me that the children were smoking joints in my garden.

I’m a clean-living guy and very anti-drugs, so that ended that relationship. These days, I am firmly in the same camp as Sex And The City creator Candace Bushnell, who last year said in an interview that she doesn’t think single mothers should date while their children are at home.

She said: ‘There’s a big difference between somebody who’ s 40 and somebody who’s 55 and is postmenopausal and their kids are grown and moved out.

“If you’re in your 40s, single and with kids at home, I don’t think dating is a good idea.

“Instead, I think it’s about taking care of yourself and understanding that you’re responsible for your own happiness.

“It’s not about falling into this myth of an idea that a relationship will make your life work.”

Hear, hear. Sex And The City was great fun. But the characters I adore, Samantha Jones and Carrie Bradshaw, were independent with no strings attached.

Whereas women with dependants will always need to put them first.

And while I’d do anything for my own daughters, looking after someone else’s is a very different proposition.

I met my ex at a tennis club party when I was 30. We were together for 22 years, and when the girls came along I was hands on with everything from nappies and night feeds to being a fully paid-up “taxi dad”.

I played badminton with one daughter and went running with the other.

But their mother and I drifted apart, and when the girls were aged 16 and 15, we split up.

I’m afraid I quickly discovered that I was one of those guys who is not very good at being single.

I got a cat, but after a busy work day or weekend of kayaking I missed having someone to come home to.

Within a matter of months I joined a dating website. Because my ex had custody, I was able to keep dad duties and my love life very separate. I knew my daughters might resent a new woman in my life, and I was very careful who I introduced them to.

Some might point out that just like the single mothers of teens I believe shouldn’t date, I was also a single parent of teens — and yet very keen to date.

As unfair as it sounds, because the children lived with their mother, I was free to date.

Yes, that sounds like there is one rule for men, and another for women. What can I say? Guilty as charged.

My eldest daughter is now 23 and studying to be a doctor, while the youngest is 22 and a marketing executive. I’m beyond proud that my daughters are mature, happy and well-balanced individuals.

But I know all too well that younger children can, at times, be a real handful. Yes, you love them, but that doesn’t mean you always like their behaviour.

So why do women with full responsibility for young children bother to date at all?

There’ll no doubt be an outcry but trust me when I say that many women with kids really do have their radar set for well-off men. Sometimes it’s downright predatory. Far too often I’ve been asked, ‘how much do you earn?’ before we’ve even finished our first drink.

When I get together with male friends, we trade stories of our dating disasters and warn each other away from ‘gold diggers’ in the local area. We’re all genuinely afraid of being taken to the cleaners by a woman we trust, or even love.

One colleague of mine met a woman with three children under 13. She was living in a housing association flat and utterly bamboozled my friend into marrying her. They were wed within a year and, what a surprise, married for just two.

The divorce cost him a buy-to-let property, shares in his company and half his pension.

Then there was a friend who was seeing a woman with a 13-year-old who somehow managed to gain access to his bank account and withdrew thousands of pounds.

It caused him no end of grief having to extricate himself from the mother of a miniature criminal mastermind . . . who didn’t take it too kindly when he called the police. My friend had been nothing but nice to the child, even playing tennis with them (and letting them win).

While some might see my comments as sexist, I’m willing to bet my Cotswolds cottage on the fact that most single men agree with me. The difference is they wouldn’t dare say it out loud. So please don’t shoot the messenger.

As for the future, I absolutely want to meet someone to take on holiday, to spoil and enjoy romantic meals with. But do I want to fork out for her and her offspring? No.

I realise how awful and shallow this makes me sound. But I really don’t want to compete with a child for my partner’s attention, or plan our fabulous holidays and romantic dinners around the needs of a young family.

I’d like to be my partner’s priority, and I’d make her the centre of my world in return.

So I’m still looking for a woman who is solvent, tall, slim, preferably blonde, a good conversationalist . . . and yes, whose children have flown the nest.