Karin Bruckner is a single-parent expert, author, instructor, researcher and licensed psychotherapist with an expertise in such key areas as family and marital conflict, divorce and blended family issues, adolescent issues, anger management and women's issues.

One of the most consistent concerns I hear from single parents is the fear of being overlooked by nonparent singles for romance and dating.

Christy, 27, offers a typical perspective. “I’m just not as attractive to men as I was before my kids were in the picture,” she laments. “Guys have this block about it; they see me like I have this huge problem they don’t want to deal with. I’m tired of feeling like there’s something wrong with me that I can’t fix.”

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The issue here is not only the reluctance of some childless singles to get involved with single parents, but the feeling that parenthood is a liability or shortcoming, something unattractive about us that’s impossible to overcome. In fact, the opposite is true. So why is there such widespread distress about attitudes toward dating single parents?

Well, because singles without kids, do, in fact, appear to discount single parents as prospective romantic interests. Analysis of our Web site data indicates that only 32 percent of women and 33 percent of men who are single and have no children choose to include single parents in their searches for a dating partner.

As disheartening as this may sound, consider what a relief it is to know this up front. At least by using the any of the tests that make up the TRUE Compatibility Test, you aren’t wasting time and emotional energy on potential matches who aren't the best match for you.

But what’s going on behind these numbers, anyway? Why are childless singles passing up the opportunity to connect with some awesome single parents?As a researcher with a professional as well as personal investment in the issue, I couldn’t let the figures on this skewed view of single parents pass unexamined!

So along with other researches, I dug deeper into our online stats and came up with some interesting findings. It appears the dating preferences of singles without children are not a reflection on the personal attractiveness of single parents, but are most likely based on their perceptions about the demands of parenthood and the differences in the ambitions and goals of parents and nonparents.

To explore the belief that single parents are not acceptable dating choices because somehow we’re just not good enough, we took a look at what our single parent and nonparent members tell us about themselves and compared the two groups on a number of personal characteristics. It turns out that both groups have self-perceived areas of strength – strong scores in a number of related traits — and areas where they are challenged. The table below illustrates the specifics of both.

* These include traits that are generated by the experience of parenting, such as flexibility, selflessness and coping.

As you can see, single parents score higher on measures of sexuality, indicating broader sexual experience, higher libido and a stronger romantic bent, among other factors. We also score higher on a host of characteristics that support and enrich relationships — things such as trust, self-confidence, readiness to commit (yes, even the men!) and character strength.

These are very attractive traits, ones that enhance our connections with others and make us the kind of people with whom they enjoy being in love. In addition, we reap the hard-won benefits of nurturing and raising our children in the form of personal attributes such as flexibility, selflessness and coping skills. To top it all off, single parents are adept in emotional intelligence and conflict resolution skills — also likely to be the result of day-in and day-out family living. Do these sound like the characteristics of someone you’d want to avoid dating? Far from it!

For their part, singles without children rate themselves significantly higher in their ability to maintain and enhance their friendships, both as an individual and as part of a couple. They also outscore single parents in characteristics that propel them towards success – traits such as intellectualism and a focus on financial matters.

It is this difference in the areas of focus that may help explain more accurately why single nonparents feel they are not compatible with singles who have children. The typical lifestyle of single nonparents naturally lends itself to investment in friendships and professional success, whereas single parents just as naturally devote time and energy in more family-oriented directions. Most of us attend to career and friendships within the context of our dedication to raising a family.

In addition, there is the naked truth that from the other side of the fence, child-raising can appear hair-raising as a way of life. If you’ve never done it, (and if you haven’t had the opportunity to begin at the beginning with the earth-moving event of your own child’s birth) spending day and night putting the needs of a two-year-old toddler – to say nothing of a nine-year-old whirlwind or a 14-year-old rebel – first can seem a bit daunting, if not downright unpleasant.From where they sit, it’s sometimes difficult for nonparents to see what rich rewards we reap in the space of a three-second hug or over years of a child’s development into a vital, successful young adult.

This certainly was true for Susan during most of her dating life. Never married and childless, 30-year-old Susan was well into a successful career and dated according two rules she set for herself at an early age: no divorced men, and no fathers. While she dated actively and developed a few serious relationships over the years, she never found the man with whom she could share the lifelong commitment she was seeking.

Then Susan took an impromptu out-of-town trip for a weekend visit with Deborah, her best friend from high school. There she ran into Frank, Deborah’s divorced older brother, who by chance was visiting the same weekend. The two hadn’t seen each other in four years and their reacquaintance developed far beyond a casual friendship. Even though Frank had an 11-year-old son, Susan found herself falling hard, breaking her self-imposed ban on becoming involved with a single father in the process. What helped to change her mind?

“Part of what made me fall in love with him was seeing what a great father he was,” she says. “There was all this evidence of his fatherly attributes, and that made it easier for me to trust him.” Now married to Frank and in full stepmother mode, Susan looks back on why she excluded single dads from her dating list in the first place. “I’ll be honest, it definitely was a stereotype,” she admits. “I didn’t want baggage or inflexibility in my lifestyle.”

And while these issues couldn’t stand in the way of true love, they didn’t magically evaporate either. The couple daily takes Susan’s perspective into consideration as they negotiate through the formation of a new family. “I am determined I’m not going to make too many sacrifices,” she says. The lifestyle they form together must blend the carefree spontaneity she enjoyed as a childless single with the responsibilities and structure required to put her stepson’s well being first on a regular basis.

The takeaway from this story is not only its happy ending, but the fact that Susan’s lifestyle preferences and her misunderstandings about single parenthood caused her to exclude single dads from her list of eligible partners. Her rule was not based on personality or character issues – in fact it was his fatherly traits that helped Susan to fall in love with Frank. It’s interesting that she identifies the essence of his fatherhood as a key factor in her attraction – perhaps that’s what flipped her “marriage switch” after years of dating childless men.

The fact is, while single parenthood may be suffering from an image problem when it comes to dating and romance, in reality it makes us all the more valuable as a partner. The sooner we realize and believe this about ourselves, the sooner our strengths will start to shine – and who knows how far that may take us?

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Take any of the family of free tests that make up the TRUE Compatibility Test to learn more about yourself and the kind of person who will rock your world! Try the TRUE Interests test, the TRUE Personality test, the TRUE Communication test, the TRUE Sexploration test, the TRUE Romance test and the TRUE Commitment test!