Timing Is All
For Neal, the challenge hasn't been finding men. Between friends and kindred soccer fans she meets through the two local teams she plays on, "Everyone was trying to match me up with eligible men," says Neal, who is now involved in a serious relationship. "But I was in no rush to find a husband. I was finally focused on my needs, my career, and my friends and family, and it was a good place to be."

What she has rushed in the past -- and regrets -- is bringing a boyfriend into the picture too soon. Shortly after Neal's divorce in 2002, she got so serious about one man that she introduced him to her daughter just after the six-month mark. "I thought, Wow, I'm going to marry this guy," Neal recalls. When things didn't work out several months later, her daughter asked what had happened to the old boyfriend and why he no longer came around, which pained Neal greatly. "It's a Catch-22. You want things to feel serious enough with a man for you to introduce him to your child. The fact is, he can't know who you are as a person until he knows you as a mother. But you don't want to introduce your child to men with whom you have no future." Neal's new boyfriend, whom she has been dating about 8 months, has met her daughter, but "I waited till it felt right; I've found that it's different with every person and every relationship."

And there are other reasons to be cautious about exposing your kids to your men, and vice versa. When 34-year-old Monica Landers got divorced, her son Charlie was only 12 months old. At first, she let dates meet Charlie early on, accompanying the two of them to the park or dropping by their Austin, Texas, home. "I quickly realized that was a bad idea," she says. "Non-fathers felt like they had to show off their parenting abilities. One guy corrected Charlie's way of reading, which I thought was totally inappropriate. After that, I realized that those situations forced us into this pretend 'playing house' scenario -- not the best way to date."