Modern Family: Dating in the New Millennium

When I was a little girl, I certainly never imagined I’d be a 52 year oldwoman with grown kids and grandkids and starting to date again. Back then I still believed in “happily ever after”.  I gave up on the fairy tale when I was a teenager. As the old Janis Ian song says, “I learned the truth at 17…” I got pregnant at 16 (never thought that would happen to me) and married my daughter’s father because that seemed like the right thing to do. I did believe, for a couple months, that somehow we’d be this happy little family, but we never even got close. I divorced him when she was two, and didn’t remarry for 10 years.

After a 21 year marriage, I got divorced again when I was 50 and my sons were 17 and 18. My daughter was 33, and she had more trouble with it than they boys did, and it wasn’t even her dad! But she was concerned about her kids, she didn’t want them to lose their grandpa. Neither did I. Even though I no longer wanted to be married to him, I saw no reason to terminate his relationship with my family, or mine with his.