An old friend of mine called me up recently and told me about her latest man drama. Jasmine* is the type of person who doesn’t take crap from anyone, so when she shared her story, I was shocked. Anywho, she recently met a nice guy named Dorian who treated her better than any man she’d ever dated. She was really digging him. As they got to know each other, they eventually came across the subject of children. To her strong dismay, she discovered that he had not one, not two, not even three, but FIVE little ones roaming the planet.
She was disappointed, but decided that it wasn’t so bad. Plus she has a son of her own, so she didn’t want to pass judgment. That is, until he dropped the biggest bomb since the ones unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were dropped: not only did he have five kids, but by four different women. Hold up, pause! Four baby mothers?
After she finished checking the wax in her ears, it became clear that he was serious. Despite her hesitation, Jasmine decided to still give him a try. He was a sweet guy after all. Fast forward a few dates and they’re chilling at his house. Next thing she knew, their movie was being interrupted by the sound of a loud-mouthed woman hollering Dorian’s name. They both ran to the window and were met with the sight of bricks busting through his car windows, tire-slashing and keys running along his passenger side door. It took her a few seconds to realize what was going on, but once it registered, everything was clear: Dorian, while a nice guy, simply had a bad case (maybe terrible) of baby momma drama.
To my surprise, she went out with him again. She said he explained the situation and apologized that it happened, claiming it wouldn’t go down again. Yeah, okay. Well, on their way back to his place after catching a flick one Saturday evening, his phone kept blowing up. It rang and rang, but he would not answer. She asked who it was, and he told her that it was two of his kids’ mothers. Jasmine insisted that he answer because it could’ve been an emergency, but he told her it wasn’t and not to worry about it. That didn’t stop his phone from ringing though, and she could tell that he was beyond annoyed. It got to a point where he just turned his phone off.
Next thing she knew, they’d pulled up to his house and who do they see? None other than his baby mother (a different one) standing on his front porch with two kids hanging from her limbs. She didn’t even speak. As soon as she saw him pull up, she hopped in her black Accord and sped off, leaving the poor babies standing on the porch in a daze and Dorian mad as hell. Jas knew then that it was time to leave him alone, and she claims that she hasn’t called him since.
Her story just made me think, is it possible for a man to have a few kids by different women without there being drama involved? I thought about all the men I know who have more than one child by a different woman, and for the most part, their situations have all been pretty hectic and stressful for all parties involved at certain points in time. There have been instances of violence, restraining orders, custody battles—just plain ‘ol drama. Drama, drama, drama, drama and more unnecessary drama (even for my guy friends with just one kid).
I came to the conclusion that when you’re dealing with a man carrying a load like this, you are probably going to experience some type of stress. If you’re lucky, if might not be frequent and in some rare cases (if all of the women involved are completely mature and the man is doing what he needs to do to take care of his children), you might not experience problems at all. But you better believe that in most cases, something is going to pop off, especially if your man is still tipping with one—or more—of the mothers of his children (which was likely the case with Dorian and baby mother number one).
And what makes matters worse is that there is always the possibility of your man impregnating one—or more—of these women—again! It happens all the time. He swings by the house to drop off the kids and ends up picking up their mother. Now I’m not saying that things can’t work between you and your man if he has a bunch of kids with multiple women, because as I said, some situations are headache free (look at T.I. and Tiny; at least their situation seems peaceful), but good luck with that. I just couldn’t do it. And I’m pretty sure Jasmine would tell you that it’s not worth the hassle either…
