E-Mail This Article to a Friend Both sides now Think it’s hard dating someone with kids? Try being one of the kids. BY KRIS FRIESWICK

WHEN I WAS young, single, and more clueless than I am now, I briefly lived with a man who had children from his first marriage. Of all the memories from that short and ill-fated relationship, one lingers still: the look on the faces of my boyfriend’s two young sons when it dawned on them that I was going to be taking over the side of their father’s bed where their mom used to sleep. If you’ve ever gotten the evil eye from a toddler, you know why that memory burns forevermore.

As adorable as they were, his sons made it clear on a near-daily basis that they hated me — not because of what I’d done or hadn’t done, but because of who I wasn’t: their mother. I thought that over time my vivacious personality, aptitude with Legos, and willingness to serve dessert before dinner would endear me to them. It didn’t.

As anyone who has ever had a significant other with kids can tell you, sometimes the biggest obstacle in a relationship is the small person wearing footy pajamas. It comes with the territory. No child ever gets over the fact that his or her parents aren’t together, and time does not heal that particular wound. They may learn to hide their disappointment, but children always harbor some disdain for anyone sleeping with Mom or Dad who didn’t provide the other half of their DNA. And they can make it very, very unpleasant to be in a relationship with one of their parents. Their arsenal includes the silent treatment, whining, neediness, disrespect, and outright hostility — and any combination of this powerful weaponry, when deployed consistently, can derail even the best love affairs.

But no matter how many times you’ve experienced "lover’s child" syndrome, I challenge you not to become this hateful little creature the moment your own parents start playing the field. Self-knowledge, maturity, and compassion go straight out the window as soon as you’re confronted with the mental image of your parent getting naked with someone who is not your other parent (frankly, the mental image is a little creepy even when it is your other parent).

I myself am the proud owner of my very own set of footy pajamas. My father has been on the market for years, ever since my mother died. Obviously, I have no delusions that they will reunite — not on this plane of existence, anyway. But that in no way affects my level of disdain for anyone he happens to be dating. To me, each new girlfriend is just a reminder that he’s gotten over the love of his life — or my mother, at any rate. He has moved on. I (if you haven’t picked up on this yet) have not. How dare he ever be happy again?

Fortunately, my father is a one-woman guy, and he tends to stay in relationships for a long time, so we haven’t had to deal with too many new sets of slippers parked by his sofa. And, to date, none of them has been younger than I, or sporting fake boobs. You’d think, considering that my mom has been gone for 13 years, that I’d be a little more accepting of the women he brings into our lives. You’d think I’d be thrilled that he is out there, living it up, finding a companion. But I’m not.

Like a young child, I’m unable to stop myself from comparing "then" and "now." The time I spend with my father and his new woman is an examination of how far in the past my mother’s memory dwells. Is he happier than he was with my mother? Is he more affectionate with the new girlfriend than he was with my mother? Is he buying her more presents? More flowers? Is that a new pair of pants he has on? Has he lost weight? The only real difference between me and my ex-boyfriend’s little boys is that I don’t throw Cheerios.

Thirteen years is a long time to hang on to a ghost, and if there were ever a child who should cut the new girlfriend some slack, I am she. Having been on the other side of this particular fence, I know exactly how this woman feels about my siblings and me: she doesn’t. We are grown adults. We do not affect her life in the slightest. We are nice and polite, and we don’t throw tantrums. That’s one of the few benefits of dating people with older children (although my friend Karen has some horror stories — including, but not limited to, having her wedding vociferously boycotted by her new husband’s grown daughter).

I should be thrilled with my father’s choice. She’s nice, respectful of my siblings, and has broadened my father’s life in ways that I long thought impossible. They are a good match. All in all, there is absolutely no reason why I shouldn’t be very happy. Sometimes, part of me is. There’s still a very large part, though, that hates it. That part is sad to see how far my father has moved on. But he has, so why can’t I?

In my little child’s mind, and the mind of every child whose parents aren’t together, the day we accept the new lover is the day we betray our other parent, or our other parent’s memory. It’s the day we accept that things will never be the way they were.

It may be pathetic, but it’s a fact of life. The child in us is far too willful to be tucked into bed by simple logic and experience. We are, first and foremost, the children of our parents. It is imprinted on us forever, for better or worse. Everything else is some foreign variation on the original, against which we will always chafe.

Kris Frieswick can be reached at krisfrieswick@verizon.net