# Parents Without Partners



## thesedays (Feb 25, 2011)

I never had kids, but I'm curious if anyone here has ever participated in this organization. I don't hear much about it any more; once in a while, they'll have an event listed in our newspaper's community calendar and that's about it.

I remember some people who participated in it in the 1960s and 1970s, when single parenting was not as common as it is now. People I've known who investigated it more recently have told me to a person that it is NOT the wonderful organization some people have said it is; in short, they have said, "If you ever become a single parent, regardless of why, AVOID PWP like the plague."

Here are a few anecdotes that come to mind.

One woman told me, "Parents Without Partners is a meat market. It is worse than a bar."

Another said she went to a meeting shortly after her divorce, ca. 1980, and the first thing the women there asked her was, "Where's your kids?" She replied, "With their father" and their attitude was basically :yuck:, to which she said, "Our marriage didn't work out, but he's a good father and the kids really enjoy spending time with him." She didn't feel welcome and never went back.

It also appears that widow(er)s and fathers with custody are not welcome either. 

These accounts often said that the men there were usually married and came there because they assumed (often correctly) that the women there were easy sexual marks. 

Anyone else have some input?


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## brewswain (Dec 31, 2006)

When I was about 40, about 20 years ago, a friend suggested that we should go there and see if there were any wimmen. We went and decided that they should name it Grandparents without partners or even great grandparents without partners. They were ALL old people. I never went back


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## thesedays (Feb 25, 2011)

brewswain said:


> When I was about 40, about 20 years ago, a friend suggested that we should go there and see if there were any wimmen. We went and decided that they should name it Grandparents without partners or even great grandparents without partners. They were ALL old people. I never went back


Interesting. They were probably people who attended back in the day, and stayed friends over the years.


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## oneraddad (Jul 20, 2010)

I'm looking for meeting times for my local chapter


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## summerdaze (Jun 11, 2009)

I was an active member for a few years back in the 90's, and had really positive fun times for the most part. I made several female friends there, and we'd call each other to see if we were going to a certain function. 
There are strictly adult nights out, such as dancing and such, but I didn't do too many of those. I much preferred the family outings. The kids (no matter how many you had) were free, so you just had to pay for yourself. I knew several men who had custody of their children, and they were excepted just like anyone else. We went to dinner, movies, zoo trips, hiking, skating, bowling, and lots of other activities. If was fun for the kids to hang out with other kids from PWP. 

Sometimes stuff like this is just what you make of it. If you want fun, cheap, activities that you can do with your kids, you might enjoy it. 

In my chapter, MOST of the people were in their 30's, with a few in their 20's, and a few in their 40's (mostly men that were older)


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## mtj999 (Mar 30, 2021)

..."Interesting. They were probably people who attended back in the day, and stayed friends over the years."
Yes, in the 90s I joined because I had sons (8&10) that I wanted to experience camping and be able to make friends they could see again the next time they organized a campout (PWP#67 Anaheim/Fullerton). Being an organization started in the 60s?, the volunteers tended to be the older[60+] empty-nesters and they had 'Night-out mixers' [not my thing]. It allowed me to take my boys camping where they would have age appropriate entertainment Went south when the oldest got a girlfriend out of it and his brother was left high and dry ;-)... then SHE later stood him up ["sick"] and he found she was instead out with some other boy (I argued SHE WAS DOING WHAT SHE [and he] SHOULD BE DOING... DATING!). The problem was that SHE didn't want HIM DATING (6'2 and a champion swimmer (Long Beach Poly HS record holder which already had multiple OLYPIC GOLD MEDAL WINNERS! His summer beach lifegaurd job had girls, and their mothers, suggesting he date their daughters, and was a $10/hr summer beach job [while his friends were making $3 at McD's!].


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## Macrocarpus (Jan 30, 2018)

LOL; reminds me of what a fellow told me of his church singles group. "A meat market for singles".


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