They are out there. I married my wife when I was 52 and she already had 3 wonderful chilldren. Whatever you do, do not settle.

I am 64 and I have a 16-year-old daughter who lives with me. My 30-year old son is moving back home after living in California for the past decade, so this will free me up some.

Quite true. After my kids were gone to college, I refused to date men who still had children at home. No way was I going to help raise any more kids.
I was done.

I don't have kids...and whether I was 20, 30, 50, 60 dating has always been a "no-no".

BTW, I didn't and I won't date a guy with kids / grand-kids..

Women I date long enough to meet my son like him better than they like me. In a different, simpler way of course.

Worse than "similar issues". The love of my life had two sons. They did everything to wreck what we had. It didn't matter what we did they would play silly games. I asked them who would look after their mother when she got old. They never answered that question. One day after a long period of bad behavour we were sitting at the table after breakfast and made the decision to separate and divorce.

I am 50 and have a 15 year old. I am also gay and don't do church or bars. I knew it would not be easy. I posted on 3 popular sites altogether. I had to adopt an attitude that I wasn't going to hang all my hopes on being in a couple. That helped lower the sense of pressure. It took about 8 months and a couple false starts, but someone good finally found me. 3-4 months now and still promising. Hang in there.

It is not that it cannot work but in most cases it is the kids who do accept the situation, either through possesiveness or the men being more strict ! I tried it once but the kids were un-ruley and I said never again.

Yes you are right, if you have children then it is difficult finding someone. Nobody wants bagage but don't give up.

A few years back I met a lady a year or so older than myself who had a girl a year older than my daughter and a son a year younger than my son from her first marriage. All good. Downside is she had married twice. and had 3 boys more than a decade younger. They were 4,5 and 6 when I met her. We tried, we really tried. Her first husband became great friends with my son and I. The 2nd one was a total dropkick who I took to court so many times I have lost count.
Blended families just don't work for me.

Not saying it can't work, but it is hard. Dating is fine, I worked for myself at the times, repairing computer networks, mostly at night and on weekends, so my free time was during the day week days while the kids were at school. We had 3 great years of day time dating but lived an hour apart. Never weekends away or anything like that, and it all fell apart when she moved in and the middle boy of the youngest lot came as well. We split up within months, she left but left me with the boy who was by then 8, he is 23 in 3 months and still lives mostly with me.
My point?
Don't see having young children as a problem, on it's own it isn't. Keep the responsibility of the children, don't make it part of any relationship. I believe children should be well behaved and not a burden on people their parents date. Single mums have it tough and kids seem to act up more on mum than dad. I was deemed too tough, too strict yet he chose to stay with me and has little to do with either of his parents.

Now don't laugh, but I have not been in a relationship since then, and I feel part of the reason was that in my 50s, I had a 14 year old living with me. Scared the ladies off and really impacted on my free time, even impacted on my working day a bit.

I'm 50 neat. No kids, no pets, no goldfish, no wife anymore. But I wouldn't have a problem with a partner with school age kids.

Just saying.

Speaking as a 50 something father, I know it's hard to find someone who doesn't seem peeved with the time that I feel I need to devote to my kid. Somebody who doesn't understand that she isn't going to become the center of my world instantly... she isn't going to be a good fit long term anyway. I'm ready to make room in my life, but it's already pretty full, and I expect that everybody else has a pretty full life too. Texting, phone calls, those are how people get to know each other these days, and I'm ok with that. I'm okay with taking it slow.