Am I Not Entitled to My Preference

I recently made a statement that since being in Augusta, I have yet to find a man who was "single, childless, had himself together and someone that I wanted to know/date." Many female friends commented and lamented my situation with me as they themselves had been subject to similar situations. However, a guy with whom I have been close was very irate by this statement proceeding to call me "close-minded, immature and naive." He proceeded to tell me that having a child is a gift from God (I agree) and how selfish I was being to put all men who have children in a category of being shit because they had a life before me. Needless to say,a I was shocked because that was not the intent of my statement. Let me clarify; I don't have a thing against children, or men with children, but I would prefer not to involve myself with them. Now don't get me wrong, that has been all that I have met since moving here, so my options as far as dating goes have had to be a little more open. But, I don't have any children and right now I am still up in the air about whether or not I want to bring a life into this wild and crazy world. Growing up was chaotic to say the least and I feel subjecting a child to unhappiness, abuse and confusion is something that I as a mother should never do, and I am fearful to fail in that area. I also have been hesitant to date a man with children because that requires a lot of time and commitment on my part; I not only have to share getting to know this man with his busy schedule, but also his child(ren) and therein lies a conflict; getting to know me or taking his child to the zoo etc. What kind of person would I be to have feelings of jealousy towards a child? They automatically come first and I must in turn be content with the time he has available to offer.  In addition to that, there is a high probability of baby mama drama, and I'm a lover, not a fighter; no time for all that mess. Thirdly, what do you do when you become attached to the child and then things don't work out? Now you have a little child who doesn't understand why you are no longer a part of their lives and  how is that fair? So how does this make me a naive, or immature person to want to be with someone who is similar to myself? Is my choice to not involve myself with kids make me a selfish and immature person, must I lower my standards or reconfigure my preferences because you brought a child into this world? No I am not punishing you, but am I not punishing myself by engaging in something I don't care to do? Call me selfish, call me naive. Hell, I will be immature; if doing what makes me happy and not settling for something that won't is a problem, I guess that it is what it is. Keep in mind that just because it is a preference, it does not mean that it is an ultimatum. That's the funny thing with life, we start out wanting one thing, but we may end up wanting another or something completely different. Preferences are just options, ideas of what we want or would care to have, but it doesn't mean we can't step outside the box every now and then...