It’s a new year and I always take the end of the old one to spend some time reflecting on what went right, what went wrong, and what I’d like to do differently on what seems to me always to be the blank slate of the new year in front of me.
As I did my annual self-evaluation this week, I concluded at the end of the session that the past three years had marked a significant change in my life. I ended a nearly 20 year marriage and through a series of regrettable choices on my part and some help from an ailing economy, suddenly found myself to be what feels like a world away from my two wonderful daughters.
I wish I could say that the past three years have removed all of my personal shortcomings, but they haven’t. They have been the toughest years of my life, but I’ve also learned a great deal about what it takes to really be a father now that my kids don’t live down the hall, ready to come running each time I raise my voice.
When I bought my eldest home from the hospital I remember my ex and I putting her in the middle of the floor in her car seat. It was the cold of winter and she was bundled in snuggly fleece from head to toe—only her eyes--and mouth—stuffed with a binky—exposed to the chill of our small apartment.
“What do we do NOW?”, wailed my ex, an intelligent and forceful woman in all other areas of her life. I may not have cried but I felt the same way inside—helpless, and frightened, and incompetent. “They don’t send you home from the hospital with an Owner’s Manual,” my Dad once said while lamenting one of his own parenting shortcomings. The weight of that offhand remark suddenly came crashing down on me.
Sixteen years later I found myself in an equally frightening predicament three time zones away from my children—this time with no one automatically stepping up to share the burden. Over time I have had to re-learn how to be a Dad through the filter of distance, divorce and some daunting personal changes. I’ve often wondered if there were other men out there in my same predicament. Surely more than a few of us face the same challenge of trying to be the best fathers we can be, and better people than we used to be, far away from our children.
This blog is an attempt to pass on to those of you in my situation some of the things I’ve learned over time—often at the price of great heartache and expense. My intention is to pass on things that any dad in this situation might encounter regardless of where he lives, socio-economic background, race, religion, etc.
My intention is also not to use this as a forum to crack on my ex despite the acrimony between us that continues to confound me. There are lots of places where men vent on the mothers of their children, the “unfair” disposition of the judicial system towards mothers in matters of child support and custody, etc. This is not one of them.
I’m not a shrink, an attorney, or a father’s rights activist—although I respect many of the contributions of each of those groups. I’m just a Dad who will never, ever give up on being a father to my kids. I hope this blog gives you some information that will help you build your resolve to do the same. I hope it offers you some practical solutions to the problems all of us in this situation probably deal with in one way or another. Like they say, “Take what you can, and leave the rest.”
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