Module 11 · What You Reach For · Lesson 2 of 2
Coming back after you were gone
Jail, addiction, another state, or just years of being somewhere else. Reentry into a child’s life has rules, and almost nobody gets told them.
Module 11 of 12
By the end of this lesson
- Write the plain sentence about the absence, under thirty words
- Set a commitment small enough to hit fifteen times running
- Write in advance what you will say the first time you miss
However it happened, there is a stretch of your child’s life you were not in. Birthdays, a first day of school, nights they were sick.
The first instinct is to explain. The reasons may even be good ones. Save them, because a child does not need the reasons yet, and giving them too early sounds like arguing.
What they need is you saying the true thing plainly. I was not there. That was not your fault. I am here now and here is what that is going to look like.
Then close your mouth and let it be uncomfortable. The discomfort is not a sign it went badly. It is the sound of something real happening.
You have played this in your head and in your version they are happy. Prepare for the other one.
Some children are cold. Some are angry. Some are polite in a way that is worse than angry. Some act like nothing happened and then fall apart three months later over something small.
All of that is normal and all of it is about the absence, not about the visit. Do not read the first meeting as the verdict. It is the first day of a long process, and there is no version of this where it is settled quickly.
Your job is to not disappear again when it is awkward. That is the whole test, and children administer it deliberately, and they should.
Do not try to buy back the years. The trip, the gifts, the big weekend. Those are for you, and children can feel that, even when they enjoy them.
Promise small and hit it. Every Tuesday at six, a call. Every other Saturday, two hours. Then do it fifteen times in a row without a single miss.
Fifteen in a row is worth more than any conversation you could ever have with them about how much you love them. Trust is not rebuilt by explanation. It is rebuilt by a pattern that holds under conditions where it would be easy to break it.
And when you miss one, and you will, say so before they have to ask. A missed commitment that you name yourself does far less damage than one you let sit.
The mother, or the grandmother, or whoever held your child while you were gone, has an opinion about your return. Frequently a hard one.
Some of it is protection, and they earned the right to it. Carrying a child alone changes a person, and they are not going to hand that back because you are ready.
So expect to be tested there too, and do not take the testing as an insult. Prove it to them the same way you prove it to the child. Show up, do what you said, and let time carry the argument.
You may never get an apology or an acknowledgment from any of them. Keep going anyway. You did not come back for their approval, and if you did, you will not last.
Coming back is not a moment. It is a schedule.
The workEight questions
Three are answered in your head and never collected. They are marked, so you know before you start which is which.
Write how long you were gone and what your child was doing during that time. Their age, their grade, what was happening for them.
What do you think they were told about you.
What are you most afraid of about coming back?
- AThat they do not want me
- BThat I will do it again
- CThat the other adults will not let me near
- DThat I will not know how to be with them
Write the plain sentence you are going to say to your child about the absence. Under thirty words.
What is your plan for the first meeting?
- ASomewhere loud and busy so nobody has to talk
- BSomewhere quiet with something to do
- CGifts. I was going to bring a lot
- DI had not planned it
Who held your child while you were not there, and what do you actually owe them.
Write the commitment you are making. Day, time, and how often. Make it small enough that you can hit it fifteen times running.
Write what you will say to them the first time you miss one.
Before you arrange contact, check it against any order or condition you are under. Ask your facilitator privately if you are not certain.
DeeperThree reflections
Longer than the questions and harder. Nobody reads these but you. Write them anyway, because the ones you would not say out loud are the ones doing the damage.
- 1
Write the letter to your child about the years you were gone. The version you would only give them when they are grown.
- 2
Write about somebody who came back for you, or nobody did. Either way, write what that taught you about whether people return.
- 3
Write the thing you are most afraid your child will ask you, and then write your answer to it. The honest one.
Hold this
I will restore the years the locusts have eaten. It does not say the years did not happen. It says they are not the last word.
Joel 2:25
Before you close this
Coming back is not a moment, it is a schedule
Men picture the reunion. The scene where it is fixed. That scene is not where it gets fixed, and waiting for it has kept fathers standing outside their children’s lives for years.
It gets fixed on a Tuesday, at six, for the eleventh week running, when nothing special happens at all. That is the actual work and it is available to you starting this week.
Set the commitment. Tell one man in this room what it is, so somebody besides you knows the date you said.
Written for fathers who are still fighting.
Legacy · Module 11.2