Having recently (within the last year or so) become a long distance parent, I’ve done some considerable reading on how best to maintain a relationship with my daughter and cope with the multitude of emotions involved. Of all of the advice I’ve read, perhaps the most important thing is to have a strong support system and someone you can talk to. I’m extremely fortunate to have just that and an amazing partner in my girlfriend. I wrote the below to her, but wanted to share:

My Dearest :

As I type this, I’m sitting at about 30,000 feet or so, on my fourth flight of the day since the alarm went off at the ungodly hour of 3:40 a.m. I was fortunate enough to catch an earlier flight, so I’ll be home about 4 hours sooner than originally anticipated. I miss you and I’m anxious to see you after a long weary day of travel.

As you know, I had to take Allie home today, and while the 4,000-or-so frequent flier miles in a 16 hr span are nice, they sure take their toll and I’m tired and emotionally drained right now. Flights 3 and 4 have been lonely, without the excitement of travelling with my little sidekick, but they give me plenty of time to think (aren’t we always pining for some down time? – nothing like a solid day of air travel to make me careful what we wish for!).

… (More)

The other day I got a very short email, simply:

                “Any ideas for you and Allie for Christmas?  What’s she into?  Love, Mom” 

I closed out of the innocuous and harmless request for ideas and started to feel a little choked up and sad.  Truth be told, I guess I kind of know what Allie is into.  I mean, Barbies and princesses and all of the other stuff that 4 year old girls play with, right?  I guess I had a moment (okay, maybe more than just a moment) of feeling like a pretty lousy dad.  When it comes down to it, I guess I don’t really know what it is that my daughter is really into right now.  Humbly, I fired off a text message to her mother to ask for a few ideas.  Needless to say, I was pretty in the dark about some of the stuff that came back (really, a drum set??).

                In the few conversations that I get with my daughter we talk about school, about playing with her friends, what she’s up to at that given moment, and about how much we love and miss each other.  I guess it never really dawned on me to ask her what she’s playing with, what she watches on TV or what books she reads.  I know that the last time I saw her, over the summer on… (More)

To Whom it Really Doesn’t Concern,

                I’m sorry if you somehow felt uncomfortable that I smiled and said “hi” to your little girl while as we crossed paths the other evening.  Yeah, I’m the early-30-something guy walking up and down the aisles of the local grocery store, alone with my list in hand, but I assure you I’m no freak.  I couldn’t help but notice that you grabbed your daughter and pulled her close to you as you turned the corner to head to Aisle 6, casting a critical eye in my direction.  I can’t help but wonder if you’d react the same way if I had my own little girl hanging off of my shopping cart at the time.  You see, it might not look like it but I, too, am a Daddy.  And while I might not be able to throw my little princess in the car to run errands save for a few agreed upon times a year, it doesn’t mean that I’m some crazed nut for simply wanting to make your daughter smile and being polite.  I relish that feeling of hanging out, doing nothing in particular, and just enjoying that father-daughter bond.  I miss it frequently and I’m quite envious of you who may or may not even take it for granted.  But please don’t cast me aside as bizarre for simply being alone and friendly.

                And to you, Mr.… (More)

One of the things that I don’t often bring up, or admittedly even often associate with my ‘crusade’ to gather community around long distance parenting, is that I was once the child of an estranged parent. From 5ish to 12ish, my father wasn’t around. My sister and I were raised to believe that he was a lot of horrible things and that we should be afraid of him. Our family of three hid from him.

When I was 12, he found us. I still remember the first phone call I had with him. I remember what he sent us for Christmas that year. I went to stay with him for 6 months… and then, when I was 15, I went to live with him.

By that time, I wasn’t looking for a father. I was pretty well grown up. And by that time, the opportunity for him to learn to be a father was passed. We awkwardly played at the father/daughter roles, I finished the growing up and moved out and eventually moved across the country, keeping my father in my life as a fixture… a person who was in my life but who I wasn’t quite sure what to do with.

But as those years passed, it began to become clear to me that the story my mother had given me all of those years, about my father, wasn’t the whole story. Despite her story, what I eventually ascertained to be the actual story was that they were… (More)

Along my journey gathering community around long distance parenting, I’ve read and seen a lot of things regarding divorce, child custody, non-custodial parents, deadbeat parents and parental alienation syndrome. One thing that sticks out to me is how gender biased the stories typically are.

Rather than being centered around parents in general, it’s about fathers or mothers or men or women. Take for example this post by Richard Gardener. He all but blames the advent of parental alienation syndrome upon mothers even going so far as to say :

We see here how those who deny the existence of PAS are adding formidably to the grief of women. Women’s past denial and discrediting of PAS has now come back to haunt them. Women are now being injured by their own weapons, or, as the old saying goes, they are being “hoist by their own pitards.”

That is one of the most ridiculous, one sided, prejudiced things I’ve ever read. Granted, mothers were often awarded physical custody based primarily upon the fact that they were women not so long ago – but had the tables been turned, I have no doubt that men would have perpetrated parental alienation syndrome before women. Parental Alienation Syndrome is not a product of mothers or women or men or fathers, it’s a product of spiteful, irresponsible parents with a grudge who feel they should have some sort of power over their children’s relationship with their other parent.

And further, although admittedly… (More)