The Children We Left Behind: Book Review

One of the great challenges we face in the United States is the decline of the family unit. Adam Coleman from Wrong Speak has a new book titled The Children We Left Behind coming out and shared an early draft with me.

The book discusses the impact of broken families on children, a topic I have been interested in for a while now, and shares stories from Coleman’s life who was himself a son of separated parents. There are many narratives about why some people have it better than others. One of the more compelling theories is that children from broken homes, who lack proper parental guidance, have it a lot harder than children from intact households with a healthy parent presence.

Why is it a big deal when children are born to unmarried parents? Coleman points out these children face greater risks of experiencing adversities in life such as poverty:

In America, only 6% of married households live in poverty. Meanwhile, 30% of single-parent homes are experiencing poverty, with 80% of single-parent homes headed by single mothers.

Poverty is only the tip of the iceberg. Children from broken homes tend to have worse educational outcomes, worse health outcomes, and worse criminal records. The number of children growing up under these circumstances has steadily risen over the years.

In 1980, 18.4% of births were to unmarried women. By 2022, that number had risen to 39.8% which means more children are being born into unstable environments. Many of these children will grow up with at least one parental figure, more often the father, being only partially present or even entirely absent from their lives.

While parental presence has a positive impact, parental absence has a negative impact. Children who grow up under these circumstances are aware of their parent’s lack of interest in them as Coleman was:

Love wasn’t what brought my father to our home a couple of times a year to see me; convenience was. When it was easy to see us, he’d stop by. Since we lived close to New York City and he had business there, he’d treat our home like a pitstop on his way to his true destination. He wasn’t motivated to drive hours from Detroit to our home to hug his children, but since we were around, he might as well acknowledge us for a couple of days. I’m very cognizant of how we were pitstop children, children who weren’t the intended destination of our father’s trips, and how our home was used as a free hotel for our biological passerby.

Being viewed as a mere “pitstop child” by a parent is not something any child should ever experience. There can be many reasons for parents being away from their kids. In the worst of cases, the parent simply does not have an interest in being there for their kids; this is what Coleman’s experience was like with his own father. The lack of care from his father contributed to a suicide attempt when Coleman was eight years old:

Why the hell would I conclude that the world has something to offer me when the man who helped to create me offered me nothing of care?

People are at their most vulnerable, both physically and emotionally, when they are young. Coleman believes having a father present to help guide him through his complex emotions might have prevented his suicide attempt:

What made the situation worse was that my father was emotionally and physically absent from me throughout much of this ordeal, leaving me without a male figure to confide in and teach me how to conquer these infectious thoughts of suicide.

Despite childhood circumstances, Coleman strived to be a better father figure for his son.

Although there are many terrible mothers and fathers, we should also remember that also many parents who are genuinely trying their best in the face of harsh circumstances. Sometimes parents are genuinely busy with work and cannot spend as much time as they would like with their children. In ideal conditions, parents would be able to work and spend proper time with their kids but not everyone lives in ideal conditions. Many parents have to weigh the tradeoffs between financially providing through their career or emotionally providing through their presence and finding a feasible balance. Coleman has faced this dilemma himself:

For about a year, I lived in Tennessee while my son was in New Jersey, and I made it a point to drive over 13 hours each way once a month to bond with my son. Being away from him killed me every day that we were apart, and I gladly made it a priority to embrace my son.

The point being illustrated here is that it is a choice to be perpetually absent. Even though Coleman’s circumstances made it necessary for him to live far away he made it a priority to spend whatever time he could with his son. His own experiences with an absent father informed Coleman’s views on fatherhood:

Real fathers don’t give up on their children. Father is not just a noun; it’s a verb. Meaning there is supposed to be action and follow-through behind that privileged label.

Having grown up with an absent father himself, Coleman wanted to do what he could and break the cycle so his own son felt loved by his father.

Some adults rationalize the poor state of the family unit in the West by arguing some version of the “They turned out fine” argument in reference to the children from broken households. How about the kids who did not turn out fine? The facts are clear and supported by both anecdotes and data. Coleman’s own childhood stories of his experience as a Pitstop Child paint a raw picture of what children endure when they grow up in a broken household.

Children from fractured families are disadvantaged as reflected by just about every statistic that exists (health, criminal records, education outcomes, etc.) which compares their state of affairs against children from united households. As Coleman points out, arguing that kids from broken households “turn out fine” is a coping mechanism for adults; often these people are unwilling to truthfully tackle the issue for reasons that may range from hesitance in calling out the irresponsible adults involved in breaking households to rationalizing their own poor decisions and failures to do what was best for the children they took part in creating. Coleman plainly lays out the consequences:

When children lack stability, they develop anxiety about the future.

One of the best things we can do to improve society is to encourage people to get married and raise children in stable home conditions. Parents are obligated to do everything in their power and take whatever steps are necessary to set their kids up for success; Coleman drives these points home:

Put Your Children Before Yourself and Don’t Be A Selfish Parent

Children, after all, are destined to inherit the Earth—let’s ensure we raise them well. Coleman’s new book, The Children We Left Behind, makes a strong case for individuals and society to start putting children first. I think this idea merits attention.

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This article was also published on 𝕏.