What We Share
Estranged fathers and children have three things in common regardless of individual circumstances:
- The sense of loss about their separation
- The wish to find a way back into each other's lives
- The fantasy of return
I use the term, The Prodigal Father, because for me it represents the essential elements of lost fatherhood: the mistakes and wasted years in exile, the loss of our bond with our children, and finally and most importantly, the admission of guilt, the awakening of conscience, and the joyous reunion home. It is imperative that we reconnect with our children for their sake as well as our own. It is imperative that mothers help us do it.
During my years as a Prodigal Father, my years as a parent and step-parent, and more recently in my work counseling families trying to put their lives back together, I have become keenly aware of a familiar story from abandoned children and the men who left them, one that is not implied in the stereotype of "deadbeat dads."
The essential elements of such a story always include emotional pain, whether outwardly acknowledged or denied, as well as the accompanying confusion about how to set things right.