From Afar

Nobody parents well from far away, but today no distance is too great a barrier to connection between father and child. And we're not just talking miles.

Dads incarcerated in Indiana are touching their kids' lives by reading bedtime stories (via DVD) to them. It is part of a process by which they both reenter society and the lives of their family.

Fathers serving in Iraq are attending four-year old birthdays and even the birth of their children via webcasting. Is that the same as being there? Obviously not. But presence (even when absent) is important.

If you don't think so, ask Christopher Rothko, son of the abstact-expressionist painter he lost when he was just six. The younger Rothko learned about his dad — a suicide — connected with his genius, his spirit and his humanity, via a manuscript given to him as executor of the estate. As he told a reporter for the Houston Chronicle, "...having the manuscript was really a much more direct interpersonal experience than looking at the artwork, simply because I could hear his voice so clearly in the writing."

From a void to a real connection. It's not perfect, but reaching out (from either side of the parent-child equation) is so much better than pulling away.