Solomon Jones on raising kids

I'VE PARENTED both as a noncustodial father and as a married father, and the experiences are vastly different - both for the parent and for the child.

As a noncustodial father, a man can be reduced to little more than a voice on a phone, a playmate on a weekend or a name on a check. He can be, in essence, placed firmly in the margins of his child's life, even if he desperately wants to be in the center.

I have lived that unending struggle, and I have learned the lessons that it taught. But when I look back through the 22 years that have passed since my first child was born, I see much more than a lesson. I see a disjointed tapestry of love and distance, longing and hurt.

I don't pretend to be faultless in the creation of that tapestry. It was, after all, my own shortcomings that helped to drive us apart. But we live in a society that believes that noncustodial parents should somehow be punished, and that the punishment is in the interest of the child.

That punishment is meted out through the family-court system, which steps in to extract money that is dubbed "child support," while failing to encourage emotional support.

I wrote, some years ago, in Philadelphia Weekly, that my ability to be a father was "slowly eroded by a seemingly endless series of motions, arguments and court orders," leaving only a 6-inch-thick sheaf of papers that has resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in child-support payments and very little contact between my daughter and me.

The irony of those payments is this: Not one of those dollars helped to foster the only thing that matters between parent and child - a relationship.

Although we eventually saw one another regularly, and I was deeply involved in my daughter's life from junior high through high school, the experience of being a noncustodial father was a painful one - for both my daughter and for me.

It was painful because I loved her, and love her still. It was painful because a father's love is so often expressed through providing and protecting. And it's difficult to provide and protect without presence.

Being a father as a married man is a much different experience. It is an experience that is predicated on presence. It is, at its core, about loving your family enough to come home every day, no matter what.

Although it sometimes hurts as much as being a father outside the home, it is a different kind of pain. It's a pain that comes from wanting more for one's children than you are presently able to give. But the difference is this: You are there.

You hear their first words and see their first steps. You give them their first hugs and wipe their first tears. You watch them grow and wonder where the years have gone. You watch them mature and see yourself in them.

There is a bond that is created when a man and wife raise children together. That bond is not just between the parents who go through the trials of keeping a home and paying the bills. There is also a sense of oneness that is forged in the crucible of common struggle.

For some, that struggle is financial. For others, it is emotional. Still others struggle to get out of their own way. But when both parents are present - both physically and emotionally - the days aren't bound together by the pain that comes between them. No, the days are bound together by love.

And that is something no amount of child support can buy.

So, if I were to give any advice to men, it would be this: Strive to love your woman; strive to be with your children; strive, most of all, for marriage.

It will make all the difference in the world.