Previously: Ask Bear: Is This a Good Idea? If you have a question for Bear, The Butter’s new advice columnist, send it along to asking.bear@gmail.com.
Dear Bear,
I pled guilty to a non-violent drug crime and am now facing 6-12 months in federal prison. The good news is that in my case, there is no mandatory minimum sentencing and I have many people willing to write character letters on my behalf, so there is a possibility that I could avoid prison time and do only probation, though my lawyer says that is a very slim possibility.
My question is, when should I tell my two children (ages 12 and 6) about prison? My first instinct was to wait until after my sentencing hearing, so that if I am going away I have a concrete time period that I’ll be gone. However, my wife pointed out that after sentencing I will only have a couple of weeks before I need to turn myself in to the prison, which may not be enough time for the kids to process this huge transition.
So which is worse? Telling them now, and having it hang over their heads for a month and a half? Or telling them after, and having it be a sudden shock before I’m gone? For what it’s worth, these past few months of not knowing if/for how long I’ll be going to prison have been a nightmare for me and my wife.
Any help you can provide would be appreciated, we really don’t know what to do.
***
Dear Brave Correspondent,
Phew. Thank you for trusting me with this. I would like you to know that we took the editorial calendar by the nostrils and shook it hard to make space for this reply right away.
I strongly feel that you should tell your children as soon as possible. Partly this is for them. You’re right, they’re going to need time to have their feelings, ask questions, ask them again and again in slightly different ways as they parse what it all means. Partly, also, this is for your wife: if you tell them and then bounce, she’ll be left answering all the questions while you’re away, and that’s a fairly crappy situation. What will help you here, I really believe, is to be all on the same page – to have a common goal and a united front. Talk about the possibilities of how long it might be in the best case, the worst case, somewhere in the middle. Don’t put up too brave a front, because it’s bullshit and kids hate to be bullshitted (remember how you could always tell when your parents were trying to make something different than it was? Remember how it sometimes made you misname or mistrust your own feelings? Don’t do that). Tell them with every shred of honesty you can muster how you will miss them and how glad you will be to return to them. Imagine together things to do or say in a hard moment of it – a code word, a talisman, letters to be written ahead, a song, whatever, that will allow you to feel connected. Help them be brave by modeling actual bravery, that is: feeling scared and sallying forth anyhow, buoyed by love and justice.
I used to work for a couple of years teaching creative writing and theatre in a medium-security jail, much like the one you will likely find yourself at unless you live in a very large city. Here is what I will tell you about jail, based on my experiences and those of my students: it is a humiliating experience, and that is the sworn and stated goal of most of the people who will be in charge of you. They want you to be humiliated, to suffer, to feel sorry (how sorry you may feel or what you might have already paid is immaterial). I am telling you this because the entire situation is going to be a faceful of suck and you are going to be helped immeasurably by knowing that beyond the horrible, always-sticky, off-colour walls are your people – the beautiful people who love you, who are having pancake breakfast on Mondays so you can pretend to be eating pancakes too while you’re grimacing down whatever-that-is. Their solidness will give you a lighthouse, a fixed point you can focus on when it’s time to make choices.
Because here’s the thing: if you leave in all the upheaval, your wife will be stuck either sharing all the upset, which will upset you more, or sucking up and keeping it all to herself, which will be equally awful but later. A very hard thing about coming out of prison is that you get out and you’ve been struggling and suffering and you come home ready to adore the people who have been writing you letters every day and sending you drawings and only talking about happy things on the phone. You get home, and for a couple days it’s all laughing and crying and steak and sex.
But there’s a backlash. All of everyone’s feelings about you being away have to get expressed. They’ll develop even if you go away super-solid – something will need to be done while you’re gone that you’re the only one to ever do (bake nut-free cookies for the little one’s class party or dust the ceiling fan or get an oil change or unclog a toilet), or you’ll miss a play or a birthday, or whatever. Feelings Will Be Had. So you’ll be home full of relief and bad dreams and unlearning the habit of waking up at 6:15am every morning for a count, and they’ll all be warring internally between being super glad to see you and hella mad at you for being gone. The more that gets processed before you go, the better your lines of communication are, the more you have a plan — a legit plan, the kind where there are charts and maybe even graphs — the better off you’ll be.
I don’t know how your family communication is right now, but you’re all going to get better at it promptly, that’s for sure. And if a miracle should occur, if your community letters and so forth save you from having to go at all, or if you can do weekends, or community service and probation, or whatever – every one of those channels you’ve created to deal with the difficulties to come will carry the joy. And, if you maintain them, they will be there for everything else, too.
Last two things: do your kids have any non-parental close adults? Aunts/uncles, close friends of yours, people who they are comfortable spending time with without you in fun and freedom? Activate them. The 12-year-old especially will need them if you go away; s/he won’t want to upset your wife more, but s/he’s going to need an outlet so s/he can “dump out” the stress. Bring them into the mix, too. Plan for the kids to get some extra one-on-one attention from other adults while you’re away.
And also, plan for your wife, who is going to get stuck with an awful job in this. Start organizing people to take the kids for weekends or overnights so she can go out with her friends, or stay home and have her feelings, or just read a book and drink a beer. Hide love notes with the Halloween costumes, in the pockets of her winter coat, in the holiday silverware, in the seed box. Project yourself into her path like a new sweetheart – what will she want? What does she like? Do you need to arrange flowers for her birthday before you go, or a recurring bakery order, or tickets to the opera or the RUSH concert or the folk festival? Find some ways to be in her mix.
Tend your family like a garden, with nourishment, with brightness, with sweat in the afternoon, with the expectation of delicious things to come, with the knowledge that some of your hard work may be for naught but that well-loved soil will carry everything again. Plant and pat, wash up and do it again, and even if this year’s crop is a little small for all the work you put in, you’ll be eating volunteer tomatoes next year, Brave Correspondent. Eating them and laughing.
Love and courage,
Bear
Tags: advice, ask bear, S Bear Bergman, the butter
The line about tending your family like a garden is lovely. Thank you.
This is super lovely and compassionate. Good luck, Letter Writer.
Yes, that last paragraph is so absolutely beautiful, in any context. Good luck to the writer, and to all the readers out there who needed this today.
So, I don’t know anything about anything, but I also support telling them now, because they also need to process that you’re not just going away, you’re going to prison. Kids would be shocked and horrified if you were going away on a 6-12 month business trip (especially if you tell them only a few weeks before you leave), but I think they might be overwhelmed with shame and anger at you and at themselves and the family because you are being punished by the law. Many kids (well, many adults too) have a lot of faith in rules, laws, good and bad – especially if they’re sheltered. The kids might be really angry at you for “being a bad guy”, for getting caught, for taking the risk of prison. They could also feel that you’re being treated unjustly by the system, or that other people are unfair if they think you’re a bad person just because you broke a rule. A little kid, like a 6-year-old, maybe even thinks that the judge should let you go if you’re really really sorry?
There could be a lot of feelings around justice, injustice and goodness, is what I’m saying. Again, I have no idea what your kids are like, but I guess something like this will come up, and in that case, it’s better for them and for you to have months to process this. For example, if they react by feeling betrayed or feeling that you are “a criminal” and not who they thought you were, you need time to show them that you’re still the same person. A month and a half is only six weeks, and I think those weeks may be necessary. I hope this works out for the best.
This is absolutely wonderful – very beautiful and also rock-solid advice (particularly the last couple of paragraphs, which I reckon could stand as Something To Think About whatever your family situation). Thanks Bear.
And to the correspondent – the very best of luck and well wishes. As Bear says, not only will your bravery help encourage their bravery, but your openness and communication will encourage theirs too. Whatever feelings they have about the situation will be better expressed and shared than pent up, and your honesty will show them that the subject is not taboo and that they won’t upset you or your wife by talking about it. It’s gonna be a rough time but you – all of you – will make it out fine. You got this.
I don’t know if the timing matters as much as you might think it does, and I think it is OK if you wait — at least, I think that for the 6-year-old. The 12-year-old may process the information very like an adult would and is due the same courtesy. I think this because no matter what you do, the way they will remember this as adults and the way children remember and understand time is very strange and out of your control. For example: I was told that my father was sick only weeks before he died (not recommended!) but for all that it was a terrible parenting decision and an easy story to tell for sympathy, that’s not how I remember it: I remember dragging around for months, years, waiting and waiting for what we knew was coming and had been coming for so long that it wasn’t scary anymore, just boring. Even though that’s not what happened.
So your younger child might remember this as a thunderbolt out of nowhere, or they might remember it as an interminable period of dread, no matter when you tell them what’s coming. Just a couple of weeks’ warning is still a long time, for a child. And they could end up blaming you for putting the burden of uncertainty on their shoulders just as easily as they could blame you for withholding the information too long.
So I think that when you’re trying to work out what’s best, go with what your wife thinks if she feels strongly, because she’ll have to manage their reactions if you’re gone for a while, but don’t feel that one decision or the other is the determining factor in whether your kids will handle it well. I don’t think it will be.
yeah, maybe the timing is not as important as the honesty and openess? In my family my mom hates explaining situations and feelings and I always kinda found out about things, I wasn’t TOLD what would happen and that was very hard.
Having been that kid twice (at 8, and again at 17), here’s my advice (from the kid’s perspective, mostly):
-Tell them now; help them understand what it means (at age-appropriate levels)
-Make sure they know how they are “supposed to” respond to inquiries about where their dad is/how their dad is/etc.
-Help your wife choose holiday/birthday gifts for holidays you will miss now (don’t forget to call on their birthdays)
-Send as many letters as possible, individually addressed to your children
-Spend as much time as you can with them now
It’s going to be really hard, and likely your kids will handle it differently depending on personalities (my sisters and I varied a LOT, due to personalities and age differences). I wish the best to you and your family for the rough year ahead, as well as the transition back home that will follow.
Make sure they know how they are “supposed to” respond to inquiries about where their dad is/how their dad is/etc.
YES. My (much older) sister was in jail when I was a kid, and my parents did a fairly poor job of this sort of thing. People ask little kids about their siblings, and if I said she was in jail it was really awkward for the adults involved, so I pretty quickly learned I wasn’t supposed to say that, but I also wasn’t given anything I could say instead. So I just… stopped talking about her. This wasn’t especially healthy for anyone.
I just want to say that I love Bear and The Butter so much for answering a question like this (love to you also, Letter Writer, brave is definitely the word for writing in with this), for prioritizing it, and for treating it with compassion and seriousness.
I don’t have anything concrete except that the gentleness and kindness that this is written with as well as the kindness and gentleness it suggests (to oneself as well as to one’s beloveds) made me cry. Thank you, Bear.
thanks for this. my father went to prision for a while (maybe a month or two? I’ve blocked it) and my parents did none of this. I was 21 an my youngest sibling was 9 and it was awful and lonely and obviously we are still hurting, more than 5 years later. I hope the letter writer follows this advice and finds a way to keep communication open. I wish our family had done that.
Someone very close to me went to prison for 5 years when his daughter was ~8. Around the same time, her parents divorced, the mother fought viciously for full custody and then dumped the daughter off with the grandmother. His daughter is 15, and he’s been trying to reconnect with her for years, but nothing. He talks frequently to the grandmother she lives with, and his parents have a good relationship with daughter, but she won’t return calls, emails, texts. Occasional thank you cards for gifts. He says he doesn’t want to force his way into her life, he’ll just keep reaching out until maybe one day she’ll be receptive. But…I think he’s losing hope. I don’t know how to support, and I don’t want to over-talk an already painful subject. I know every child/parent/relationship is different, but advice is more than welcome.
(from the perspective of a daughter whose dad was in/out of jail during her formative years):
He should continue reaching out–likely, how his daughter feels about it changes day-to-day (especially if she is still a teenager). There might be some days where she comes really close to answering a text, or calling back, or other days where she wishes she could, but just can’t yet, or other days where the only thing on her mind is all the resentment that built up in those 5 years (and I’m making assumptions here, but there probably will have been at least some). What’s most important is that, when or if she does decide she’s ready to reach out, she knows he’s there waiting.
IDK, I’m an adult (26), and I’m still struggling with it myself, but it helps knowing that when I do send a text or try to arrange a time to see him, he’s there.
THANK YOU. They are both extremely introverted people, so it’s hard for either to reach out, but – he’s the parent. It’s on him to do the hard work. (I also don’t know how much poison her mother has spewed in her ear, but I try not to ever say anything like that. The dad/daughter were very close before all this went down, and the mother fought dirty to get custody, all out of spite.)
Here’s another angle: My wife has cut out her family of origin (FoO) for various reasons (abuse, not mysterious prison absence), and they continue to try to contact her despite her wishes. The above advice sounds exactly like her FoO’s rationalization for continuing to harass her.
I say “harass” because unwanted contact from people who hurt you, who neglected you, feels very much like harassment. Nothing causes anxiety and misery in my house quite like an unwelcome package, text, email from the FoO.
Having had this experience, I would never, ever, pester someone who doesn’t want to contact me. It doesn’t matter how justified I feel in my actions, how sorry I am, and it doesn’t matter if I fully understand why they can’t be in contact with me. They know what’s best for them, and the kindest thing I could do in that situation is let them take care of themselves. I’d let them know that I will always be available if they want to talk, but beyond that, I wouldn’t try to force myself on anyone.
That said, my wife is an adult and this kid is 15, so maybe the rules are a little different? Idk, just my .02.
Still appreciated! Abuse and neglect are also not a factor, and he isn’t pushing, just reaching out enough to make sure she knows how to get a hold of him. His parents visit her regularly, and he stays in touch with her grandmother, and all seems well. She just isn’t ready to reach back. I don’t want him to give up hope, as much as it hurts to try and not get a response.
I don’t know how much he was able to contact her whilst he was in prison, but if that’s 7 years in total and I guess he’s only been out of prison for 2-3 years (so, in a position where he could initiate contact freely and if she responded to him then he could see her without any restraints) and that’s honestly not that long. If he’s feeling burnt out and losing hope after only a couple of years, then he needs to adjust his expectations.
I get that not seeing his daughter for seven years is awful for him, and it might be “easier” to stop trying and grieve and try and pretend he doesn’t have a daughter. But I think from her point of view: the dad she needs is one who will be there, forever, no matter what. That’s what being a parent is. That’s what a kid needs, and goes on needing, well into adulthood. He needs to realistically think about how he will feel if she doesn’t initiate contact until she’s in her twenties or thirties, and get cool with that. Because if he does give up, then the message to her is, “Your dad tried for seven [ten,, fifteen, twenty] years, and you didn’t respond, and that was how long it took him to give up.” She has to live with the disappointment that he gave up, and maybe with the guilt that she missed her chance to know her father.
Unless she expresses a desire that he go away and stop actively reminding her that he’s still there, I think he needs to settle in for the long haul, and find a level of contact that he can maintain without resentment. That might mean dialling back from frequent phone calls to emails every two months, or cards every two months. But it should be one dial back, not a gradual pattern of less and less contact, clearly communicated to the grandparents and the daughter if he’s contacting her directly, and then maintained completely consistently for the next five or fifteen or twenty-five years without a response, if necessary. That kind of consistency is also being a parent, even if it feels utterly unrewarding.
(If she explicitly asks him to go away or to stop contacting her, I think he should, of course. But in the absence of an explicit request, I think knowing that he’s keeping in touch with her life through her grandparents and that she can contact him *if she wants to* and that that’s in her control is probably pretty important to her, even if she doesn’t consciously recognise it. Remind him that he is in her life, he’s just not getting the reward/recognition that he’d like for it. His job as a dad is to live with that.)
This is very good and kind and beautifully written advice.
Letter Writer: I really feel for you and your family. I hope you are able to avoid having to serve prison time, and that if you have to go that you all get and give the love you need. There seem to be some decent resources in this metafilter thread if you are interested: http://ask.metafilter.com/281031/How-to-talk-to-k…
Take care.
Reading Bear’s very sensible and sympathetic advice, it’s hard not to think about the majority of people facing jail time who don’t have the resources this letter hints at, who are already experiencing extreme financial precarity and social marginalization. I’m thinking of families without the funds/time off/energy for long bus rides (and humiliating access procedures) on visiting day, or the money for regular phone calls (at extortionist rates) let alone pre-ordered birthday flowers. Single-caretaker families who lose their primary financial support, whose children are split up among relatives or the foster system (which might ultimately lead to termination of parental rights entirely). Parents whose drug conviction cuts off access to necessary benefits like public housing, educational aid. These difficulties have to be addressed by society and institutions, not individuals, so if you’re at all interested, maybe look up The National Resource Center for Families and Children of the Incarcerated, and/or your local prison reform (or abolition) group, and raise your voice when these policy changes come up?
You may want to consider whether your twelve-year-old is old enough to attend the sentencing hearing and might benefit from it. THIS WILL DEFINITELY DEPEND ON YOUR CHILD. I don’t know if your lawyer has prepared you for what they are like, but generally the AUSA (the prosecutor) will present his recommendation for a sentence, the pretrial services department will also speak up, and your lawyer will also present your case for a lower sentence. Additionally, you will have the opportunity to speak. Then the judge will issue sentence, with an explanation that will be more or less fulsome. It is a fairly “safe” and formal affair. Some kids might find that reality easier to take than to have to imagine it all from scratch. They can take away the image of an orderly and respectful process, no matter what the reality in prison is going to be. Some kids might also benefit from hearing you speak to the judge. It’s common for defendants to apologize for their crimes and to their families. Hearing you take responsibility and especially hearing your apology might be worth it for your older child. The major drawback is that the AUSA will generally make arguments in favor of a longer sentence that may include facts or characterizations it might not be good for the child to hear. However, that will depend on how hotly contested the sentence is and whether you pled out or not (and how grim the facts of the crime are). If it’s really a question of six months to a year on a relatively minor office, the AUSA is unlikely to expend much rhetorical firepower on you. Your attorney will probably have the best feel for how the AUSA is likely to act.
As I said, it depends very much on your child’s individual temperament. Some twelve-year-olds really couldn’t take it. Some might benefit. Just something to think about.
I’m praying for you, Letter Writer.
I'm praying for you, Letter Writer.
My father was in and out of prison for drug crimes from when I was three until I was ten (when he died of unrelated causes). As an adult I now work on prison/criminal justice reform issues, so I have a pretty good sense of how these things go both personally and professionally. I think Bear’s advice is all good, and some of the other advice here is quite good too. I would emphasize a few things:
– This is not the same as just having a parent go away on a long trip. There is an enormous amount of shame associated with being the child of a person in prison, even if the child doesn’t think his or her parent has actually done anything wrong. Someone above said, help your children know what to tell people when they ask where you are. This is huge. It’s also really hard. Your kids may not want to tell their friends and teachers the truth. Normally we don’t encourage kids to lie, but in this case, that might be a lie they need to protect themselves. Or maybe not. But if they are open and honest, there may be real social repercussions from their friends or other kids at school. You need to think through that with them, think about what they want to do and how they want to do it, and make sure your wife and other adults are on the look out for bullying or negative backlash if they do share the information widely at school.
There are resources to help with this. Sesame Street has a toolkit about it that may be helpful, especially for the 6 year old: http://www.sesamestreet.org/parents/topicsandacti…
– Having a parent absent can be hard for children even without all the bullshit of prison, but at the same time kids are pretty resilient and often times will forget whatever is going on and just try to focus on their own life and their own issues. Let them. I remember feeling terribly guilty that I didn’t write to my dad more while he was in prison. It didn’t mean I didn’t love him. Little kids just don’t think of things like that! Try not to put how much you miss them, and how hard this will all be for you — and it will, and I am so sorry — on them. They might not think about you some days. That sucks for you. But they need to be allowed to cope and move on. Their love for you will absolutely still be there when you return. But they can’t spend every day missing you.
– The “what did you do wrong” conversation. That’s a whopper. I always knew my dad was a drug dealer and a drug addict. Didn’t make me love him any less. Definitely made a difference in my choices (generally NOT to use drugs) when I grew older. Definitely made a big difference when I was old enough to really understand what that meant and therefore understand that it was his addiction that caused him to do the things he did and therefore leave us, not a choice.
I don’t know what you were doing to get in this situation, but my advice is to be as honest and open as possible, and to accept responsibility for your choices and actions. It’s fine if you think the law is bullshit to tell them that you think the law should be different. It’s not okay to blame the law for what is happening to you now. Presumably you knew it when you broke it. They’ll probably want to know (though they may not be able to ask in this way) why you chose to do something that could get you taken away from them for so long. Try to explain what happened as honestly as you can. It’s very hard when you’re a kid not to believe that if your parent loved you enough, they would have stayed with you. Give them some other way to understand why this is happening if you can.
– Federal prison is rough because you might be very far away. Have them visit if possible, particularly if you are (as sounds likely) in a low security facility. When I was little I loved visiting my dad in prison (he was in federal prison as well). They had playgrounds, and nothing was the same as physically being near him. The power of that physical contact far outweighs the trauma of prison (and as a little kid, I forgot all the security and everything else, and just remember my dad). If you’re in medium or max, I might not recommend that — visiting through glass is pretty shitty, worse than being on the phone. But you shouldn’t be with a short drug sentence.
Okay, I’m going to stop because I’m working myself up a bit. Might post more later if I think of any particularly salient points.
P.S. There is currently a bill in the House which would make probation the presumption (meaning a judge would have to find a reason NOT to give it) in first-time, low-level federal drug cases (which, as is noted in the letter, it really is not now). It would also get rid of mandatory minimums for non-high level traffickers, expand earned time in federal prison, and improve probation and post-release supervision. It’s called the SAFE Justice Act and it is bipartisan and supported by advocates on both sides of the culture wars. Please urge your congresspeople to support it to prevent this happening to people in the future!
More info on the bill: http://www.vox.com/2015/6/25/8846673/safe-justice…
And an editorial from the ACLU and Koch (whaaat) on how great it is: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/a-…
Seriously: call your representatives and senators because this has a chance but it is not a done deal, and it will actively make a difference in exactly this situation.
Wen I was six, my mom end to prison. No one told me why she had to leave or what was going on. She came back when I was twelve and still no discussion. It took until I was fifteen until someone told me. For nine years I thought my mother just left me for a while. Be as honest as humanly possible with your children; they will answer their own questions if you don’t, and kids imagine some truly heartbreaking things.
A month later I’m still thinking about this post and feeling grateful for it.