When Parents Choose Themselves: A Review of The Children We Left Behind

What Adam B. Coleman's raw memoir gets right about abandonment, emotional neglect, and the silence that keeps children suffering.

A Pain Too Often Ignored

Adam B. Coleman’s The Children We Left Behind isn’t your typical memoir or cultural critique. It’s a deeply personal reckoning—one that offers readers a visceral glimpse into what it feels like to be discarded by a parent and then silenced by a culture that would rather excuse than confront such pain.

From the first pages, Coleman’s voice rings with heartbreak and brutal honesty. His opening questions are not rhetorical—they are wounds made visible.

“Why did my father feel that his responsibility was only to pay child support and withhold any emotional support?”

For anyone who has felt unseen or unimportant to a parent, these passages hit hard—and they linger.

A Culture of Self-First Parenting

Coleman doesn’t stop at personal testimony. He launches a fierce indictment of the ways modern Western culture justifies adult gratification at the expense of children’s wellbeing. While he focuses primarily on absentee fathers, his message is clear:

“Selfish parents not only exist in our friends and family circles, but are also prominent figures who hypnotize the public with excuses for their neglect.”

This critique—sometimes uncomfortable in its intensity—lands with force because it’s grounded in real suffering. Whether you agree with every policy implication or not, it’s impossible to ignore the emotional truth behind his call for accountability.

Secrets That Protect Adults, Not Children

One of the most powerful themes in the book is the way families and communities often collude to hide abuse, neglect, or abandonment. Coleman writes:

“Secrets are a lie of omission, causing us to live out a lie no matter how much destruction we’re covering up.”

He’s right. Families that prioritize reputation over reconciliation leave children carrying not just trauma—but guilt, shame, and silence that isn't theirs to bear.

I experienced this myself. The fact that my mother had abandoned my sister and me was a secret my grandparents — her parents — worked hard to conceal. At family gatherings, they would lie right in front of me about where she was, and it was made clear to me in a sideways glance that said “Don’t you dare,” or a too-hard squeeze of my hand that I should keep my mouth shut. I wondered — what I had done to deserve to bear her guilt and shame all alone?

Clear Convictions — Worthy of Reflection

There are moments where Coleman’s conclusions may spark debate. For example, he frames divorce in overwhelmingly negative terms. I share his concern about instability—but I also believe some marriages are so dysfunctional that staying together can be worse for children. It’s a tradeoff worth examining honestly.

That said, Coleman doesn't leave readers in despair. The final chapters of the book are dedicated to Solutions—a series of cross-genre reflections that read like a mix of tough-love advice and deeply personal admonishments. They range from calls for repentance and responsibility to pleas for compassion and understanding.

Chapter 19, “Solution: Love Your Children More Than You Hate Your Ex,” stood out to me most. It’s a heartbreaking, sobering appeal that recognizes one of the most damaging dynamics post-divorce: when parents weaponize their children as proxies in their unresolved resentments. As a child of divorce—and a divorced mother of three—I found this chapter almost too painful to read, precisely because I know how often this advice goes unheeded. Sometimes, people don’t stop hating, even in the same house, and sometimes, the damage that hate causes to children lasts a lifetime.

A Standout Chapter: Daughters Left Behind

For me, the most gut-wrenching chapter was “The Daughters We Disappointed.” As someone who was left by my mother and emotionally neglected by my father, this chapter felt like it was written for me. Coleman writes with genuine compassion, and in this chapter especially, I felt less alone.

What You'll Take Away

If you're looking for a policy guide, this book isn’t it, but if you want to better understand the emotional landscape of children who grow up feeling unwanted or unseen, Coleman offers something rare and valuable: honesty.

This isn’t an easy read, but it is an important one.

Buy the Book:
The Children We Left Behind on Amazon