Book Review: The Children We Left Behind

by Adam B. Coleman

Looking for a book to enjoy this Easter holiday without feeling like you’re wasting time? Something honest, absorbing, and actually worth reading? Adam B. Coleman’s The Children We Left Behind might be just it.

It’s not just another memoir. It’s a clear-eyed look at what happens when children are left behind emotionally and physically—and what it takes to face that pain without hiding behind excuses. Coleman writes from his own experience of being abandoned by his father, but the book is really about something bigger: the quiet crisis of broken families and the cultural denial that allows it to persist.

What I appreciate most is that Coleman doesn’t soften the truth to make it more palatable. He holds absentee parents accountable, but he also acknowledges the deeper pattern—that many of them were abandoned themselves. He’s not excusing it, but he’s explaining the cycle. Something only possibel because he has clearly healed and can look at his past without bitterness.

My favorite candid moment in the book is his take on fatherhood:

Mothers have the biological benefit of being the host to their children’s creation, growing an attachment to them for nine months. However, fathers are strangers until they decide not to be. A bond must be built between the father and the child from the very beginning, and it can only be manufactured through a conscious choice of involvement.

I love that—fatherhood isn’t automatic. You have to choose it, over and over again.

What’s also clear in this book is Coleman’s understanding that healing doesn’t come from denying the past or covering it up with pretty language. It comes from facing hard truths—about your parents, your childhood, and yourself. One line that stuck with me was:

“We must absorb the excuses and partake in the same fantasy as the adults to shield ourselves from the hurt of knowing that we were never wanted.”

That’s the kind of brutal honesty that runs through the whole book. He’s not writing for applause. He’s writing because he knows what it’s like to grow up carrying questions no one wants to answer—and what it takes to finally start healing.

In a culture where we try our best to normalize single motherhood, Coleman doesn’t attack—it’s not that kind of book—he appeals to our common sense. He’s honest about the risks. He writes from experience about how children pay the price when a parent checks out. And he doesn’t let sentimentality or political correctness soften that reality.

The Children We Left Behind isn’t just about fatherlessness. It’s about what happens when adults prioritize their own comfort over the stability of children. It’s about what we lose when we treat kids like afterthoughts. And it’s about what it takes to stop repeating the same mistakes.

Go get this book today!