DIVORCED DAD’S BOOK OFFERS
GUIDELINES FOR PARENTING
As he writes in his new book, Steve Adams was an admittedly clueless father
until divorce and joint custody forced him to reassess his priorities
BY CONRAD JARRETT
Steve Adams is a successful, hard-working,
just-turned-50 real estate agent, a devoted father
of two who always makes time for his children –
Rachel, a graduating college senior, and Carter,
a high school junior.
But it wasn’t always this way.
Only 10 years ago, he was an up-and-comer who
never let his family get in the way of a business
deal, a meet-and-greet, a meal or drinks with
clients. His career was rising, but his home life
was descending into shambles.
“I was never there for them,” he admits. “I
missed dinners and family events. My feeling
was, I was providing, and that was all that should
have mattered.”
What changed for Adams? Divorce, and the
ensuing settlement battles over finances and
custody. And what started out – as he now admits
– as a contest simply to defeat his ex-wife in court
turned into a complete transformation, a look-inthe-mirror
realization that he had an obligation
to these two young children (they were 11 and
five at the time) that exceeded putting a roof
over their heads. He saw that it was what he did
beneath that roof that truly mattered.
It was that classic realization: “I brought those
kids into the world, they didn’t ask to be born,
and they certainly didn’t ask for this divorce.”
Now, he says, “Almost everything I do is with
the thought of how it’s going to affect them. You
can’t go wrong if they’re your Number One priority
all the time.”
Adams didn’t give up his career, nor his will
to succeed in business. Rather, he readjusted
his priorities and found structure and balance
in his life. “If I had a business appointment that
coincided with Carter’s basketball game, the
game took precedence every time. If there was
a parent-teacher conference scheduled on a
weekday business morning, that’s where I’d be
that morning — every time.”
He also reordered his domestic priorities. He
developed his cooking skills, so those weekends
with the kids were not full of pizza boxes and
fast-food drive-throughs. “It got so that my kids
noticed when they came in the door and there
wasn’t something cooking in the kitchen.” And,
as he resumed dating post-divorce, “If I wasn’t
certain about bringing a woman home to meet my
kids, I didn’t do it. It was a litmus test, and most
of those relationships failed the test.”
Priorities. Structure. Balance. The effort to
rearrange his life, and the lessons he learned, are
discussed in detail in his new book, “Now What?
A Divorced Dad’s Guide to Parenting Excellence,”
published in 2019 by Butler Books.
University of Louisville head men’s basketball
coach Chris Mack said on a cover blurb: “Steve’s
book is straight from the heart, on lessons he’s
learned and applied, for helping you be the best
father you can be.”
Best father you can be – and, as it turned out,
best parent, too. “As I developed the thoughts
that went into writing the book,” Adams says, “I
realized there was much about being ‘the best
father you can be’ that went beyond just the
community of divorced fathers. All these thoughts
and recommendations and guidelines also apply
to any fathers of young children, to divorced
mothers and all single-parent households and,
in fact, to any parent at all.”
During the course of writing his book – which
is available on Amazon, at local bookstores and
ButlerBooks.com – Adams talked to educators,
counselors, religious leaders, family court judges
and sociologists, and he says he was alarmed
by some of the things he’d heard. “I talked to
Aaron Striegel, the student counselor at Trinity
High School,” says Adams. “He shared with me
some alarming statistics about what happens to
children who grow up in turbulent households
or without a father’s presence. So many of them
64 EXTOL : SUMMER 2020