The Distance between Fathers: A Story of Fatherhood, Responsibility, and the Systems That Break Us

When Daniel Reyes moves his family from Texas to a struggling youth home in rural Ohio, he believes he’s stepping into a calling — a chance to rebuild purpose, identity, and hope. But the next fifteen years inside a dorm full of traumatized teenage boys will test every part of him. As Daniel and his wife, Maria, raise their children while working as house parents, teachers, and caregivers, they navigate burnout, compassion fatigue, and the relentless emotional weight of residential childcare.

What begins as a search for meaning becomes a journey through crisis, community, and the hidden cost of helping others. Daniel rises through the ranks, becoming Assistant Director and later an administrator, guiding the home through staff shortages, emergencies, and the pandemic. But in 2024, one chaotic night leads to a wrongful felony charge that shatters everything. The system he served turns against him. He faces public accusation, job loss, jail time, and the fight to rebuild his life from the ground up.

This memoir explores fatherhood, faith, trauma, resilience, and the unseen realities of working in youth residential care. It’s a story about the boys who changed him, the family who held him, and the house on the hill that shaped — and nearly destroyed — the man he was becoming.

Perfect for readers of trauma-informed memoirs, faith-infused nonfiction, social work and foster care stories, and redemptive true accounts of survival, The Distance Between Fathers, offers an honest, gripping look at what it means to show up for others when the world stops showing up for you.