Next month, it will be a year since Levi has seen our son. He came to New York last October for court and spent about an hour with us. Of his three-week visit. This year, Levi has been in New York twice — that I know of — and hasn't bothered to visit with Adrian once.

I used to partially believe him when he claimed it was the distance (I'm on the East Coast and Levi's on the West) that kept him from Adrian; or rather, I preferred to believe that. But now, it's obvious that it is Levi that is keeping Levi away from Adrian.

He has never bought him a toy, a T-shirt, a diaper. He has never called to ask how he is. Didn't come to see Adrian when he was in the hospital. He didn't send him so much as a birthday card last year, and I can't imagine that he'll send him one this year.

Everywhere I go, I am constantly reminded of fathers. The boy on his dad's shoulders, the little girl playing in the pool squealing "Daddy," the billboard that I see every day on my way to work that asks, "Have you been a father today?"

Lucky for us, my son has a lot of positive male role models in his life. Most importantly, my uncle has really stepped up and filled both the grandfather and father role with Adrian. Because of this, I am sure that Adrian will be OK, despite Levi's behavior.

However, what really concerns me is how absolutely normal this type of behavior is. This men-abandoning-their-children phenomenon. My story, Adrian's story, is shocking, yet, nobody is shocked by iy. There are a half a dozen stories just like mine, living on my street alone.

There are men all over TV claiming they aren't "the baby daddy," so many of them, in fact, that Maury Povich abandoned all other dramas (leaving them to Jerry Springer) and now strictly focuses on finding out who the "baby daddy" is.

A source of entertainment, I guess, but what about the poor kids? What does it say about our society as a whole when men like Levi are becoming more and more the norm?