Visiting Prison With Children

 

Having a loved one incarcerated can be a difficult situation, and it can become doubly difficult when you factor children into the mix. How do we help children deal with the burden of having parents in prison? How do you organize prison visits with children? Julia Lazareck sits down and talks with Neela Hoeppner about the trials and challenges her family faced, and continue to face, during her husband’s incarceration. Neela didn’t always have all the answers and learned along the way. She shares her story and important information about how she learned to talk to her children about prison and things she did to prepare them for the visit. This is a thought-provoking piece on the hidden effects of incarceration on families. Tune in to learn more.

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Visiting Prison With Children

I’m with Neela Hoeppner from Texas. Her husband has been incarcerated for over four years in a Federal prison in Oklahoma. I asked Neela to be on this show to share her story so that others with small children can understand the impact of incarceration on families. Neela, thank you so much for being here. When your husband was arrested, how old were your children?

Thank you for having me here. When my husband was first arrested, my son was nine months old. My daughter was about 2.5 years old. It all started with the County jail. It was a crazy time on how this came about. It all started with a normal day, driving my daughter to daycare. I had my son and our dog in the car. I dropped my daughter off at daycare then drove home like I always do. I’ve got pulled over by the city police. I did the normal routine. I asked them why they stopped me. They told me it was my speed. I told them, I wasn’t speeding. They said, “We need your ID. We will be right back.”

They went to the car, something in my gut told me something was off. I didn’t know what it was. They come back to my car and they tell me, “We are going to have to go to the house. We will explain to you what’s going on there.” Here I am in the car with my nine-month-old and my dog, I was terrified. I don’t know what’s going to happen. After going back and forth, I listened to them, started driving my car. They were following me behind. I’m panicking so I called our attorney. I tell him, “I don’t know what’s going on. I went and dropped my daughter off at school. My son’s in the car with me. I have my dog, in case anything happens, can you please answer my phone call?” He said, “Of course.”

We pulled up to my husband sitting outside and police officers were everywhere. From that moment, everything changed. My husband was taken into custody on a parole violation because they could not find any reason other than that. From that point on, he was incarcerated in the County jail for about four weeks. They did release him. He was out for about a month until we found out that he had Federal cases pending. He did turn himself in on July 5th of 2016. That’s where everything started. We went from being a normal family to whatever you would call that.

You said when he was in the County jail that you went to visit him with the kids?

When he was in the County jail of our city, I went and visited because I didn’t think it was going to be long. It was a tough atmosphere for children when I thought this was going to be a temporary thing. They have no reason to have him in there, they don’t need to get the kids involved. It wasn’t until he turned himself into Federal custody and was in a County jail that I had to bring the kids. This is a completely different ballgame now because I don’t know what’s going on. It was a regular county visit if anyone has ever been to one.

Maybe they haven’t. Could you explain it and what it was like with the kids? It must be difficult especially for young kids.

It was definitely a handful and you’ve got the stares from guards when they would see me walking in with those kids because to them, that was a problem. It’s not a nice thing for the human beings that are inside trying to visit with their children and have some type of connection with the outside. It was a fifteen-minute visitation. You would go into the waiting area and would wait about anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes if they were dragging their feet or not. Once you were processed in, they would let me and both children go in. We would then go into these little hallways.

In those hallways, they would have about 6, 7 booths. When I say booths, don’t think about privacy. These are booths where you would look to the right, you see that person. You look to the left, you see the other. They did have phones like the regular old-school payphones. You would sit at your booth. Eventually, your loved one would come out on the other side. They would sit on the other side of that booth. You were divided by plexiglass and to speak, you would use the phones. That was nice because I have heard of other County jails where they don’t have the phone. You can’t hear sometimes.

We could hear him, the kids would. We put them up on a little table because there’s little standing area. Our son was not even one year old. I would have to hold him up there so he could see his daddy and then our daughter would go up and down that little hall and play because to her, it was a game. She didn’t know what was going on. It wasn’t that hard at the beginning for them. It was harder for me than for them. They did enjoy it. They thought that daddy was working. They were talking to him on the phone. It was what it was at the time. They were young. I don’t think they could comprehend that this was not normal like, “We would wake up to our daddy at home.”

Now, we are driving 45 minutes away to go visit him. We can’t touch him and hug him. You were talking to him but through a phone. That was hard. The whole time that he was in County jail, we did not tell the kids that he was in jail. That is the biggest thing I do regret from that. At the time, I didn’t know. I thought that was what was best for the kids. You think that you are sheltering or protecting them by not telling them the truth when you are harming them when you are not telling them the truth. There are different levels. You can be age-appropriate with how you speak to children about things like this. It took me a long time to realize that but I did eventually. It took a long time.

That must have been difficult. Going to see your husband in prison and your two small children. I had a couple of questions, maybe more technical. I always wonder especially if somebody is going with children in diapers, snacks and all that. I know in the prisons, there are certain rules. Going to the County jail as you did, could you bring diapers? Could you bring snacks for the kids? How did you handle that?

 

You could bring absolutely nothing. If you needed diapers, you would have to walk outside, go through the two gates and change your baby’s diaper in the car and hope you did not miss visitation. You did not do that. There had been several times that mid-visit, my son used the restroom in the corner and his diaper was like, “We were almost done. What else do we do?” That was hard. For food, they had vending machines over there. You were able to get something from the vending machine. When you went into the visit, the child was able to eat surprisingly but I feel like, if the baby needed formula, it’s more important than the snacks in the vending machine but that’s not benefitting them like the vending machine is.

I was asking so people know that it’s not only difficult to go but then also basic needs that you have for your children may not be available. It’s also going to help other people prepare when they go. I appreciate you sharing that. He was in the County jail but he was under Federal indictment. The next step was, did he come home? Did he get out on bond or what was the next step? This is complex so we are going through it so people understand everything you went through.

The Federal system is complex. There are a lot of layers to it. It’s rare for people to want to go to trial in Federal court because they do have a 98% conviction rate. That is highly not recommended. Whether you were innocent or not, it’s still a slim chance that you do win that case. We hoped that he would be able to get out on bond and spend time with us while we figured out what the best plan was and what would be best for our family.

Unfortunately, it did not happen like that. They did deny his bond. He did spend his whole waiting process for his guilty plea because he ultimately did plead guilty waiting in the County jail. That took from July of 2016 until about February of 2018. That whole time, he was in County jail. It is not like a prison at all. He was confined in a room. It’s dormitory-style almost. Every jail and prison is different. That’s where he was every day, the same four walls. They would have rec but it was not rec that you would get in prison. It is dehumanizing. It’s unbelievable that they are allowed to do that but that’s what it is.

Once the whole process was finished and he was sentenced, it took about a month from there until he was shipped off to a Transfer Center. I know state systems have their own way of doing things, the Federal system has regions and in his region, the Transfer Center was in Oklahoma. He was sent there. He was there for a couple of weeks. At that time, we did not visit because even though I was on his visitation list in the county, once he was in actual Federal custody with BOP, you do have to send out your application and wait for your approval. Even if you are in someone’s paperwork that you are allowed to visit and you are a spouse or you are the children, you have to still wait for the process.

Let’s get back to talking about the Federal prison visitation. You were saying that’s a little bit different. Even though you were on the county list, once he was transferred to a Federal facility, you had to almost start all over. What’s the process there?

You go from a property of the city that you are into BOP property. It’s a completely different ballgame. Anything that was in the past is gone. BOP then is in charge. That’s the Bureau of Prisons. For people that don’t know, that’s where people who are in the Federal system or get Federally prosecuted go. That’s the facility that they go to. You do start in a transfer facility, where they gather everything. They then decide what actual facility is going to be your home facility for however long they want until they transfer you again.

Federal prisons are all over the United States. There’s even one in Hawaii. It could be a long distance. Where do they send them next?

We’ve got lucky because he could have gone anywhere. It could have been hard but we were lucky enough that he was able to go to the closest Federal prison for his level. They can’t send you to any Federal prison that they want. It is based on your security level. That’s based on your points, which is something that they have right before your sentencing with the probation officer. That’s something that sticks with you everywhere you go because he was at a medium level, he could have gone to any of the prisons that are in the Dallas Metroplex. He was lucky enough to go to the one in Oklahoma. If he was not sent there, he would have been at least eight hours away. That was a blessing in itself. We are grateful for that. Driving four hours one way is no big deal. I don’t want to say, “It’s no big deal.”

No big deal for you alone but with kids?

With kids, that 4 turns to 8 sometimes. It is not easy for small children. It’s not their fault. As hard it was for me to understand why they wouldn’t want to sit in the car for four hours. No big deal. I’m doing the driving like, “You have to sit there. Watch a movie, color or something.” It was still hard and I do understand that it’s not fair to the kids. They don’t get asked to get drawn into this but I know that the importance of them seeing their dad is there. It’s important for the children and me. It’s a sacrifice that we had to make. It was a long process to even get there.

Before we were able to even visit him, once he did get sent to his prison, we had to send the application to the case manager. The case manager then can decide to approve or deny within whatever time frame he wants. You could send something in and it could take weeks or months. It depends. In the Federal system then, you have something called a PSR that follows you everywhere you go that does have information about your loved ones, immediate family, spouses, children, mom, mother-in-law and people that should be able to visit. That should be an instant like, “They are in the PSR. They could visit. No problem.” No, it doesn’t work that way. That’s one side of it.

To drive up to the prison and then find out you can't visit is heartbreaking. It’s not a fun experience, especially with children. Share on X

The other side is the BOP and that case manager, they typically take their time but we were lucky enough that it only took a couple of weeks. It wasn’t too bad on that end. It was still going to be an adjustment. With that first visit, we planned for me to go by myself because I didn’t know what to expect. At the time, I had no support group. I had nowhere to reach out to and nowhere to get that advice or information. All I had was the BOP website giving me visitation information that is not always accurate. Myself, calling the guards and making sure visitation is on but it’s not the same as getting advice from someone who has lived it. That was scary in itself.

I wanted to clarify something. First of all, I wanted to comment on how difficult that is to visit especially by yourself the first time, it’s the unknown. It’s scary. You don’t know what to expect. I give you a lot of credit for doing that. That takes a lot of courage. You did say calling the guards. However, I wanted to clarify that because you called the prison and so people don’t think, “You could call up the guard and say, ‘How’s my husband?’” It would be nice. Somebody has to answer so you call to get information because the BOP, Bureau of Prisons website didn’t have everything that you needed. It’s good to call to clarify.

You call that prison that your loved one was located in and a guard will answer the phone half the time. You can ask them questions and they give you sometimes the right answer, sometimes half an answer. It’s hit or miss. The best thing for calling them is asking them if they are on lockdown because that is something they will answer.

Tell everybody what a lockdown is.

Lockdown is when the whole facility is ultimately locked down. It’s closed. No one can get in, get out and able to visit. If your loved one is in a facility that has cells, they then are locked in their cells, which is like 2 or 3 people into a cell because a lot of them are overcrowded. I don’t know what it is for a dormitory-style prison. I’m sure they were locked in their dormitories but loved ones can’t call or do anything like that. That is where the guards do help on that end. If you don’t call the prison and know that there is a lockdown, you are then driving up or some people fly and then drive. It can take a lot of time for some people to visit their loved ones so that’s hard.

To drive up to the prison and then find out you can’t visit is heartbreaking. That has happened to me once and it was not a fun experience especially with children. The first time I did visit the actual facility, it was by myself. I planned to make it a day trip because I did not want to spend the money on a room and be alone in that room. It was partially emotional for me. I did wake up at 4:00 AM. I’ve got ready, packed a couple of pairs of extra clothing in my car because I looked at the visitation outfit requirements. There were a lot of gray areas. I did not want to drive all the way there not knowing where I was, to be able to find a Walmart or a clothing store to get to change clothes if I needed to.

I left the house about 5:00 AM. I arrived at the prison a little before 9:00 AM. At the facility he was at, I was able to visit on the weekends. That has changed constantly. I arrived an hour after the visitation has first open. They are open from 8:00 to 3:00. That doesn’t mean you get there at 8:00 and you visit at 8:00. You get there at 8:00 and you pretty much visit at 9:00. It depends on the guard that is processing people that day. When I first arrived at the prison, I pulled up to the prison and there was a speaker box. The speaker box asked me if I was here to visit an inmate. I said, “Yes, I was.” They asked me if I was carrying any weapons, guns, ammunition, drugs, tobacco or anything of that sort. I was not. They asked if I knew where to park, I told them I did not. They explained to me where to park and to walk up to visit when I parked my car.

I went to park the car, looked at the building, assumed because they did not explain well where this building was that the only one I saw I had access to was the one I needed to go to. I walked in and thankfully, there was another woman in there. She gracefully helped me and told me, “Is this your first time?” I had that look that I now understand. Now, when I see people who have never been there before, they do have that look. It was a terrifying blank what-do-I-do look. Thankfully, she helped me and told me, “You fill out this form. Take off your shoes, your belt. Any jewelry you have on put it in the bucket.”

Whenever they feel like they were ready, they will call our name or they will say who’s next and then, you go on to the next step. I sat there with the lady. We had a little bit of small talk but I was nervous. I hadn’t physically touched my husband in almost two years at that point. I was excited but I was nervous. You cannot explain that feeling in any way. Unless you have been through that and you are feeling that feeling I’m talking about.

If you have never dealt with that, it’s hard to imagine it and hard to understand how that does feel. It was about twenty minutes and they called that first lady in. They processed her through. It took about 10, 15 minutes then it was my turn. I go in there and I look like I have never been there before because I’m like, “Hi.” “Put your stuff down.” I’m like, “Where do I put it down?” I put it down where they tell me to. They were like, “I need your ID. I need your form. I need your keys.” “There you go.”

You fill out a check-in and checkout sheet with your name, your loved one’s name and their register number. They can choose if they want to do a drug screening on you or not. They did not do a drug screening on me. It was probably a year until they did and they say it’s a random thing. I do know if you do set off that drug detector, you will then continue to be tested. It’s not to test if you have done drugs. It’s if you are trying to bring drugs in and it is faulty but that’s a whole another subject.

Once they send your stuff through the scanning machine, it’s almost as if you are in an airport. You go through the metal detector. As long as you don’t beep, you can then move on to the next part. The next thing is the machines in the airports where you put your hands up. They scan around you to see if there’s anything in any personal areas and if they do see any type of object on you, they will have to pat you down. Once you get through there, they tell you to get your shoes and you can get everything on. Wait for the next guard to come and escort you to the visitation room. It takes about 5, 10 minutes depending on the guard, the day and how they were feeling. They will take you outside from that processing room into visitation.

 

Federal prisons are different-looking from State prisons, in my opinion. His prison looks like a church or campus. It’s big. It’s not as scary as you think when you tell someone you are going to visit a prison. Not all prisons are like that. They are all different. We walk outside and you wouldn’t think you are walking outside into the visitation room. There were flowers everywhere. I will never forget it, I looked around and was like, “That looks like a church right in front of me. This isn’t that bad.” You then walk into the visitation room and you were like, “This is gloomy.” Our visitation room was not set up as most were. We do not have tables. We have rows of seats. Seats are interconnected with each other. The inmates are back-to-back. You have rows and then probably like 3, 4 feet, our chairs that are connected back-to-back.

You first go up to the desk where the guards are sitting. They will ask who you are visiting. You tell them and they will tell you where to sit. When they tell you where to sit, you go sit down. You then can choose to either sit and wait. Which for me, that usually takes too long. There was one time where I was sitting there for almost an hour, not understanding where my husband was because he knows when I’m coming to visit. He is ready and waiting because they will call you on an intercom where he was at. If you don’t hear that intercom, they could care less. They are not going to go and find you. You have to hopefully get it together, ask them and get up there so they will take you to visitation.

If you do know what your loved one likes to eat, they have vending machines. The vending machines go fast. The best bet is for you to get all the food, at least one round of food, the good stuff. Usually, everything that they have in the refrigerated vending machines is the first one to go because that is the closest to real food that they don’t have on commissary. The chips and everything else. They have off-brand but they could do without that. They love that but they want the burgers, the Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, the pies and all that type of stuff. I turned around, looked at the food. I was too scared to get up the first time I was there. I sat there, waited and took some time.

Eventually, my husband came out. He had to walk to the guards’ desk to give them his ID. He then came over to where I was. Where we are at, we are able to have one hug and one kiss in the beginning and one hug and one kiss at the end. I saw him and I was able to give him a hug and a kiss. It was too long for the guards’ liking. They yelled his name, “That’s enough.” We sit down. It was a relief. From that point on, I didn’t feel like I was in a visiting room. I felt like I was at a restaurant in an awkwardly-positioned area with my husband. Even that eventually faded.

Once we were able to catch up because it had been long to be able to hold each other’s hand, talk without holding a phone and talking through a glass. I asked him, “What do you want to eat?” He picked out some food. At first, it was overwhelming for him to have like, “These are options. I can pick what I want.” You have a list for the commissary and you pick that but everything else is those trays are what you get. You don’t get to choose what you want. He picked something. I went over there. I’ve got him his food. I found out that he could not sit and eat with me which is his facility.

Something happened a couple of years prior to where they decided for inmates to have a literal corner that’s an eating area. That’s where he has to eat. I’ve got him a burger. I saw the microwave. I wanted to use the microwave and then I looked at the guard and said, “Where do I put this?” He told me where to put it. I put it there and said, “Now what?” because we have never had a visit. Does he get up? Does he have to wait to get up? They looked at me crazy but they did answer and said, “He can get up. He has to sit in this corner and eat. When he’s done, he can come back and sit with you.”

He had got up. He swallowed his burger because he didn’t want to waste any time that he had. We were given that eight-hour window. That’s no time when you are in it. It sounds like a lot of time but it’s not. To be timed on how long you get to spend with your loved one, it’s hard. After that, we enjoyed the rest of the visit. It went by fast. From there on, you turn into a pro. It had got easier with each visit. I still get that feeling every time I go to visit, the nerves because I don’t have control over if they are going to let me into visitation that day or if they want to be mean to me that day.

I still always have that anticipation of the fear of being turned down for visits because you have no control over what that guard decides. They can decide not to like the outfit you are wearing that day and turn you around every single time. You could change a million times and it could still not be good enough. They could be angry with your husband or your wife or whoever you are going to visit and not want that person to have a visit. It’s out of your control. That’s the scary part of it. It’s 100% out of your control.

One thing that you didn’t talk about and because it’s the hardest part was after that first visit. That drive home. For me, every time I’m leaving, it was the worst and that’s when you are there, you are holding yourself together for your loved one. Once you leave, it’s so emotional. What was that like that first visit and that drive home?

That first drive home, it took a while to hit me. About an hour in, it hit me that I had to leave my husband in prison. I have to go on back to regular life. It was a mixed feeling of emotions that drags over a couple of days. It’s not that day driving back. You don’t realize it until a couple of visits. It’s not PTSD, a post-visit depression, in a sense. One of the ladies on a support group that I use, they called it post-visit blues. Once I saw that and I’m like, “That’s exactly what it is.”

To know that other people feel it and that it was a normal thing and made you feel better. It didn’t take it away. Even after all this time, you still have it new. It’s hard. As hard as it is on me, it’s harder for me knowing that it’s almost unbearable for him. He had got a glimpse of his freedom in his life after he leaves prison. It gets taken away from him. He has to go back to the reality of going back into a cell and make it through until the next visit. That’s hard. That breaks my heart. I will never be able to understand what that feels like. I try to do what I can to help him get through that. That ultimately helps me but that first visit is unlike any other that you experience from the beginning, the middle and the end. It gets easier but it’s never easy.

That’s exactly what I was going to say. It does get easier but it’s never easy. We coined a new term. Instead of PTSD, PVSD. Post-visit Syndrome. Let’s talk about visitation before the pandemic and visiting with your kids. Your kids were growing up during this time. Your husband was watching them grow from prison. What was that like?

Your first visit to an incarcerated loved one is unlike any other. It gets easier but it’s never easy. Share on X

It was hard especially because it wasn’t until about a year into those visits that we talked with our kids that he is in prison. It may sound crazy for anyone to think like, “You took these kids to visit all this time and you didn’t say that was a prison visiting room?” They were kids. They don’t know. They were not looking at that stuff. They were looking at, “We get to go see our daddy this weekend. We get to spend the weekend with our daddy.”

That first visit with the kids was hard. It was a full eight-hour-day visit in itself. We did have to spend the night before to drive to visit. I had to explain to them, “We are going to go see daddy. We have to follow the rules. We have to be respectful and we have to do our part.” How do you explain that, at this point, to an almost 2-year-old and 3.5-year-old? You do the best you can. You don’t know how it’s going to turn out until you were in that room.

It’s turning out the kids did well. On the first visit, they didn’t ask me any questions on, “Why do we have to take our shoes off?” I told them, “We are going to go in here. They were going to ask if we are here to see your daddy. I’m going to tell them, ‘Yes.’ If they ask you questions, be respectful.” They did a good job with that. They took off their shoes. They put it in the bins. I told them, they’ve got to go through this cool machine. If it beeps at you, we get to keep going back and forth until it stops beeping.

I don’t know what they thought when I was telling them that because I didn’t know what I was doing but it worked. The first time they saw their daddy and they were able to hug their daddy was something I could never explain to anybody. I could never describe the feeling that I felt other than I felt home for the first time since he was home with us. We felt like a regular family. It was hard because we did have to constantly tell the children, “Sit down. You can’t run up and down the hall. You have to sit. We have to stay here. You have to listen. We can get you a snack.” If you get some snacks, we can do more than talking to daddy on this mat. It’s only so long that you can tell little children that they can’t be children. That part was hard with that first visit and the beginning of visitation but it did get easier.

Did that facility have a children’s area? Some prisons do.

They had a corner with a TV that they would put on sometimes. It was a TV that was 12×12 inches on the top of this shelf that half the children could not see. They did have books. If you ask them, they will pull the books out and you were able to sit down and read books with the kids. The kids were able to sit on his lap. We were grateful for that. All inmates were not allowed, banned from that children’s corner. At the same time, they had signs everywhere that said inmates are responsible for their children’s behavior. How? They were not allowed to get up but that’s what they thought.

That children’s corner was more like a children’s get-away. When there would be enough children in the visiting room, they would all end up in that room playing with each other. I don’t know if it’s because they had that bond, they were all visiting their parent, uncle, grandpa or whoever it may be. They would have so much fun there. They would sit there and play Duck-Duck-Goose. They would read to each other. They would watch TV. They would do who knows what and we let them.

It’s only so long you can sit in those uncomfortable visiting chairs and expect children to sit there as well. They were inevitably going to get antsy and get tired and they want to be kids. It is interesting to see how the kids evolved. Not only did we watch our children grow up in a visiting room but we also watched other people’s children grow up in a visiting room. I have seen newborns coming in there. Maybe a couple of months old and they go from that stage to you would see them walking then you would see them talking.

You would interact with everybody’s kids. Depending on the guard, sometimes they wouldn’t want that but a lot of them didn’t mind. It was nice because it’s like you were at the park, living a normal life. When you see someone else and their family or the neighbors, it was almost something like that. It was enjoyable to have some sense of normalcy in there. You couldn’t think too hard into it because it was sad. Especially looking back, we did have a picture guy there. We were able to take pictures if they bought tickets on commissary and you could look at photos of my husband and me and the kids. You literally can watch them growing up in these photos. It’s unbelievable because you blink and here it is.

I’ve got so many questions about the kids. We spoke about the kids growing up and your husband seeing them grow up. How often did you visit? Was there a time and we were talking about pre-pandemic that you might not have seen him for a while and had grown so much?

It was pretty consistent with how we would visit. We would go almost every other weekend. It wasn’t unless there was a family birthday out-of-town or a family birthday party that was on the weekend that we wouldn’t and that was few and far between. It wasn’t until the pandemic that we had to completely stop visiting at all. That’s what made dealing with the pandemic so hard because we did have a consistent schedule. That’s what I tried with the kids.

I tried to have some type of consistency in their life, to where, “Your daddy is not here.” It’s not even that your daddy is not in the house and you can go see him somewhere. He is in another state, in prison.” How can I make this in any way shape or form consistent for them? It was making that sacrifice of being tired but going to those visits because it was something that I needed for my mental health and well-being and the kids needed it. My husband needed it. Even though you did have that aftermath of having a hard time with the reality of your life.

 

The other thing, too, is that it’s a financial burden. People don’t realize that because it’s not only the time and luckily, you could see him on the weekends or time off when you could go and not have to take time off work and school and all of that because that would have been difficult. This financial burden of driving up there over the weekend and I commend you for keeping that consistency. I was wondering, “At what point did they start questioning you?” On the way home, “Did they ever have questions?” Kids’ questions or things that might be able to help other people when their kids ask questions.

In the beginning, we did not tell the kids that he was in prison. It wasn’t until I attended the prisoners’ family conference in 2018. I met this amazing woman, Dr. Avon Hart-Johnson, who wrote children’s books on the subject that I realize that, A) I’m probably not following them anyway. B) I need to be honest with our children. I need to be fair to them. Although they are children, I need to be able to be open and honest with our children. I need to tell them at an age-appropriate level that their daddy is in jail. Not necessarily he is in prison but he is in jail because he broke a rule. That’s what happens.

It’s not fair. It’s not your fault. This is the life that we live. How did I make that into a conversation that was age-appropriate, comfortable and two-way communication? That’s where I was struggling. I started with Dr. Avon’s books. Her books did a great way of showing that these children are not alone. They were not the only ones dealing with something like this because, in a child’s mind, the first thing that you think of if something is not “normal” in your family is, “What did I do? This is my fault. Why did I make this happen to my family?”

I started slow. I started with my older daughter because she understood more than my son did. I first asked her, “Do you know where daddy is?” She said, “He’s at work.” I said, “Can I tell you a story?” She said yes. I’ve got the book. I read the book on the computer to her. She understood that this was about someone who’s going to go visit their daddy that’s in jail. That’s where I started. I told her, “Mommy hasn’t always been fair and honest with you. I want to be honest with you because you deserve that. I don’t ever want you to not trust me. Daddy is in jail. Daddy broke a rule. When adults break the rules, they have to go to jail. It is no reason to think that you are why he went to jail. He did something he wasn’t supposed to do. That’s where he is.”

I asked her if she had any questions. The first thing she said was, “He doesn’t work at a jail?” I said, “No, he doesn’t work at a jail. He is in jail. That’s where he’s living. That’s why he’s not at home with us.” That’s where I stopped the conversation because I did not want to overwhelm her plate. At that moment, I wanted to give her enough to where I could come back and revisit that. My husband can have his own conversation and give him that opportunity. That next visit, he did sit her down and spoke to her and told her his version. To this day, I still don’t know what that is because I did allow him to have that one-on-one with her because he doesn’t get the chance to have that privacy.

It took time for her to grasp it and understand it but then she did. She was okay and didn’t mention it. She would tell her brother that, “We have to listen or the police are going to tell us we have to leave.” She would tell her brother, “We have to listen to the police or they are going to tell us we can’t visit our daddy. Listen to the police or we are going to get in trouble.” That’s also where I did not want her to feel like she could get in trouble with the police. That was another problem we would always have. That’s what I was also afraid of. I did not want her to be fearful of the guards that were in there.

I did not want her to think that anything could ever happen to her, her dad, her brother or myself. That took time. She did get comfortable. With my son, because he was younger and wasn’t as mature as she was, it was hard to get him to understand the concept of, “Your daddy is in jail.” For the longest time, she thought that he works in jail. That’s where he is. That’s where he has to stay. It wasn’t until the pandemic that he understood that like, “My dad is in jail.” That’s where we keep it with him because it is hard for him to understand what his daddy did or why he has to be in jail all the time, for as long as he is.

It gets complicated there. All kids are different. How my children react may not be the same as how your children react. It’s knowing that you have to be as open and honest as you can with your children. Be age-appropriate and that my age-appropriate is not going to be the same as someone else’s. When they ask you a question, answer as truthfully as you can. Don’t think you have these kids fooled because they were way smarter than you think. They analyze everything. They feel your vibe. They know when you are sad, angry and something’s not right. They may not know exactly what’s going on but they can figure it out.

I don’t know if my daughter didn’t know. I feel like she was way smarter than that. I don’t think I had her fooled like I thought I did. I can’t go back to what I did and how I went about it in the beginning. All I can do is change the now and the future and helping her understand that it is okay. She should feel comfortable and know that she can talk to me when she’s upset or if she misses her daddy or anything like that. Same with my son. I don’t want them to feel like they have to hide these things. That’s hard too because it’s like, “How do you know when you can share that with a friend, a teacher or anybody?”

How was that on the outside than in school or with other people? How are they handling it?

I never heard my daughter say anything about talking about her daddy until kindergarten. It was out of the blue. I picked her up from school one day when I was off of work and asked her, “How our day was?” She said, “It was good.” “Did you learn anything new?” “No.” “Anything fun happened?” “Yeah.” Tell me about it. “I was talking to my friend at school about my daddy.” Good thing she couldn’t see my face because my jaw dropped. I was completely terrified. I played it off, “What did you tell her or him? How did that go?” She said, “I told my friend that my daddy was in jail. Guess what?” I said, “What?” “Her daddy was in jail too.” I’m like, “Really? That’s crazy.” The hard part then came. She told me that her friend’s dad just got out of jail. She asked me, “Why does her daddy get to get out of jail and my dad can’t?” That broke my heart completely. That’s reality.

One in eight children has a parent that’s incarcerated or they were directly impacted by incarceration. That was the statistic. It could be even 1 in 4. It’s incredible. If you look at the statistics, it’s unbelievable. I knew it was bound to happen. I told her, after spending a couple of seconds trying to figure out how to go about this, “Some people, their daddies get to come home sooner than others. Her daddy’s time was up and he was able to go home, don’t think that is a choice. Your daddy’s not making that choice of staying in there. He just can’t leave there yet and her daddy can. You need to be happy for her and her daddy and just know that your daddy is coming home. It’s just not right now but he is going to come home.” She told me, “Okay,” and I don’t know how she analyzed that. Hopefully, I did the best I could. We don’t know what we were doing. It’s all trial and error. You can just do your best. That’s all you can do is do your best. I did my best at that moment. Hopefully, that was enough.

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You are doing an awesome job. Like you said, “Every kid is different.” Different parents have different ways of handling it. It’s good to do the research that you did. You mentioned some good resources. There are also the friends and family of incarcerated person support groups for children that children can go and talk to other kids. They know that they were not alone. The InterNational Prisoners Family Conference, 2021 is going to have a Kid’s Day. Dr. Avon Hart-Johnson’s books are out there and helping people. I wanted to also talk to you about the pandemic when you went to visit because there was over a year that you couldn’t visit because the prisons were in lockdown.

It was 1 year and 1 month that we were unable to visit, which doesn’t seem like a long time. I know some people who had gone years. I don’t ever want to discredit anyone who has dealt with worse than we had or how to have gone longer without seeing their loved one. Think about a kid and a year and how much they grow up. To have that taken away, to get nothing but pictures, some people haven’t seen their loved ones in years. That’s not even because of the pandemic, some people just aren’t able to visit or some people are thrown in solitary confinement, there are millions of things. For us to have gone over a year when we went every other weekend, that’s a dramatic change, not to mention getting pulled from schools and being forced to go on a walk down ourselves. It was hard.

Where he is, they don’t have unlimited access to the phones. Inmates only get 300 minutes a month besides holidays. You say 300 minutes, that sounds a lot but that’s ten minutes a day, depending on what month you are. When phone calls are fifteen minutes long, you go over, you were out of minutes for the month. You can’t communicate with them and anything but email and visit. For us to get stripped of every type of visitation and to have the phone was a big change. We were adults, we can adapt to things. How do you tell a child to have to adapt when they have already adapted to something that in itself isn’t normal or common so to speak? These children don’t stop growing, you can’t pause and continue when you can go back to visit.

They are growing. In that age gap that the kids were, they grew up. Our son turned from a baby to a child, a big kid. Anything from his height, his thought process, to his communication skills, everything changed. I saw in that time that he was deriving that relationship with his dad and was so much more interested in it. Whereas before when we were visiting, pre-pandemic, he was a little toddler, “He’s my daddy, I just want to go run and play and bust jokes and do all types of fun stuff. I’m not interested in having this conversation with you.”

That flipped dramatically. We went through the struggles of the prison going on lockdowns because of COVID. Not hearing from him and the fear of, “Did he get sick? Is he okay? What is going on?” They are giving no information out. Even if they are, we don’t know if that information is accurate. You always want to give them the benefit of the doubt but it’s not accurate information. That’s where it gets hard. Being stuck across in another state and not knowing what your husband’s doing. If he’s okay. Is he getting food? Is he getting water? Is he getting PPE when we can’t even get it out here? What is going on?

How do I explain to the children that there’s a virus we have to stay home and we have to try to be safe? You then have questions like, “Is daddy safe in jail? Can he come home? Is he able to come home to be safe with us?” “We can’t visit him.” “Why can’t we visit him? Why can’t we talk to him on the phone? Why can’t we do anything?” You were trying to cope with all the feelings because you have never dealt with a pandemic before. You are also trying to figure out how to communicate with your children about this. There was no answer for that. It was just trial and error again.

One of the things that you were talking about is during the pandemic that you went and visited your husband. Tell us about the trip that you told me about when the four of you went, you, your mother-in-law and your two children.

We were able to go to visit. Finally, they lifted lockdown and they allowed visits. They did restrict them to be only on the weekdays. Depending on the building that your loved ones in is the day that you can go, we were excited. It was scheduled for only an hour, they weren’t specific on the website. We were like, “Let’s do this. Let’s all get in the car.” Booked the hotel room. Put the fear of staying in the hotel room to the side because this was just worth it. Packed the kids up then we drove. Kids were excited. We told them, “We are going to go see Daddy.” They lit up, they couldn’t believe it at first. They were excited. They didn’t do too bad in the car that time. We’ve got to the hotel room and everyone went to bed. I wake up the kids and dressed and telling me, “Let’s go.” They were ready as could be. We get up, we get dressed.

I have those pre-visit nerves that I hadn’t had in so long, I was excited, I was nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. We get to the car, we drive to the prison. The prison is only ten minutes away from where our hotel room is. We pull up the visitation. Instead of talking to the speaker box, they have a little shed outside. In that shed is a guard, the guard comes out and asks, “Are you here for visitation? Who are you here to visit?” I give them the name.

They asked all the typical COVID questions. They have you fill out a form. They see me, my mother-in-law and my two children in the car and they say, “Go ahead and park. Walk into visitation in the processing area and do this normal procedure from there.” We park. We go in. I tell the kids to be on their best behavior. Be nice, be courteous. Remember how we need to treat everybody when we were there. I’m preparing them because it has been so long. That’s a typical pre-visit.

We get in there, we are filling out our forms and a guard comes out and looks at me and says, “Ma’am, are you all visiting the same inmate?” “Yes. We are here to visit the same inmate.” He looks at me and says, “Unfortunately, only two of you are allowed to visit.” My heart sinks. I’m stuck because here I am, me, my mother-in-law and our two kids. What am I supposed to do? I look at him and I tell him.

“I’m sorry. That’s not what it said on the website. Can we divide our time? 30 minutes, me and a child? 30 minutes, my mother-in-law and a child?” “Nope. We can’t do that.” “Can you take these children to go see their daddy? They haven’t seen him in over a year.” “No. Unfortunately, they need an adult to attend to them.” I’m like, “Do they count as that second person? Both of them can’t come with me?” “No. You are going to have to pick one.” “You are telling me I have to pick a child to go and visit their daddy?” I have to make a decision and deal with the consequences of how they were going to feel after that.

 

Surprisingly, I don’t know what happened and came over my daughter. When I looked at her and I told them, “We can’t all go in there. The police made the rule that only two of us can go and see daddy. This is a hard question. Which one of you will stay and not go to visit?” They both look at me and they say, “I want to go with you. I’m going.” Now what? This is terrible advice but I’m going to be real. I told them, “Whoever doesn’t go, can go with one of us and go pick out whatever toy you want and we will come next weekend. I promise you, we will.” My daughter said “It’s fine. I will stay with Grandma. Tell my daddy I love him.” That took a minute to process because I still couldn’t believe what was going on. There was no one in this visiting room. Would it harm anybody if you, maybe not both adults but the children go in? No one would have known. If they don’t have to, they were not going to allow that.

My daughter and my mother-in-law left and my son and I went into visitation. The processing was the same, except now vending machines are not open. You cannot take any money, you can’t have anything with you, I know that you are still able to bring diapers and a bottle of formula but nothing else. We get processed, we wait for the guard, the guard comes and walks us to visitation. It is like night and day, it’s a completely different setup. In the woodshop in prison, the inmates were almost barricaded like a little fish tank. Inmates then are in the inside of that fish tank with plexiglass on the top and vents that are close to having a barrier for the safety of COVID.

The guard tells you where to sit, you go to that spot. You have to keep your mask on and you can sit in that spot. When your loved one comes in, they go directly to the other side of that spot that you are sitting at. He has to keep his mask on as well. When I tell you, it was almost impossible to hear that it wasn’t even explained how impossible it was to hear him. They have vents but because of COVID, you can’t have that type of interaction. The vents were ultimately closed. I could hear the guy across the room clear as day but I couldn’t hear him for the life of me. That doesn’t matter. What mattered was seeing him, my son seeing him, him seeing my son. This visit was unlike any other visit we have ever had in all aspects. More than anything, it was the visit between my son and my husband.

The difference in maturity level with my son on how that whole visit went about. He was thriving on his dad’s attention and enjoying every single minute. Talking to him about everything. “Look at my pushups. Look at my jumping jacks. Daddy, look my favorite thing is this. Guess what happened at school?” Things that didn’t happen before, that’s because it has been over a year. The little boy that last went to this visiting room was now a big boy and wanted to have those conversations with his dad and wanted to interact and have that bond in the relationship.

When I tell you that, it made my heart complete in this visit worth everything, even though it was the most heartbreaking thing to have to pick a child. It’s like you have to take the good and leave the bad and take what you get. To be able to sit there and watch them interact and have that was priceless. It was something that my husband, my son and I needed. Although my daughter wasn’t able to go, we are setting it up and we will go the next time we were allowed to visit and go from there. It is limited and it is not a normal visit. We have no control over this. All we can do is roll with the punches and follow their rules as much as we can. Don’t let them take away the good out of what you are getting from this. They can’t take away that hour that my son had with his dad. That hour that I felt some type of whole again, almost. It’s being grateful for what you have. That’s always in life and everything.

Neela, thank you so much for sharing your story. It’s real and it shows what families go through. It’s just so important to keep the prison family together, those on the outside and those on the inside. Your story also shows how important it is to keep the children in touch with their parent that’s incarcerated as long as it’s a safe environment. They have that connection with their parent because someday they are coming home and you want to keep that family connected. Not only does it help the children but it also will help your husband because he’s going to stay connected to your family, to your children, seeing them grow and feel like he has been a part of the family, even though he has been incarcerated.

We always say that the person that was incarcerated is a person. Maybe what they did was bad but it’s not who they are, they were still human beings and they still need to be treated humanely. It’s important, I can’t stress it enough. We need everybody to understand how important it is that we keep the family unit together. Your story demonstrates that. I appreciate the time you have taken to speak with me. I have heard your story a few times, I have met your children. They are well adjusted, they are beautiful. They are whatever normal is, they are normal kids and you have done a great job with them. Some people never tell their kids that their parent was incarcerated. I hear so many stories where kids do think that their parents were working in a jail or that’s where they work. It’s not uncommon.

I want to say it’s up to each parent, each family to determine and decide how they want to broach it with their children. We will put some resources in the text of this Neela spoke about what helped her so there are a lot of resources out there. It’s your decision how you want to talk to your children. Neela, I always like to end these talks by asking you, is there anything else that you want to share with the readers or any bit of information or advice you have already shared? Many things that we tell people a lot of information that’s in my book Prison: The Hidden Sentence about how to prepare for visiting. I love the story of your first visit, even though nobody told you that you were like, “I better bring a bunch of clothes because I want to see my husband. If they don’t like what I’m wearing, I’m going to have extra clothes.” A lot of people don’t know that. There are a lot of information like that in the book. Anything else you want to share?

One thing is to know you are not alone. Some people are feeling what you are feeling and your feelings are valid. You just have to work through those feelings and take care of yourself. Don’t diminish your health and well-being just because your loved one is incarcerated. You can’t get out of your pot if you have nothing to give. If you are not taking care of yourself, you can’t take care of your loved one. Whatever that looks like to you, you’ve got to find that and just go for it. Find those support groups, those people and those books. There are resources out there and you need to utilize them. They help you. It takes time. This life isn’t easy at all, as I said but it gets easier and you will get through this.

Thank you so much, Neela, well said and it’s so important for people to talk about it. We need to remove the stigma. People on the outside are serving the hidden sentence. They are serving the sentence with their loved ones and they don’t need to. There are millions of people out there that have loved ones that are incarcerated and we just need to speak about it. We need to have compassion for each other, raise awareness and realize that we will get through it together. Thank you.

Important Links:

• Neela Hoeppner – LinkedIn
• InterNational Prisoners Family Conference
• Dr. Avon Hart-Johnson – LinkedIn
• https://prisonthehiddensentence.com
• https://TheFFIP.org
• Https://www.MyStoryAndMe.com

About Neela Hoeppner

My name is Neela Hoeppner, I am a mother, wife, daughter, and sister. My Husband has been in Federal prison as of July 2016, and I have been serving my time on the outside with him. I advocate not only for my husband and all others incarcerated inside the prison walls, but also for all the family members and friends doing time with their loved ones on the outside.

 

 

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