Posted on 04/30/2007 12:35:26 PM PDT by Caleb1411
Every day, I try to remember to thank God for life's many blessings. It's a checklist of sorts:
Health is good.
Check.
Kids are great.
Check.
Never married Alec Baldwin.
Check. Check. Check.
Whew. Some blessings just bring on a boatload of gratitude.
Baldwin is getting lots of attention, but I suspect it's not the kind he was hoping for after he left a vicious voice-mail message attacking his 11-year-old daughter for not answering their prearranged call. The actor packed a lot of vitriol into two minutes and 19 seconds, and it's a message that his daughter surely must be trying to forget. That seems unlikely now that millions of Americans have been able to hear her father's rant, too, on an endless loop of broadcasts on TV, radio and the Internet.
We got to hear Baldwin rant with breathtaking hostility toward his daughter, Ireland. His rage, peppered with profanity, was all her fault, he said. He told her he didn't care that she was a child, and after adding that she didn't have "the brains or the decency of a human being," he ended his poor-Daddy diatribe with this snarling indictment: "You're a rude, thoughtless little pig."
The first time I heard that phone message, my own eyes started to sting. It's the rare woman who can't conjure up memories of her own pre-adolescent insecurities - my own list could wrap around the Earth and end in a bow - and at that moment I wanted to hit the delete button before Baldwin's daughter could check her calls. An irrational response, of course, but you don't call any female a pig and expect logic to reign. How is it that we even know about Baldwin's nasty voice-mail message? Well, an unidentified somebody leaked it to the celebrity Web log TMZ.com. Baldwin's ex-wife, actress Kim Basinger, denies she is that somebody, but suspicions abound in light of the publicly contentious custody battle they have waged since 2002. After five years of their high-flying dirty laundry, the only obvious finding of fact is that an innocent child has become a pawn in yet another ugly divorce.
Now is as good a time as any to remind all you fathers of young daughters just what power you have. The studies are done, the findings conclusive: No matter how much a mother praises her daughter, if a father regularly tells her that she is beautiful, smart and precious, she is far more likely to believe it. In fact, she'll not only believe you, she'll look to marry a man just like you. That ought to scare Baldwin into anger management real fast.
Baldwin apologized for his tirade on his Web site. "I'm sorry, as everyone who knows me is aware, for losing my temper with my child," he wrote. "I have been driven to the edge by parental alienation for many years now."
Someone needs to point out that steering wheel in Baldwin's hands and remind him that he's the one who took the U-turn off the high road. No matter how cruel an ex-wife gets - and some ex-wives rival the spawn of Satan when it comes to cruelty - no one can drive a father to badger and belittle his little girl. He makes that trip on his own.
As for his public apology, it's wasted on us. We aren't the victims here, and the real victim needs a lot of mending. As my mother used to warn, some things you say you can't take back. Your tongue lets loose and from then on you're performing triage, hoping that some day the bleeding will stop.
Of course, the public does have a role here. We have a long memory when it comes to other people's stumbles, which means there's an 11-year-old girl named Ireland who will never be allowed to forget what her father said to her just as she was toeing the cliff of adolescence. That plunge is a lot harder when you're pushed by the guy who's supposed to catch you on the way down.
We don't know what, if anything, Baldwin has learned from his mistake. But maybe, just maybe, some other fathers will take the lesson to heart.
“two idiot parents”
Ireland and Chelsea might have something in common.
Anyway, Alec Baldwin deserves to have his grille severely busted. On general principles.
How do we know the mother doesn’t play the daughter off against the dad to frustrate the living heck out of him?
The leak suggests lots of odd stuff going on at that kid’s home.
Pathetic.
Alec Bladwin has a well documented record of these kinds of hostile ourbursts, directed at a range of targets.
It has nothing to do with ANYONE being a "snot."
Maybe in the world of computer geeks, but not in the world of daughters.
I guess they are the ones making everyone else angry.
I bet your therapist loves your attitude. Cha-ching!
I hope you have children, because you have wonderful instincts (unlike some of those "men" here, posting on this subject).
Bravo!
Bravo !
Another Good Man on this posting.
So you haven’t bothered to listen, you don’t know what you’re talking about then, do you?
Right, I saw that.
If you had any knowledge of this situation, you’d know the little girl will surely never forget this, unless of course he does this sort of thing all the time, then this would sink into the mass of abuse that this is.
I still would like clarification about the time of day of the phone call that set Baldwin off.
There is a reference to “10 o’clock”
If Baldwin was in New York, and his daughter was in Los Angeles, which time zone 10 o’clock are we talking about???
If the phone call was placed at 10 am New York time, then it would be 7 AM in Los Angeles, and the kid should be able to answer the call.
If the call was placed at 10 AM Los Angeles time, the kid should be in school, where active cell phones are not allowed. She would have to shut the phone off.
Can anyone clarify the time zone question vs the “time of day”.???
Nope, no therapist. Don’tbelieve in them.
Just know thel egacy that parentsd can leave their kids
I’m not a good man, I’m afraid... but there are some things that I simply cannot abide. Adults mistreating kids is one of them. I just lose my reason when I see it.
Not imprisoned. Merely beaten senseless.
Caught in what dear?
Being an abused kid myself?
Being a sibling to others who were equally abused and damaged?
Working around other abused kids and adults?
Seeing wards of the state who’s minds were wrecked in the end?
Seeing what the end result of verbal abuse can be?
Whatever,
Baldwin is scum and his daughter is abused.
And in the end, she’ll be the one paying the price.
That is all you caught.
I have 3 siblings and myself who were abused....the verbal was the worst.
The scars never, EVER go away. Suicide is just one end result of it all.
Whatever Kim is doing to save her daughter, she’s doing the right thing.
I have 3 siblings and myself who were abused....the verbal was the worst.
Sounds much like my house when I was growing up. I think the verbal abuse is the worst too. I still can hear it and it leaves many unseen scars. Hugs ~P~
Well said. I'd react the same way.
Ireland gets the same treatment as Mom. Baldwin is a bully. I do not feel sorry for him.
He needs help. Hes a fat, mean, lazy, self indulgent, slouch. Your looks don’t cut it anymore Alec.
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