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.
And some didn’t do too well.
Yelling,
maybe,
telling a kid they are something awful, well,
it’s destructive.
Believe me,
I’ve been hit and I’ve been verbally abused.
I’d rather be hit.
A girl learns that shes loved, beautiful, worthy, hell, loved by God by the words of her father.
Believe me, when I say that absent or not, he is the male who will determine her self-worth. Calling her a thoughtless pig with the venom that he did?
Sheesh, coupled with other things he’s done, it will be a miracle if there isn’t a suicide attempt in her future.
If a girls father doesn’t love her, no man, even God will never love her. She’ll go through life feeling damned and flawed.
So yeah, I really, REALLY see a lot of damage in what he did.
Now I'm curious.
You consider this "normal" yelling ?
Mind you, we are posting on a forum that does NOT allow name-calling and personal attacks, and we are adults.
But a daughter should endure being called a pig by her father, and threatened about what he going to do to her when he sees her ?
If you haven't listened to the audio, I suggest that you do so.
It is not mere yelling.
>> Hasn’t that fat wife beating rage-a-holic moved to France yet?
Much too difficult to throw stones from France.
A few persons unfortunate experience is sad however it is not a legitimate basis for establishing political and legal policies for an entire nations people.
Parents with fewest of exceptions need to be left to raise their own children as they see fit. How they are raised, how they are spoken too just is not properly your business or mine.
So called “Verbal abuse” is a bridge too far. Too subjective. What if he had not hollered but said the same words? What if he had hollered but said different or somewhat conciliatory words?
“Feel good” “do good-ers” want to parse and judge even speech. Lawyers, social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists are more than happy to make a living from such efforts.. Every penny to them is taken from the pockets of taxpayers or parents who can generally ill afford it.
Public Education and institutions like Social Services and the Divorce Court have already to a great extent stripped authority from the parents. Divorce Court being the very worst for doing what ever comes to mind without legal basis.
Then we are surprised when kids go off yet blame the Parents for not raising the children right.
All the while in your Bizzaro Universe if the parent lays a hand on, Speaks harshly too their child you would imprison and or have the state kill them to “Protect the child”
You support this while public school teachers impregnate young girls and are allowed under the color of law to secretly take them to abortion clinics to hide the crime (prove they don’t). A teacher is supported by the Public School system for telling children to place condoms in their mouths and when a girl or a boy objects they are mocked and denigrated.
It is silly but dangerous people who somehow envision a world where parents are reduced to caretakers servicing the wishes of the State and the States Wards, formerly their Children). All based upon the ever changing Concepts of Child Rearing pushed by the philosophy of de Jur as postulated by the likes of “DR Spock” , Hildebeast and Jocelyn Elders.
Folks like yourself unknowingly are lured into defending such slime under the false flag of protecting children. What are the results of all this minding of everyone’s business but one’s own? Out of control children then out of control (self Control) adults.
It all really comes down to weak minded people unable to leave others alone being manipulated by evil people for whom leaving others alone represents a threat to their power, authority and rice bowl.
In the end, that is the sick and twisted reality you have been tricked into supporting…
However now you have no excuse.
W
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?
Najida
I want to express my sorrow and sympathy to you as an individual if indeed you suffered actual abuse at the hands of your Father..
I note you work in the field of “child protection”.
A military friend I worked and trained with joined a Local LE Department when he got out. I had family and friends in the Department as well. We also did some cross training with certain folks in that Department so we were all pretty close. Probably a year and a half had passed when a drunk driver killed this fellows wife and infant son in a car wreck. After the initial horror and grief he went back to work. He caught Drunk Drivers like crazy.. More than anyone else.. also those he caught as a large percentage wound up resisting arrest and beat to hell.. Well, his life sucked at this point and no one was going to fire him from the Department in those days so the bosses stuck him in a place he could would not have direct contact with the public under those circumstances.
My point is I am not at all comfortable having people who have been victims of a particular crime involved in the apprehension, prosecution of people who are accused of committing similar crimes.. That would include “child protection’ as well. Those people have by being victims a perspective that does not lend itself to neutral and objective evaluation of circumstances and that is a requirement of justice. Parents dealing with such people are facing a stacked deck. Innocent parents and children will suffer as well.
Your involvement in Social Services related to children is no different. You may not belong there. No matter how well meaning and well intentioned your experiences will bias you, color the glasses you view the world in..Far from helping you cope with the past constant reminders will likely keep you in a state of stress and conflict making you over and over a victim of the past.
You are not alone... My son was run over while walking across the street by a non English Speaking Anchor Mom who deliberately ran a red light because she was in a hurry. He spent years in physical therapy and lost a section of his leg. Putting me on the Border Patrol or having me serve on a jury in a similar case would be a decidedly bad idea.
Best wishes
W
(trying to be patient in the face of such, well, ignorance)
HellOOO, not from your own FATHER, hopefully. Nevermind, I have a feeling there’s no real use in explaining any further.
Where he said "the mother" he should have said "My ex" or "My daughter's mother." And definately where he said "the child" he should have said "my daughter" or at least "my child."
Did anyone else catch that????
I had not noticed, but he is so narcissistic it does not surpise me that he would depersonalize them.
I’d rather be hit.
You were obviously not spanked by MY parents - I'd take a yelling at and being called names anytime over the dreaded belt.
Here is what stuck me as odd. In his interview on the View, he said, “The Mother” and “The Child”. I wish I had the whole quote. He sounded like he was talking about a script.
Where he said “the mother” he should have said “My ex” or “My daughter’s mother.” And definately where he said “the child” he should have said “my daughter” or at least “my child.”
Did anyone else catch that????
Well to begin with, that is lawyer speak, the language of the court, the language of the state, since he spends his days going back and forth to court and talking to council it seems reasonable that he would adopt their descriptors.
It would also help him to gain clarity and reduce emotionality when discussing the issue in public.
What I did catch is once again someone (in this case yourself) has parsed Baldwin’s words and then attacked. Wanting to control his choice of words.I guess your determination of what he should say and how he should say it should not be surprising. They appear as but mile markers down the road to feminist tyranny.
W
I don’t work in child protection, I work in a psyche hospital with a peds unit. Simple as that. So I see them as young as 4 and as old as 84, totally wrecked.
I’m not going to type a bible in response, other than for me, it’s been a healing experience because well, I see just HOW bad it could have been and I see hope. I could be one of them, really. I’ve read my history in chart after chart.
Instead, I’m part of at least providing a decent life for some. And I’m better now than I was 10 years ago, 5 or even 2 years ago. But I also now know the reason better than ever before.
I also know that you can destroy a child’s mind with words from the day they are born. If they believe they are unlovable, especially by a parent, NOTHING society or the world at large can do will ever fix that. If a girl isn’t loved by her father? She’s damned. It can’t be fixed.
She can function, but she’ll never be loved (in her own mind).
I was hit by a belt too, when my Dad was in an out of control rage and I wasn’t really sure why he was so pissed.
I did get slapped once for putting a bowl of rice on the Bible on the dining room table (there was no room left).
But the Bible was sacred, God was on Dad’s side and he had to keep the rules.
(he was way worse on my brothers, so I’m not complaining).
As early as I can remember, I was told I was evil, I had the devil in me, I was lazy, a slut, no man would ever wan something as worthless as me, God was sending me to hell etc etc etc.
Oh, and I was like I was because I was weak from my mother’s spoiling me. (go figger).
So I took a half bottle of aspirin when I was 8 because I was so tired of hurting inside.
Again, a bottle of darvocet when I was 17 because my father told me that the reason my boyfriend had dumped me was because I was totally worthless.
Oddly, as much as he hated me, he did like me to be his ‘girlfriend’ for the fun stuff.....he adored porn and well, I was his buddy for the education (all this with a Bible in hand).
Again,
I’d rather be hit.
That and I have the liver of a bull elephant.
And I HATE abusers of little girls.
Earlier I sympathized with your reported circumstance and even now seriously pray that which is troubling you will be healed.
Your description of your Father as a
Sexual Abuser of Children...Bible in hand..
I find hackneyed, trite*...
Not that it cannot happen.. or has not happened..
I do find your story sad.
It is just the story itself I no longer find credible.
At best misdirection and/or a diversion...
The original point of debate was regarding hurtful words.
Is there a right to say them to ones child or not?
Not is it right or wrong, desirable or undesirable. I am willing to concede it is undesirable. I will not concede it is always wrong to make a child feel bad for their actions by the use of words.
But in this debate we are beyond that, we are talking about criminalizing such actions.
Should the power of the State be exercised to control what people say to their children? If so just what are and what are not the approved words? What tonality and inflection would the State find lawful or unlawful?.. Who decides? then What are the mechanisms for enforcement and prosecution of those who fail to speak according to the newly created laws regarding speech to ones child?..
W
Whatever,
It happened...
I find you simple cold and ugly.
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