1 post tagged “baldwin”
“You are a rude, thoughtless little pig.”
from the Times Herald Record Online.
Why is this news? And why am I hearing it over and over and over on CNN? And why do we feel we have the right to take a ringside seat to something as gut wrenching, dysfunctional and nasty as a brutal custody battle between two parents? I am really, really sick of the news.
I won't share any more quotes. I'm sure you've already heard it anyway.
There's nothing more heartbreaking to me then the erosion of a family, because the splintering shows its damage for years and years to come. Having been the adult child of divorce, I recall watching my parents over the course of their 25 year union slowly breakdown into shadows of their former selves. My father had always been a rager, but during it's worst moments, he could turn it on all of us, with disastrous results. My mother had always been a quiet manipulator, so her shifting was a lot less clear to see until I was able to look back with a clearer lens. The only audience exposed to all the gross nastiness of it all were the kids. Us. We got to have the ring side seats watching the battle and occasionally getting nabbed in some really unfriendly, friendly fire. We got to see our parents at their very best, and their very, very worst.
I was on the phone with my sister this morning as she was on her way to work, when I watched (and she overheard) the story on CNN. I hate to tell you this, but we both...laughed. I guess we're both hardened to things like that. Not because we don't believe his daughter was likely horrified, frightened and deeply hurt by this raging tirade from her father...but because we could not believe such ugly, nasty, dirty, family business was put over the airwaves. As if dealing with it privately is easy to begin with.
We laughed, because we'd been there. On the receiving end of messages and rants from our father that would have had some ladies with an uneasy constitution swooning and sliding out of their chairs. It felt familiar. Kind of like when you remember the most painful klutz moment you ever had...but chuckle because elements of it were too insane not to be funny once you were healed. Note, I said kinda. Because truly, getting reamed by a raging parent...is scary, it hurts and it can feel absolutely dehumanizing. But the wounds can be healed.
Like every other "news" event we get, we don't know the story we just get the "juicy" parts. We don't know what provoked that tirade. We don't know the context. The point of this post is...
It ain't our business.
That's family business. And the saddest thing about that whole "airing" of the American family...is that tirades like that happen all over the place in the throes of bitter, nasty custody fights and divorces. And yet...throngs of people will gasp in horror publicly, point and frown and tsk tsk tsk and speculate about all the damage he's done, label him whatever they need to and become a superior subject matter expert on all the things a good parent never does (while their own family dysfunctions fester in indiscriminate silence). We won't acknowledge that sometimes we do things we wish we could take back (big or small). We won't acknowledge that sometimes we create regrettable moments. Nah...we'll sweep those under the carpet. And if pushed we'll snap and say...'it's none of your business what goes on in my life!"
We all should have the right to endure those moments without public shame and review. We're not their therapists. And this...this is not news.
