I’ve been thinking a lot about Alec Baldwin ever since the tape was leaked where he left an enraged voicemail on his 11-year-old daughter’s cell phone, calling her a “rude little pig”. Ever since it was released I’ve seen and heard so many people calling him a disgrace and a terrible father, and an abusive bastard among other things.
I’ve been thinking about what I think of the whole situation and about him as a father, and I’ve wondered whether I should say anything at all since what I think may not be the most popular stance.
I don’t think Alec Baldwin is a terrible father. Or you know, maybe he is. Maybe he is a rotten, miserable, negligent, awful father. I have no idea, I don’t know the man and he’s not my dad so I have no first hand experience with him. However, I don’t think he’s automatically a bad dad based on that one instance.
Out of all the parents who are foaming at the mouth because he called his daughter a pig, I wonder, have they never gotten angry? Have they never had a bad day where everything goes wrong and then they get mad at something their kid does or says and then yelled something that they didn’t mean and later regretted? I have never left a voicemail for Hayley calling her a rude little pig, but I have gotten mad and said things that in hindsight weren’t really the best choice. I have thought back after calming down, been mad at myself for getting so mad in the first place, and then apologized to her.
I know a lot of parents who have probably said things they regretted. I am one and I am sure I’m not the only one out there. I’ve been in Alec Baldwin’s shoes in one way or another. The big difference is that no one recorded me. He’s not a monster just because he said something inappropriate to his daughter. If he was constantly belittling her or beating her or shaming her, that would be one thing, but we have no evidence of that, we have one moment in time. It was a bad choice of words. It was a mistake. And it could be anyone who is a parent, but we’re not being recorded and we’re not celebrities so even if we were recorded, the entire world wouldn’t hear about it.
I feel so sorry for that little girl. And not because her father got mad and said something mean and inappropriate to her. I feel sorry for her because whoever wanted to hurt HIM badly enough to leak the tape, ended up hurting her even more. She’s eleven years old. I think. Maybe she’s a bit older now. But she’s young. She’s right smack in that age group where having to go to the mall with your mom is oh my god so embarrassing what if my friends see me and does she have to wear that stupid shirt and what is with her HAIR jesus christ I hope we don’t run into that guy from math class that I like, maybe I’ll just die. Imagine yourself back in that age where everything about your life is one enormous embarrassment and you write angst-filled journal entries in a notebook that you stash under your mattress (because of course your parents would NEVER think to look there, you genius).
Now imagine yourself at that age of constant humiliation and constant hoping that someone else will do something more stupid than you so the attention is off you… and then imagine that everyone in your class, everyone on the basketball team including that cute guy who plays defense, everyone in the teachers’ room, everyone at the arcade, and hell everyone in North America has heard a recording of your father screaming and sputtering into your voicemail. In fact, scratch North America, there are people all over the world who have heard it because if you google it, you can find the mp3 file and hear it at your leisure.
That poor girl has an entire world of people who just listened to her dirty laundry. It doesn’t matter to her that most of them berate her father and think “oh that poor girl” because she doesn’t care about the sympathy, she’s just wishing that Isaiah Washington will make some anti-gay remark again or that Britney will flash her coochie at everyone again just so the media stops playing and talking about that damn tape.
He shouldn’t have said what he did. And I shouldn’t have said what I did, and you probably shouldn’t have said something once too. He’s not an awful man just because he made a mistake and got angry. The awful people are actually the person/people who released the tape and the media who insists on playing it into the ground.
What do you think?
I agree–this tape does not automatically mean he’s a terrible father, or abusive, or negligent or anything else. It means he had a bad day. If you take it at absolute face value, it also means he’s been having a lot of bad days, as far as connecting with his daughter, and hell, of COURSE he shouldn’t have said anything he said–but he did.
If the situation is the way I read it, though, I feel for him–tremendously. Divorces with kids are hard. Being the non-custodial parent is hard. Being the non-custodial parent when the custodial parent is a flake or a dipshit or an asshole is a constant test of your patience. I KNOW this. I cannot count how many times Adam never got my messages, wasn’t home when he was supposed to be, even missed scheduled visits–because his FATHER changed his plans/forgot/didn’t care, whatever the reason. It’s very hard for me to imagine taking my frustration about that out on Adam directly, but if I suspected that his dad was making me out to be the bad guy all the time, or talking smack about me, or lying, I can easily picture snapping and maybe losing my temper with him. My ex doesn’t do that; I know that for a fact–he is simply a FLAKE. But I have a feeling Kim IS doing that, and Alec feels ganged up on, like his daughter’s been turned against him. How horrible must that be?
Have you seen our comment on this whole affair? Ask the rabbits, kids.
http://www.rabbitbites.com/archive/alecbaldwin.html
How did I get away from reading you, the succinct one with sound words, everyday? Ah, I must return. THIS IS GOLDEN. I havent heard the spittle words of anger – or even been up enough with anything but my own angst to get the news.
BUT … I know in the last two days I’ve had to apologize to my kids for yelling. And not names – no, not names … but yelling all the same.
I wouldn’t want to be a celebrity for the world. Who cares how many gamillion you have in your wallet when you can’t even make a cyber-second of a mistake
Okay, so I went and listened to it … and um … well, that was a bit further than I thought. He … er … like cursed and cursed and cursed and then added a few more.
I can’t compare what he did with what I did – in the sense that he was attacking and threatening what he was going to do to her when he got to her. I think if I was the mother I would have turned that tape over (if it was her).
Man.
That was horrible.
I’m dumber for having heard that.
Getting angry when your kid says or does stupid things? Even worse, getting angry after having a bad day when your kid says or does stupid things? We’ve all done it. The pompous asses making like they would never do such a thing either have never had kids or are playing the role as major hypocrites. We yell; we apologize. Politically correct? No. Human? Very. (My disgust with the politically correct is another story.)
I think he’s a human being going through a terribly stressful time in his life right now and he had to deal with a bratty daughter who was questioning his authority in a way she would never question her mother’s. I don’t think that excuses what he called her or how he reacted, but everyone makes mistakes and it’s none of MY damn business to judge.
I don’t know how he parents at any other time. I don’t know if this was an isolated incident or if he frequently treats his daughter this way. I’m in no position to judge what kind of man or father he is by one phone conversation.
And it was JUST as bad of Kim Basinger if not WORSE of her to leak that voicemail to the press and make her daughter relive that voicemail message over and over and over again, letting all her friends and family hear it as well. What Alec did was probably an outburst that he didn’t think too much about before he started spitting out words. What Kim did was premeditated and vindictive. In order to make her husband look bad, she dragged her own child into the battle. That action, I’ll judge. It’s hard to judge an outburst.
I think people need to get the sticks out of their asses and their noses out of other people’s business.
Well said….who hasn’t had a bad day. It’s sad the daughter seems to be a pawn on an outgoing nasty divorce battle.
I totally agree with you. I think he is a man who has been put through hell and lost it. The only part I had a little bit of a problem was that he bad mouthed her mother to her. I think that is wrong no matter what. I also love that the person who leaked this (and we all know who that was) did not leak the tape of the voicemail he left her appologizing for what he said. The again that would not help her case at all.