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www.amazon.2db.com.pl - A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce
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List Price: $24.95
Our Price: $14.97
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Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 792.028092
EAN: 9780312363369
ISBN: 0312363362
Label: St. Martin's Press
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: 2008-09-23
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Release Date: 2008-09-23
Studio: St. Martin's Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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“I have been through some of the worst of contentious divorce litigation,” Alec Baldwin declares in A Promise to Ourselves. Using a very personal approach, he offers practical guidance to help others avoid the anguish he has endured.
An Academy and Tony Award nominee and a 2007 recipient of Golden Globe, SAG, and Television Critics Association Awards for best actor in a comedy, Alec Baldwin is one of the best-known, most successful actors in the world. His relationship with Kim Basinger, the Academy Award–winning actress, lasted nearly a decade. They have a daughter named Ireland, and for a time, theirs seemed to be the model of a successful Hollywood marriage. But in 2000 they separated and in 2002 divorced. Their split---specifically the custody battle surrounding Ireland---would be the subject of media attention for years to come.
In his own life and others’, Baldwin has seen the heavy toll that divorce can take---psychologically, emotionally, and financially. He has been extensively involved in divorce litigation, and he has witnessed the way that noncustodial parents, especially fathers, are often forced to abandon hopes of equitable rights when it comes to their children. He makes a powerful case for reexamining and changing the way divorce and child custody is decided in this country and levels a scathing attack at what he calls the “family law industry.”
When it comes to his experiences with judges, court-appointed therapists, and lawyers, Baldwin pulls no punches. He casts a light on his own divorce and the way the current family law system affected him, his ex-wife, and his daughter, as well as many other families. This is an important, informative, and deeply felt book on a contentious subject that offers hope of finding a better way.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: thanks Alec for your openness and your sharing
Comment: Fantastic book. Thanks so much Alec Baldwin for your courage, your moxie, your openness, your sharing. I facilitate a dad's resource group in central IL, and while the courts here aren't the CA family courts (minor procedural and detail differences), the Illinois courts are as bad, as prejudiced against fathers, as painful a system. The system is broken beyond any semblance of working, and the presumption of shared parenting/joint custody needs to be the NORM never the exception.
Prior to reading the book, I had only heard the snippets the media sensationalized and took way out of context regarding Mr. Baldwin. While I appreciated him as an actor on screen, I was not so appreciative because I bought what the media was selling. Having heard the stories of some of the dads I've come to know through the years, and then reading his book, I heard a lot of similarities in their experiences, and in the stories of the case studies Alec also includes. I appreciate Alec now as a dad and as a man, and I have empathy for what he's had to suffer through.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Articulate, Informative and Eye-Opening
Comment: When I first heard that Alec Baldwin was writing a book about his divorce and the ruthless custody battle between him and his ex-wife Kim Basinger, I had to wonder in how many ways he would seek to slander her. I, like most of the ignorant public, considered Baldwin a volatile man, having seen his assault of a paparazzi on the news after the birth of his daughter Ireland and having heard the notorious and venomous voice mail he left for his daughter in 2006 (courtesy of the slimy celebrity news network TMZ). However, after reading an excerpt available online from the chapter entitled "Olives and Cheese", Baldwin's prose and outpouring of love for his daughter and the desperation to be a significant part of her life deeply swayed me to pick up a copy. I did so on November 1st, 2008 and once I began reading it, I could barely put it down.
This memoir is not only a recollection of family, marriage and divorce but also an incredibly articulate and sensible argument on the severely biased conditions of the family law system. Baldwin's diatribe specifically involves the Los Angeles County system because of his heavy involvement with it, having been victimized by the shrewd manipulation of lawyers and judges, the scrutiny of court-appointed therapists and the feminist slant in which the system views custody issues. Baldwin and others believe that the system unfairly awards custody to the mother a vast majority of the time and due to judiciary loopholes allows them and/or their legal representation to unfairly paint a poor portrait of genuinely loving and responsible fathers. He heavily concentrates this argument on an undocumented psychological phenomenon known as Parental Alienation Syndrome, a term introduced in 1985 (a time when divorce rates were especially high) by Richard A. Gardner MD, a clinical professor of child psychiatry at Columbia University. PAS is defined by a psychological disturbance in which a child or children unjustly and exaggeratedly criticize the noncustodial parent (typically the father in most cases) and heroize the other. This is usually accomplished by the alienating parent (typically the mother) through either words or actions having their child/children believe that the other parent is an inadequate or damaging presence or altogether an unnecessary part of their lives. Baldwin dedicates an entire chapter on the discussion of this condition, listing and describing PAS's telltale symptoms, the weight of its involvement in custody litigation and the validity of its diagnosis.
Of his legal battles, Alec talks about his compatibility as well as his scruples with the many lawyers he worked with and relays true stories of other divorced men and their own court battles (names changed for privacy reasons, of course). Baldwin also discusses his marriage briefly and his relationship with Ireland to a certain degree - he makes it a point in his introduction to say that "what follows will disappoint those who hoped to find a gossipy, salacious tale of a show business marriage gone bad". He also makes it a point to say that "as all divorce litigants should eventually realize, attacking the other party is not in anyone's interest, especially when children are involved". Although I am not going through a divorce (and I hope that I never have to, God willing), I felt Alec's pain, frustration and anger many times as he described his seven-year battle to be with his child, shelving career opportunities more than once, having his work schedule deferred and changing residences several times to appease the courts and his ex-wife. To be deprived of time with your child is to be slowly starved to death - the heart and soul painfully wither at the loss of a beautiful and significant relationship. Despite what the family law system thinks, a child needs both parents and Alec expresses this belief wholeheartedly, stating that most children of divorced couples who are deprived of a parent are more likely to experiment with drugs and alcohol as well as practice unsafe sex.
In the end chapter of this illuminating memoir, Alec offers sound advice to couples who are either contemplating or currently undergoing a divorce. Throughout this entire memoir, he gives a respectful interpretation of the events that followed his separation and divorce beginning in 2000 and comes away from it with nary a blame on his ex-wife, stating in his Afterword that "she is a person, like many of us, doing the best she can with what she has. She is a litigant and, therefore, one who walks into a courtroom and is never offered anything than what is served there". He instead completely admonishes the lawyers, therapists, legislators and "most insidiously of all, the judges...they are the cogs in a closed system, one that they have allowed to evolve principally for their own enrichment, financial or otherwise".
Bottom line: Articulate, informative and eye-opening, "A Promise To Ourselves" is not just another celebrity biography that seeks to tell a self-serving story. It is an education and a wake-up call on the unfair practices of our judicial system and a cry for change. Alec and literary partner Mark Tabb are to be commended for sharing their stories and shedding light on a duplicitous syndrome (PAS) that only aids in blurring the vision of justice.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Read!
Comment: The reader must focus on the very current and painful topic of this book, not on the writer. I.e. the promises we make to ourselves for our kids, the corrupted divorce system, and the Parental Alienation. Alec endured one of the most incredible battles of a lifetime: he certainly has a lot to teach us all. Alec pours out of his chest the despicable family law system that this country has generated with the emotion of a caring father and the lucidity of an historian. I applaud Alec for it!
The reader must also believe that the stories are true: if you are half of a good father this very thing and worse may happen to you!
Statistics teach that it is unlikely to win the lottery; it is likely to go through a bed divorce, no matter how good you are!
I highly recommend us to work to change the system that allows such disgraces to our children...
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Who is this woman on the cover?
Comment: I bought this book because of the beautiful picture of Tyne Daly on the cover. She is my most favorite actress. But the book is not about Tyne at all! It is about some guy who is really pissed at his ex-wife. Can I return this book and get the Tyne Daly one instead?
Customer Rating:
Summary: A MUCH NEEDED ATTACK ON A CORRUPT SYSTEM
Comment: Congratulations to a courageous author. Unlike the sour grapes review by Haley ( who is probably a lawyer ), this book is a much needed attack on a system that needs total overhaul. Baldwin limits it to the family judicial system. I would ask that some interested author extend it to the whole American distorted take on civil jurisprudence. Across the board the money hungry lawyers have a financial field day at the expense of the public. The judges are overwhelmingly lazy bureaucrats with tenure, and could care less about justice.
No doubt that Alec Baldwin needs work on his anger problem, but this does not vitiate the validity of his observations and claims. He presents his case clearly and with much conviction. ( Incidentally, I have been happily married for 55 years and have no axe to grind. ).
Over the years, in discussions with lawyer friends, they always end up by saying that our system is flawed, but it is the best there is. I take exception and disagree completely. This book focuses on the deeply ingrained faults that are inherent in it and the author is not afraid to say so.
I read the book in one sitting. I resonated to his outrage.
Thank you, Alex, for telling it the way it is.
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