Book Review: Alec Baldwin's "A Promise to Ourselves"

Alec Baldwin’s A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey through Fatherhood and Divorce (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2008) begins with an unequivocal denunciation of the family law system and the Los Angeles courts where his highly publicized divorce from Kim Basinger took place. Ultimately he and his former wife each spent more than one million dollars in legal fees fighting over the couple’s daughter, Ireland. With one exception, Mr. Baldwin berates the judges who refused or failed to control or end the nearly decade-long litigation, kowtowing instead to the high priced Beverly Hills divorce lawyers. 

Mr. Baldwin is convinced the system is corrupt, nearly destroying him professionally, emotionally, physically, and as a parent.  He describes court-mandated mediation by retired judges and psychological evaluations conducted by mental health professionals – all of whom were chosen by his lawyers and his former wife’s lawyers. Mr. Baldwin asks how independent these mediators and evaluators are if they are beholden to these high-powered lawyers for future business. 

Mr. Baldwin’s journey through the legal system eventually takes him to Harvard Law School where he speaks with a rising legal star, Jeannie Suk.  In response to Mr. Baldwin’s questions on the origins of the contemporary family law system, Professor Suk describes the plight of women thirty years ago when law enforcement and courts turned a blind eye to domestic violence, rape, and sexual harassment. Feminists fought to change the laws. Now police officers have no discretion when arriving on the scene of alleged domestic violence. They must arrest someone, even if the alleged victim recants, or begs the police not to arrest the alleged perpetrator. The feminist reformers contend that a battered woman is often unreliable or incapable of acting in her own best interest. If a woman merely accuses a man of throwing down an object in anger, the police will arrest him. 

Victims of rape no longer have to prove they were coerced. The victim simply avers she did not explicitly consent. Mr. Baldwin acknowledges women are safer today, but at the expense of all men, including good and decent men. The system demonizes men, masculinity, and fatherhood. Has feminism gone too far, Mr. Baldwin asks, reeking of the same arbitrary use of power based on gender?

Finally he turns to the controversial Parental Alienation Syndrome, or PAS, first outlined by the psychiatrist, Richard A. Gardner, in the mid-1980’s. Dr. Gardner described Parental Alienation Syndrome as the psychological harm caused to the child because one parent (usually the mother) alienates the child from the other parent (usually the father) through actions and derogatory remarks based on false or grossly distorted information. Mr. Baldwin believes Kim Basinger alienated the couple’s daughter, engaging in arbitrary and unreasonable acts in and out of court, thwarting his court-ordered visits and telephone calls without penalty, raising false allegations of child abuse and/or neglect, and ultimately fueling his intolerable frustration and highly publicized tirade against his then eleven-year-old daughter when she did not answer one of his telephone calls.

The American Psychiatric Association does not include PAS in its widely cited “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision” (“DSM-IV-TR”), thus preventing its use in custody proceedings. Mr. Baldwin states that influential feminists prevented inclusion and bemoans the legal system’s callous disregard of fathers.

Inexplicably, Mr. Baldwin does not discuss or acknowledge the widely-accepted belief among family law lawyers, judges, and therapists that parental alienation does indeed occur. The experts, however, disagree over whether children suffer from Parental Alienation Syndrome. Parental alienation focuses on the alienator, whereas Parental Alienation Syndrome emphasizes the child and target parent. Both schools of thought acknowledge long-term harm to children even into adulthood.   

Mr. Baldwin accepts that he may have had some responsibility for the morass because he married Ms. Basinger in spite of his own doubts and friends’ advice. He also speculates that he may have caused the demise of the marriage by insisting on living in New York, not Los Angeles. Mr. Baldwin describes his futile efforts to placate his former wife and her attorneys by offering numerous compromises, acceding to their whimsical demands, putting his career in jeopardy because of his court-ordered obligations, and enduring excruciating emotional pain and suffering because of the family law industry’s corrupting influence on court-appointed mediators, therapists, and the judges who curry favor with the elite family law practitioners. 

To his credit, Mr. Baldwin offers a list of thirteen recommendations. They are thoughtful and constructive, not a diatribe against an entire legal system and a former spouse. He exhorts future spouses to sign prenuptial agreements while acknowledging their uncertain enforceability; to mediate within limits; to file for divorce first to set the tone; and to use the court to set appropriate orders when mediation fails. He also urges divorcing spouses to pick lawyers carefully after interviewing several and finding a competent, compatible lawyer. He cautions against hiding assets or substance abuse on the part of either spouse, or making a shrine to your child. He advises hiring a forensic psychologist as a consultant before submitting to a psychological evaluation. He also sings the praises of his own psychotherapist and highly recommends finding your own trusted therapist. Perhaps the most urgent advice is to set a timeline, and ask that the mediators and psychological evaluators all comply with the timeline. 

This is one man’s journey through a very public divorce proceeding. While we might wonder whether anything else could have been done by Mr. Baldwin to minimize the litigious custody case, he undoubtedly brings a piercing intelligence to a provocative examination of the family law system that should make every litigant, lawyer, judge, and forensic expert take notice.