30 Rock with Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin is one of my favorite television shows. I had read about his comment about his daughter on the answering machine and have read many articles about a husband or wife’s dissatisfaction with the adversary or traditional divorce process. I always ask myself if they would have had the same feelings if they had used mediation. Mediation is a more confidential process and we rarely see news stories about mediated divorce but back to Alec Baldwin. Baldwin has written a book entitled A promise to Ourselves, A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce which was reviewed by Jennifer A. Kingson in the October 13, 2008, New York Times. See entire article athttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/books/14king.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Kingston says, " Survivors of a gory divorce think their stories are the worst of all, and the actor Alec Baldwin is no exception. He may have a bit of a leg to stand on - though Christie Brinkley deserves at least honorable mention - if only for the ugly public spectacle of his custody battle with the actress Kim Basinger.
Kingston goes on to say, "Mr. Baldwin gives poignant expression to the shortcomings of the law in deciding matters of the heart. For the bitter-with-baggage fathers whom he intends as his readers, he dispenses some advice (get a prenup), but the primary value of the book comes from his deeply felt observations about living through a divorce. ‘When someone is sick, our society usually offers some means of care," Mr. Baldwin observes. "When illness afflicts a marriage, however, the professionals who arrive on the scene often are there to prolong the bleeding, not to stop it.’"
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