New York, NY–
Bill and Sam Sears, a father-son combo who have dealt with Parental Alienation, appeared on Fox’s nationally-syndicated Morning Show with Mike and Juliet. Also on the show were Geraldo Rivera, Dr. Joy Silberg and myself. After Sam’s divorce in 2001 he says his ex-wife alienated him from his son and his daughter. He was eventually reunited with the son, but Bill and Sam say the daughter apparently is still under the sway of her alienating mother.
Bill is an amazing kid–still only 17 but he’s testified before the Georgia legislature on shared parenting and appeared on numerous TV shows. His website is http://www.billsarena.com/. He was also very fair, pointing out that his father had also made disparaging remarks about his mother in the wake of the divorce. On the show, Geraldo Rivera tried to make a big deal out of the fact that at one point Sam Sears had at one point fallen behind on his child support. Sam told me after the show that he lost his job in the wake of 9/11 and fell behind on child support only because of this. Sam said:
The charge [against me] is called “child abandonment” but I’d never missed a visitation with the kids, I never missed a dinner.
Bill added:
He was always there for us, I don’t understand why they would say he was [abandoning us].
The show discussed the pain that Parental Alienation target parents Sam Sears and Alec Baldwin felt. The kind Dr. Silberg had no sympathy. In a previous television interview, Baldwin had said that in the wake of the revelation of his famous phone rant he had seriously considered suicide. On the show Dr. Joy Silberg attacked him for this, calling it a “batterers’ tactic.” That sounds impressive except to alienating mothers and their feminist enablers, breathing is a batterers’ tactic. However, to be fair, Silberg wasn’t completely wrong. I was somewhat dismayed to hear Baldwin talking about his brush with suicide. While I feel badly for him, such displays of mental instability–even if caused by mistreatment and Parental Alienation–hardly make judges feel comfortable awarding parenting time and/or joint custody. Silberg labeled this incorrectly, but she was correct in seeing a red flag. To watch the video of the show, click here for the first segment and here for the second.