An Open Letter to Gov. Dan McKee
Gov. McKee: As a father like me, you appreciate, I’m sure, that the worst tragedy for a parent is the death of their child.
The terrible inverse of that experience is being dead to your own children.
By that, I mean living each day without seeing your children or hearing from them: not on birthdays, not on holidays, not on weekends or weekdays. I mean not knowing where your children are, or how to contact them, or if they’re happy or sad, sick or well.
This isn’t estrangement, which is distancing that is voluntary. It’s alienation, meaning a third party has converted your child to the unwarranted view that you’re unworthy of love, respect, or contact.
Alienation is common in cases of divorce and separation, Governor, when an ex-husband or ex-wife is pathologically determined to have the kids all to themselves, regardless of the psychological cost to the family.
If you’ve not heard of that situation, Governor, there’s good reason: Alienated parents are often too pained or embarrassed to talk about it. They may also fear that speaking out will incur retribution from the alienator. So they suffer in silence.
That silence is music to the ears of alienators, who wish to continue their work undisturbed.
I’ve been alienated from my two children. We three haven’t been in the same room for nine years, and counting. That is time my children and I will never get back.
The only time I see my two children is when I dream of them. In dreams, I hug them and play and laugh with them as we once did.
Then I wake up.
I’m fortunate: My children are (as far as I know) still alive. There’s hope, people tell me. My children are in their early 20s. I write them cards and letters, but I have no way of knowing if they get them. I understand that I can’t force my children to respond to me; I don’t want to force them. I love my children. They’ll reach out to me sometime between tomorrow and Never. There’s no way to know. So I need to figure out how to live life not knowing, and what helps is doing something constructive.
I advocate. I tell anyone who listens that parental alienation is a form of child abuse, and when it can be proven in court, it should be punished as a misdemeanor. I support shared parenting laws, which aim at 50–50 child custody, barring exceptional circumstances.
I refer you to Kentucky, whose Courier-Journal newspaper credits their recently established shared parenting laws with reducing the volume of both family court and domestic violence cases.
We teach our children to share. We encourage married couples to divide parenting duties as equally as possible. And yet, when that couple gets divorced, one parent may end up with the kids 75% of the time, leaving the other parent scarcely enough time to parent effectively.
Governor, a lot of Rhode Islanders I talk to have no idea how far behind the rest the country our state is, when it comes to helping parents and children of divorce.
I’ve even encountered people who think parental alienation isn’t real. It’s a hoax, they say, a trick people play in Family Court. Ironically, the only way that doubters like that could be convinced of the awful reality of parental alienation is if they experienced it themselves. But parental alienation is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone — not even on alienators themselves.
April 25 is National Parental Alienation Awareness Day.
Governor McKee, I ask that you declare this date to be Parental Alienation Awareness Day in Rhode Island.
When Scott Avedisian was Warwick’s mayor in 2018, he declared April 25 to be Parental Alienation Awareness Day in that city. You could use his declaration’s language word for word.
Governor, make this declaration. Show the people of Rhode Island that parental alienation is real, that the cost to families is real, and it shouldn’t be tolerated: not in court, not at home, not anywhere.
If you’d like to lend your voice, contact Gov. Dan McKee and encourage him to declare April 25 to be Parental Alienation Awareness Day in Rhode Island.
Tell Gov. McKee, too, or your Rhode Island legislators, what you think about legislation that would aim to give divorcing parents 50–50 custody of their children.
Tim Lemire is a writer and artist based in Providence.
