Its well after midnight in Fairfax, Virginia and I cant sleep. The Saturday before Fathers Day, my dad invited my family over to his house for the afternoon. It was a great visit. After a while the subject of Parental Alienation came up. Big surprise right? We talked briefly about it, but as any alienated parent or grandparent will tell you, this is a nightmare that, unfortunately, you have to live through to fully understand it. The good news is that I felt like my father was trying to understand it and I give him a great amount of credit for it. He was asking some good questions. After a while my dad said that like many of us, he is perhaps more of a visual learner and that he would probably need to watch a documentary or something, that showed examples of alienating behaviors while a voiceover described and explained the behaviors so that he may understand it better. I thought to myself, Im working on it dad. Im working on it. Finally, my dad admitted that he is at a loss when he is asked why his son is doing all this. Why does Joe go through all this trouble? I didnt tell him that sometimes I am at a loss as to why I am doing this as well. And then this happens... After checking in to our hotel late tonight, exhausted, I checked my email and found I had received 4 heartbreaking messages from people who live in Rhode Island and are dealing with Parental Alienation. They started like this: Dear Joe and Tammy,(Subject Heading, AMAZING!!!) You have NO idea how amazing it was to open todays paper and see your story. Dear Mr. Barrow and family, I was deeply moved by the article in todays Providence Journal describing your cross-country mission. I have lived the issue of parental alienation for the past five years. Hello, I would like to thank you for shining a light on this terrible issue. Dear Joe: I am from a small town south of Providence. I happened to read the Providence journal this morning and saw you and your family picketing in front of family court. I read your article about Alienated Child where you describe your own personal disaster of losing your 15 year old daughter to her mothers badmouthing and alienating you from her life. It broke my heart and unfortunately I could identify personally with all of it. From there, their stories just get more heartbreaking, they get more disturbing, and they get more infuriating. But its not news to me. This scenario happens to me and Tammy every time we speak to people about what we are going through. And every time I am filled with a renewed sense of hope and purpose. So right now I cant sleep. Because even though I am exhausted, morning cant come quickly enough. In the morning I will call let my father know that next time he is asked why his son is going through all this trouble, he can tell them that there are now two fathers and two mothers in Providence, Rhode Island who now know they are not alone.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Jul 2014 05:11:58 +0000
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