Tomorrow night 60 minutes will air an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger regarding his book, "Total Recall" The news around this interview focuses on the "tremendous pain" Arnold inflicted on Maria Shriver and the "unbelievable pain on the kids."
When I read this I don't believe that when he says "kids" he is including the child he fathered with Mildred Baena. I am hopeful when I watch the interview I will be proven wrong and I hope I see a shred of public support for this child, but I'm not optimistic. I've seen these headlines before with John and Elizabeth Edwards.
To be clear, John Edwards is 300 times the slime ball of Arnold. We can draw a lot of lines in comparison but I don't believe Arnold ever went so far as to brainstorm a plan to falsify a DNA test by stealing an infants diaper.
But my little rant here isn't about John or Arnold, it's about Elizabeth and the public outpouring of sympathy to a scorned wife in the absence of support and care for the illegitimate children born to these people.
I don't mean to come across as callous for the heartache that either Elizabeth or Maria endured. Quite the contrary, but to be a realist how many women (and men) have to endure the heartache of infidelity? I'd dare to venture more than half of the general population. In fact, I have been cheated on and even dumped for another woman and I will be the first to admit that event hurt more than I could ever express in words.
But......
it didn't hurt more than being abandoned by my father.
it didn't hurt more than growing up fatherless.
it didn't hurt more than being told by my paternal grandmother that my father would never choose me over his other children.
it didn't hurt more than each and every time my father told me he could never tell his wife and children about me.
it didn't hurt more than learning that the State of Utah had contacted him more than once to establish paternity and he not only dismissed those notices he ran from them.
it didn't hurt more than when he finally told his family about me in an apology email.
and it didn't hurt more than half my paternal siblings rejecting me because I just happened to be their sister rather than a stranger from out of the blue.
So I am hopeful that 60 minutes will put this in the proper perspective but I really don't think that will happen and here is why. What kind of audience wants to hear about the child of an extra-marital affair? The answer is only an audience full of children born to an extra-marital affair.
The majority of the audience this Sunday night will be men and women who either have been cheated on, or feel they might be being cheated on, which I believe is most people. So the message will hinge on Maria's tremendous pain and sacrifice. And for the record, I will feel bad for Maria for what she has gone through.
I will feel worse for Arnold's son. The son he kept in secret. The son he hid from his own siblings. The son that only knows the coldness of the shadow and the limelight that has never been anything but agonizing in it's brightness. The son who by his father's actions has the unfair burden to know definitely what it's like to have a father feel nothing but shame for his very being. To you, young Schwarzenegger, I am sorry and if I could hug you and somehow make all this pain go away, I would.
And I bet you still love your father even though, and I know that everything hurts. I also know it will get better and things will hurt less and less as time goes on, hang in there.
Perhaps someday you will tell your story and perhaps you will call it "True Lies".
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