Did you know that Albert Einstein may have been alienated from his kids by his ex-wife?
Don’t believe me. He said so himself.
“My fine boy had been alienated from me,” Einstein wrote in a letter in 1914, “by my wife, who has a vengeful disposition.”
More than sixty years before parental alienation entered the psychological and legal lexicon, Einstein was using it the way many aggrieved parents use it today.
This came up recently on social media.
Proponents of parental alienation have milked his words to full effect. Associating Einstein with this pseudoscience is a great way to legitimize it.
In 2010 researchers Richard K. Stephens and Linda Gunsberg demonstrated with archival newspaper reports, numerous historic cases of parental alienation (Stephens & Gunsberg, 2010). These researchers pointed out how newspapers denoted “parental alienation” in a 1904 case where the mother alleged the father had alienated the child against her claiming he had: (1) “inoculated him with hatred” (New York Times); (2) “prejudiced him against her” (New York Tribune), and (3) “poisoned her child’s mind against her” (New York Tribune). Stephens & Gunsberg illustrated two more notorious newspaper reported cases from more than one hundred years ago with headlines like: “Wife has turned his children against him” (1912) and “Divorced man thinks child is influenced against him” (1914). Rand (2013) called upon the work of Isaacson (2007) to illustrate that even the smartest person alive can be victimized by alienation.
Albert Einstein met Maleva Maric when she was the only woman in Einstein’s section at the Polytechnic in Zurich. They married and Maric bore Einstein two sons during their 10 years of marriage. During their separation and contentious divorce in 1914, Einstein wrote to his friend Heinrich Zangger, a professor of physiology at University of Zurich, that Maric was “poisoning” the children against him and that, “My fine boy had been alienated from me … by my wife, who has a vengeful disposition” (Isaacson, 2007; Rand, 2013). To sidestep the alienation, Einstein agreed that Maric would have primary physical custody of the children and Einstein would give her all the money he anticipated receiving when he won the Nobel Prize. After the cash settlement, it was reported that the alienation was forestalled enough to allow Einstein to again have a relationship with his two sons.
Einstein’s experience was put into a book on the history of parental alienation by Diedre Rand.
Einstein is not the only celebrity to claim to be alienated from their kids. Alec Baldwin wrote a book, arguing that Kim Basinger- who he didn’t name- had alienated him from their daughter Ireland. The notorious message he left on daughter Ireland’s voicemail was an outgrowth of the frustration he felt from being alienated, he said in the book.
More recently, Brad Pitt, through intermediaries, claimed that Angelina Jolie was alienating him from their adopted children.
A source from Brad's camp described what has gone on between him and the kids as 'textbook parental alienation' and claimed it was Angelina's intention to draw out the divorce until the children were 18.
Her friends, though, have insisted: 'Brad has nobody to blame but himself. All Angelina wants is to heal their family and move on.'
Angelina and their children argued that Brad attacked each of them viciously on a private jet, and this is the reason for the breakdown in the relationship.
Angelina later claimed that Brad 'choked' one of the children during the horrifying dispute and 'struck' another in the face, leaving her and the kids feeling like 'hostages' and cowering in fear under a blanket for hours until they landed.
She also alleged that he grabbed her by the head, slammed her against a wall, and violently shook her at one point during the flight - which resulted in her injuring her back and elbow.
Brad's rep called Angelina's account 'completely untrue' to CNN at first, but then released an amended statement to the publication that read: 'Angelina's story continues to evolve each time she tells it.
'Brad has accepted responsibility for what he did but will not for things he didn't do. He has been on the receiving end of every type of personal attack and misrepresentation.
In this way, Brad used parental alienation as the most common defense: to allegations of abuse.
Lita Ford has also claimed to be alienated.
Was Albert Einstein an alienated parent?
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