To ask who the secret journalist was for the Guardian column on being a parent?

[hollymeetsivy]

Does anyone remember this. Some years back. Female journalist wrote a weekly column about her parenting incognito

Julie Myerson?

Wasn't it Living With Teens?

That's it!!!

Was driving me insane. Thought it was Alison Pearson

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/21/novelist-julie-myerson-childrens-secrets-living-with-teenagers-nonfiction

Found this.

I remember reading it every Saturday agog at her son's antics and attitude.

was she the one with "treasure"? i think i remember reading something from the perspective of the daughter who was appalled at her life being broadcast to the nation - kind of like a precursor to influencers i guess

No that was Michele Hanson. She died a few years back.
Julie Myerson was writing about her son, and she got a lot of flack for it, I'm not sure her career has ever recovered, which us a shame I really like her work. She's written some excellent books.

Her son seemed very troubled. Was mental health involved? He seemed quite vulnerable. She was, to be fair, unflinching in her honesty

He had a skunk addiction. Past tense, I think he's clean now.
She wrote about this in The lost child in 2009.
She then wrote about the act of writing/writing about family in the semi-fictional Nonfiction a couple of years ago.
I admire her in part but she's also a cautionary tale for writing what you know as I think all her children felt betrayed by it. I used to enjoy that column fwiw but I probably wouldn't have liked that exposure as a teen/my own Mum writing about me.

She was awful. He clearly despised being source material for her column yet on and on she went.

Julie Myerson. It was unforgivable imo.

I read the article linked; her son became a heroin addict (now recovered).

Oh I remember Michele Hanson. Short dark hair and used to write about her elderly mother a lot. I was an avid Guardian/Observer reader back in the day. Also remember Kathryn Flett and her marriage break up.

I loved Michele Hanson. Julie Myerson did write a very enjoyable book about all the people who had ever lived in her house. It was in Clapham iirc. Was a good read

Yes, I might read that one. Well done OP, you've renewed my interest in her.
I do think the backlash was brutal. The press do like to demonise women in particular. Rachel Cusk was another example.

MNers led the charge in that backlash. I don't believe that Meyerson' s sex was a reason why.

I don't either. It was a shitty thing to do

I think in the column the children were disguised enough(?) I think it all came out/to a head when The Lost Child came out which was a memoir.
It's been a long while since I read either but I'm sure she used to berate herself/her own parenting in both and a memoir is based on your life - would I have done it to my own? No. I could write a book about ASC/ODD and being bitten/headbutted/held to ransom with school refusal etc but I wouldn't do it unless it was under a pseudonym and would help other parents.
I don't think she was wrong to write about how addiction impacts family but I do think it should have been published under a different name.

Anything bordering on maternal ambivalence is absolutely rounded upon though. - maybe not on here, but certainly by journalists looking for clickbait.
Rabenmuetter.