Julie Myerson - why am I not surprised that a book has materialised concerning her own son's drug issues?

[glasjam]

Read this is in today's Observer www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/mar/01/julie-myerson-novel-drug-addiction

Does anyone else have the uncomfortable feeling that I have on learning that she is writing about her son's drug problems? I know that writers often mine their own personal experiences for material but I think she's putting her literary endeavours ahead of her son here. From what I can gather, he is still young, his drug issues are ongoing, and although he is out of the family home, surely this is risking any possible future reconcilliation? I also baulk at the way she "weaves historical research about Yelloly with her disturbing account of her son's ejection from the family home" It just smacks of middle-class-writer angst.

My cynicism is further fuelled by my very strong suspicion that Julie Myerson is the author of Living with Teenagers - but that's another story...

I think she whisked her off for the abortion quickly because she was afraid she would change her mind. It wasn't exactly in the girl's best interests.

Also have an issue with the media, and (not sure what paper ran LWT for peddling her narcissistic nonsense.

Thanks LadyG. Doesn't seem enough for it to have swayed their decisons, really. So I suppose they must think they're doing the right thing with all this publicity. But I don't.

I thought that was funny, too, salome -- custardo saying that posters berating JM here were all urbanista journo-types; and then another poster hot on heels saying she was derided because of resentment of urbanista journo-types.

Jade Goody has been derided in just the same way and is not middle class -- and her supporters have said 'well she wouldn't get these attacks if she was middle class.

Class is a red herring here. All classes seem to be sucked into the business of media/entertainment gobbling up reality/privacy. If JM is narcissistic that makes her right for her time.

Ta, threadworm. Had to get my dusty, little-used dictionary out for the big words...before sending my daily opinion column off to the Mail/Guardian/Express/Telegraph.

Haven't read huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge thread.

But - those of us who don't have teenagers yet - how will we deal with a Jake? Will we do the right thing, cart ourselves off to family therapy, recognise our own narcissism is part of the problem and realise all the things we should have done in retrospect?

I look at my own eldest boy sometimes and think you poor bastard because he's gotta contend with me and his dad trying out on him. And I have no fecking idea how I'd react to skunk-smoking. Sure it might not be to publicly trail his details through the press and still make it about my artistic journey, but equally is it right to utterly vilify her for being a mother? For all people claim she's rejecting her responsibilities as a parent, I read a lot of what has come out as her trying to deal with her grief and sense of personal culpability. That doesn't make it OK to act in such an unethical way with respect to her own child, but perhaps she genuinely thinks she is doing the right thing to help him get better.

Whatever we may think of that, it is certain that the classic family response to addiction ( offering endless 'help') doesn't work too well either.

I dunno. I just don't think she's a complete witch. While we've all got biddable littlies, we can afford to be comfortable in our parenting because the mistakes aren't evident yet. But those mothers (and fathers - and I do hate the way his masculinity is constantly being called into question because he cries...) who do feel something has gone wrong are bound to have to make sense of their own failure in some way. It is too soon perhaps, he is too young, it is offensive. But I do think it is understandable.

custy, did you ever read living with teens? it was all 'today i slaved for hours for a family dinner and then the kids came in and said fuck off mum i hate courgettes and then i made cheese sandwiches for one and rang out for pizza for the other etc while i wept'. you'd have hated it.

tell you what, though, there is a FANTASTIC book waiting to be written by jake myerson on how to grow up with parents who won't grow up. it will be such a huge success, there must be loads of teens suffering from parents who want to be their friends first, parents second.

And one of the most important things which so far seems to have been missed - the book sounds like a right load of dull shite.

I'm tired with the idea that she has 'sold the story' about her son, as if she flogged it to the highest bidder on ebay or something.

People who write books do 'sell' their work, this is called working and making a living.

How tiresome that anybody whose work involves creativity of any kind is seen as 'selling' something - most people sell their time and skills and this is rewarded with what we call wages.

I believe JMs account. I heard her on the radio and she was absolutely calm and reasonable, and also said that her son was telling the truth too. She spoke of him with nothing but love.

It must be utterly frustrating to be in the public eye and have all sorts of accusations hurled at you, but have no way of speaking back that can't be seen as 'courting publicity' or selling your story.

She can't win, whatever she does.

But Will, it is easy to separate criticisms o her parenting from criticisms of her writerly exploitation of her children. Most posters have derided her only for the later, though recognising that she (like all of us) is imperfect as a parent.

I do have a teen (only just), and dear God it is impossible to parent him without feeling weak, endlessly self-reflective, cast down, needy, and ineffective.

Just don't publish a book/column about it.

she should not have sold her son's privacy. nor should jordan sell her children's privacy. etc etc etc.

Great post WilfSell (I believe Will Self was rather less understanding that you!)

Again, I don't think this is about the issue of their parenting during the drug stuff. That can happen to any family. Its an issue with the way they mediated their experience on a weekly basis (as we now know, and hindsight and all) straight into the public domain, culminating in a one-sided firework display of me-me-me-me. I thought it was saddest when Jake told his mother he knew he couldn't stop her.

But Morris she could have won, had she just written a fantastic novel about her experiences

She's a great writer

It's just making it FACT, and exposing her son, at such a young and vulnerable age, that is a bit horrible. How has she helped his future prospects AT ALL? My God, if anyone had put my exploits between the ages of 17-20 in print for perpetuity I'd have been mortified at having to drag that albatross around with me forever. Those years are years that most of us are quite happy to forget - and thrive on the forgetting

Writing a fictionalised literary novel that wouldn't ordinarily graze the nations' conciousness (sp) featuring your unnamed son is hardly the same as being photographed with your young kids on the front of magazines.

You can't compare the loss of privacy to that of Jordan etc.

to those who said she is being battered for publishing - not the way she parents - i beg to differ based ont his thread.

on the issue of publishing, i don't know the depth of what she wrote becuase all this middle class mummy angst whilst crying into the garlic and herb infused extra virgin olive oil and prosciutto - turns me off. its not that you MC types don't feel pain, its that your soft shytes

Not sure if that's a joke custardo, but are you suggesting that people who can afford posh food don't suffer from emotional problems like anybody else?

That's why you'd have hated the LWT column, custy!

fink she is being ironic Morris

Agree with thready. I don't think it's her parenting I have a problem with, apart from in relation to giving intimate and private details of her children in books and columns.

Morris, yes, people who write books 'sell' their work, but don't you think there are some things, some details and stories that just don't need to be sold? Poor youngest son and all his mates finding out his mother had written about his first pubes in a national newspaper! Of course writers sell writing, but it doesn't mean there can't be a bit of self editing when it comes to other people's lives, specifically and most importantly, children's lives, and their own children's lives, when there are huge issues of trust there.

I can appreciate her need to explore these things and write about them, so she should have just joined mumsnet, called herself urbanmumof3 and let rip, that would have been fine!

Yes Morris, as a sane and rational person - fairly well educated, i thought i would come on Mumsnet ( habitat of the journo MCs) in all seriousness and suggest that the middle classes(esp.journos) don't suffer from emotional problems

not that i did even say that dear, i said that they do but they are soft shytes.

theres and injection waiting at the pharmacy...

well, she did sell it to the highest bidder. The MS would have been sent out to various publishers who would have bid for it. That's how it works.

Dont have a problem with people earning a living from being creative. Just depends what they are being creative with, in this case, other people's privacy and dignity.

haven't read the whole thread, but i read the column a few times, custardo, she was making imo some bad mistakes as a parent. i used to judge her with impunity. all the usual stuff, pandering to them, not drawing a line, not maintaining a party line with dh, that sort of thing. honestly, i've seen what you've written about your teens, custy, she was like your bizarro-opposite. you'd have loathed the column.

Again I don't think class has a right lot to do with it. You can be a parent who has a bit of self-respect and carries out consequences, and maintains some dignity and separation even when your child is being a PITA. Or you can be the kind who depends on your child for all your emotional fulfilment and won't enforce boundaries for fear of not being liked, and uses emotional blackmail to try to control your child's behaviour. People of all classes can and do do both IME.

It's hard to say things like this because it sounds as if I'm saying I'm a perfect parent and know it all - it's not that at all, and I know that whatever you try to do, teens will test you to the limit. But I do think leaning emotionally on your kids in that way is really, really bad for them - as one who like Jake has experienced it.

Her LWT column was anonymous.

I have no idea why a column in a small circulation newspaper should cause such fuss and the need to 'unveil' it's writer.