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...

Jon Ronson. That's the fella.
I prefer Tim I must say. His poor missus!

He has revealed some very personal things about his dog to be fair. Also, I do not think his relationship with his cat is entirely healthy. There seems to be a certain amount of suppressed hostility on both sides.

also there's a difference in that a lot of those admittedly not very brilliant parenting columns take the piss out of the writer...something JM doesn't really ahemn do.

Oh, imagine the betrayal.
The Daily Mail! God, that must hurt.

Yes, TD and CC tend to come out of their columns as the twits. Clever move.

Aitch, this one is even worse.

Beyond grim, the whole lot of it.

I love Jon Ronson and anyone who says he's awful is clearly deranged. [stare at Aitch]

The constant obsession with them all being pre-schoolers is really odd. did she really not notice them all hitting 8 or 9?

Well, dittany, there may have been posts about closing discussion of Jade down (though christ knows who the mn police are) but in fact the reason why the jade thread ran and ran was that people wanted to make similar points there as they do here -- about the withering away of privacy.

Dittany, to an extent I agree.
I am foaming at the mouth over this one as a fully paid up middle class Gruaniad reader.
I wouldn't tell anyone not to discuss Jade - it's none of my business - but I didn't get involved.

Why on earth would the 'mumsnet police' react the same way to two such wildly different topics? (Jade, Julie M).

I'd say that class has sod all to do with it. One features a young woman dying and the other doesn't.

that is it's none of my business what other mners discuss.
Clearly neither Jade nor te Meyerson's lives are any of my business really, but... Oh, now it's so complicated!

It's what she's done to her son's privacy though, isn't it? SO it is about privacy iyswim?

The two stories are very very similar. They are both about the conversion of private tragedy into media fodder. The same sorts of interesting issues come up on this thread and the Jade thread.

They are important issues. They aren't like discussing the very intimate details of the decline into cancer. The discussion here is exactly about why those sorts of details oughtn't to be touted about, so it is quite consistent with the dislike felt about some of the Jade threadsa.

"Most of this thread has been about criticisms of Julie Myerson and what she's done to her son, not some high-minded discussion about privacy"

What she's 'done to her son' is invade his privacy

Of course there are differences. Jade Goody is perfectly entitled to sell her privacy, and JM is not entitled to sell her own. But there are similarities too. The media's role, the effect on Jade's children. Similarity doesn't imply identity.

that should be JM is not entitled to sell her son's

This one is truly truly horrible. It's actually scary. You find your daughter being beaten, spat on and stripped by your son and your only reaction is that it's embarassing that the neighbours can hear her screams. It's her fault for fighting back, she's a silly cow, she should strip infront of him, and the son's violence won't be tackled as Julie has to go out in half an hour.

209.85.129.132/search?q=cache:njYo-M6CvBEJ:www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2007/sep/22/fa milyandrelationships.family8+%22living+with+teenagers%22+spit+site:guardian.co.uk&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7 &gl=uk

I read the LWT when it was running. It was utter car crash writing. I was always struck by the level of agression towards the daughter by the brothers that the parents would tolerate.

Morris made the point that the Guardian does not compare with the Sun in terms of circulation. However I bet it's the newspaper of choice for the family's social circle, and no attempt was made to change any personal details other than names. In any case the kids were identified and mocked by their schoolfriends and terribly upset and betrayed by it. Adolesence is such an embarassing, painful and difficult time. It's hell. To find out that every confidence had been betrayed by your supposed protector in a national paper for two years and all your peer group was reading it? I'd be devastated.

I presume the difference between Gray's diary/play and Jade Goody's publicity is that the former involves hard work to write and produce, and is a piece of art that might be excellent or bad. Rather than just putting yourself in front of a camera.

JM's book involves work, talent, etc and in that sense it's different from Jade. But it is "the middle class intellectual version of what Jade is doing". And it does attract shock-horror because it cheapens privacy. In JM's case it is her son's privacy that is sold. That is worse of course than selling your own. But Jade's selling of her own privacy is very damaging to media culture because it encourages celebrity consumption in place of the hard work and talent involved in other kinds of media content, and because it encourages an appetite for intrusion into private sadness.

I don't see any dual standards, certainly not class-based ones.