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...

more petrol anyone?

Oh dear. Jake does sound VERY sensible in that article. Perhaps he could adopt the younger children.

PS I am on third teen now and I KNOW what they are like...

OOh MP you found that early - do you read the Daily Mail regularly then?

I think Julie should shut up and Jake should have his own column.

That would be a great power reversal, turn the tables and put the parents under the spotlight.
Excellent.

Is anyone else starting to wonder if JM wrote the LWT in such a thinly disguised way becuase she actually secretly wanted her kids to read it in the hope that they would think "Oh what a nasty horrible teen I am to my poor martyred put-upon mother" and come to her begging forgiveness?

Yes, I do, liath. It's all about her. My teens used to laugh out loud at that column. OK there were elements of nasty teen behaviour that rang true but mainly it was me, me, me. If what Jake says is true, and she also denied it earlier this week in public, lying to him barefacedly again and again about writing that column is absolutely indefensible.

He just doesn't come across as a lying boy (none of that aggressive defensiveness most lying teens have IMO), despite the slightly swaggering teen rebel look (actually not really very rebellious, they all look like that).

As I said at at the very beginning of this thread, before it all got silly and a bit flippant, I feel bloody sorry for ALL her kids. They still have to be at school, doing all the normal stuff probably doing GCSES, AS/A levels,homework, coursework, applying to university, going out clubbing/parties all the usual stuff with all this debacle going on. Its hard enough for them at the best of times to juggle all that.

Its very interesting that none of the kids friends' parents have leapt to the defence of the Myerson parents.

She is the best example in the world of HOW NOT TO bring up teenagers.

Coming to this debate very late, I didn't even know who JM was before this thread (with a toddler and a nearly FT time most of my news now comes from MN!) but reading that article that MP just linked to the worst part was that JM said as soon as any of the kids found out she would stop writing it as if that would make it better! Seems like really twisted logic to me. Stopping when they found out didn't erase the humiliation of all of rest of the articles, which incidently, you can't seem to access any more. I tried following some of the links to LWT and they are dead ends.

Btw, can I just say that I love MN, it teaches me things all the time, for instance, while I consider myself to be well educated and articulate, I consistently find myself having to look up long words that some of you use. Today I have learnt what prevaricate means and egregiously (ok, that was from the Will Self article). I am growing as a person!

The Guardian has removed the columns from their archive 'to avoid offence'...

but Myerson turned the columns into a book. And you can read extracts on Amazon, on other sites where they've been quoted and even on the Guardian site (although not the full columns).

One good thing: perhaps this farce will bring an end to the fashion of cutesy newspaper columns of the 'Doh! My Parenting is scatty and My Children do the Funniest Things' variety, that just read like lightly subbed Mumsnet postings.

Even though parading your small children is a bit different from parading your teens, it is a little bit suspect. And anyway I am bored of theose columns.

Does anyone else think tha The Guardian should be a little bit ashamed of the failure to secure proper anonymity in those LWT articles? It was JM's responsibility, I know, but shouldn't the newspaper have checked that enough details were blurred?

'He just doesn't come across as a lying boy'

You know what? Neither does my alcoholic SIL. If you met her, you'd think she was the epitome of truth.

This is hilarious: young lad: reliable, sensible, telling the truth, horrid journo mummy: hysterical, lying, attention seeking.

Unless we know the people involved, how can we know? I heard JM on the radio sounding very sensible and truthful, saying that she showed her son the manuscript and he corrected some of it then said well done and wished her luck.

Perhaps she is a deluded liar and fantasist. Perhaps the boy is.

But attributing talents and worthy character traits to the lad just because he's been 'wronged' is just as bad as labelling him as lazy and a liar becuase he smokes skunk.

As for dittany's 'Jade is talented' theory, I don't know what to say. Jade is a decent person imo and fwiw I think she has every right to sell her story if she wants to. But she isn't talented. Her unique place in the nation's consciousness as the only BB housemate to make real money and stick around for years has nothing to do with her 'talent' and everything to do with the public's obsession with watching people on TV who they deem to be fatter/ stupider/ less worthy then themselves.

Was she exploited or is she exploiting us, that's a fair question, but to say she is where she is due to talent is a logical gymnastic too far.

Snort at the idea that the Guardian has withdrwan the LWT archive to potect the protagonists...t make sur that people rush out and purchase the book, more like.

True Abraid, very true. I know alcoholics too, I know that they lie. But, if he is lying, he's not the only one is he?

It's a horrible, sorry saga for the whole lot of them.

abraid, the funniest and most plausible person I ever met was my XSIL.

Even now, she can convince me she is hard working and a devoted mum, when years of knowlege of her ways have proved the exact opposite.

She sounds very truthful, as do many liars and fantastists. Not saying that junior Myerson is a liar, but so decide that he 'sounds truthful' is favouring him with a prejudice not extended to his mother.

sorry, I'm agreeing with abraid, not arguing!

Another Myerson family ethical dilemma

holy mother of god

whoever said that they were the chatterati version of the osbournes was spot on.

Oh God, I've got too involved in this and am beginning to think I know them PERSONALLY and he is, in fact, one of my teenagers friends....hence me sticking up for son much to the chagrin of some people on here.

Still teens are EXPECTED to lie aren't they, unlike middle aged women (unless alcoholics)?

Still, I've been taught a lesson on not to believe what I read in the Daily Mail (wonder how I've managed all these years, not to believe everything in that rag).

In the article I read, he said that just because he had accepted £1000 from his mother to include his poems in her book didn't mean he had consented to it being published.

I know that's not exactly a lie but it is heartily disingenuous, surely?

ye gods. it's mondo fuck up.

ooh, mondo. I've just learned a new word.