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...

Speaking of the brother of someone who is now 25 and still acting like Jake (so into his music he can't hold down a proper job, but doesn't even try very hard at what he says he wants to do, perpetually stoned, immature, spoilt and middle class), i think JM did the right thing.

My parents have just gone on putting up with my brothers drugs, self-righteousness and refusal to grow up since he was 13, mainly because my father refuses to stand up to him, and 12 years down the line he's still living at home, still quitting every job he gets within a few weeks, still contributing nothing, and still managing to find money for drugs.

My mother has been through merry hell, and quite often found that the only person who knew what she was going through was JM in her column living with teenagers. If people don't write about these awful experiences then others who are going through similar will never know that anyone else understands. That's why we write at all, to share our experience of the human condition.

Jake is a grown man. He was a grown man at 17, old enough to leave school, get married with his parents consent, have sex, drive a car etc etc,why should his parents have put up with him any longer?

He's a spoilt, arrogant leech who needs to grow the fuck up. My dad is working class, worked full time from the age of 15, never asked his parents for a penny, got married at 18, had his own business by his late 20s and was a trained barrister by his mid 30s, all off his own back. This was all during difficult economic times of the 70s and early 80s. These priveledged wastrels have no bloody excuse and will live to regret it, if they aren't already.

What a horrible attitude totalmisfit Even if her actions in throwing him out at 17 are justified, I don't see how anyone can justify serving up her son's worst times for public consumption.

ok, you're welcome to join my family, live with my brother for 6 months and then perhaps you'll be entitled to tell me my attitude is horrible.
If you haven't been through it you can't possibly understand. My attitude is one of a loving, sympathetic sister who has had all her patience worn out over the past 12 years.

As for JM, people put their lives into their art, and those lives and experiences necessarily involve others.

Like I asked winnie totalmisfit - do you think there is any ever chance your family will heal itself if your parents write a book about what a shit your brother is?

And I'm sorry, there are plenty of groups supporting families of children with drug issues, you don't need to read a column to find 'people like uss

i wouldn't say there are plenty of groups. I looked into it when my brother was snorting cocaine in his room every day and there were a couple, but nothing my mum could get to as she's busy with our two much younger sisters, works, looks after her elderly parents and inlaws as well as her grandaughter on occasion, caught in the 'sandwich' of care you here so much about these days...

who knows if writing a book would help? Depends on the individual circumstances. i think the thing with my brother is that he was/is utterly shameless about it and never gave a stuff if family friends/police who picked him up/relatives knew what he was up to. i don't think their relationship could really get any worse, it's already hit rock bottom and bounced back up too many painful times.

I think it depends entirely on the 17 year old. All i know is, if you're old enough to defy your parents every wishes, stay out taking drugs all night, old enough to steal from them absolutely brazenly, then you should be prepared to take the consequences.

I used to cringe at JM using her family as copy fodder when the children were very small and she was writing a weekly column in the Independent. It never occurred to me that she was the author of LWT but, when I read the rumour here, I had a teensy Google. I learnt that JM and the author of LTW have the same literary agent. I drew my own conclusions. You can draw yours!

Anyway, this book seems like the culmination of a gruesome trend started when the children were tiny.

Yes, I had a similar impression to dittany. Some controlling parents think they can impose their will on children and make them into something. Obviousyl some drug use is unlivable with etc but may be there are family dynamics issues which could be better addressed, that they look at their acceptance or otherwise of him for who he is.

Anyway how do we know as we weren't there. I woudl not let for example my younger children be sexually abused by a sibling and in the Myseron case she says her son was offering drugs to the younger ones who were stll 11- 13 I think. That's not acceptable. To protect the younger ones you may need to have the older one leave although a residential unit, a funded gap year or something of that kind might be better than just showing him the door and finding him a flat.

I think even if she did all the right things in dealing with his problems, protecting the younger children etc etc - writing about it was completely the wrong thing to do and unjustifiable.

but we all write about our children (and extended families/friends/Pita inlaws etc) That's what MN is for. We all share candid details of the lives of people we know with complete strangers, quite often to feel less alone or to preserve our own sanity... Of course there are the two key differences of anonymity and money, but the principle is the same.

I don't hold with the 'completely unjustifiable' stance either. If people read the book, find solace in it, if it helps them through difficult times, then some good has come from it.

She's made a career of writing about her children since they were toddlers. It's what she does - she probably doesn't even see the ethical objections now (or has been able to bypass them, in her own mind).

She's been effectively living off her children for decades. Now one of them is answering back, in print, and she really doesn't like it.

I know that writers write, same as photographers snap. But photographers don't necessarily publish every picture and I think in this case the writer should have thought more carefully about the wisdom of putting this work in the public domain.

I'm sorry totalmisfit, I just don't buy that. The whole point of MN is that it is anonymous. And there is no one who has documented their children's lives and progress in the way that she does. And crucially, none of us are making a living out of it

totalmisfit your own family experience is very interesting. I think your attitude is sensible and I am in agreement with you.

When you say you think JM did the right thing do you mean in kicking him out( I think she did) or in writing about it?( I think she was unwise) ?

very active conv. I see you have answered already!

Xenia, "she says her son was offering drugs to the younger ones who were stll 11- 13 I think" - he denies that, doesn't he? (Or did I imagine it? I've read so many things by & about them today I'm confused)

He might well deny it. Presumably the younger children might be able to confirm it one way or another. I think it's unlikely he would do.

Firstly, I didn't mean to imply that the son is media savvy and Mum is media niave. I think she has had years of being a journalist/writer and he has grown up in that environment and appears to be using the media too. I certainly don't think that any one of us isn't answerable for our own actions whether we are parents or not. I just wondered 'aloud' if she was being a bit niave not to have seen the reaction. It will be interesting to see how well the book sells because judging from this thread no one except me will be buying it on moral grounds.

I personally would not write publically about my experience with my dd if I/my daughter could be identified without my daughters consent. However, we got to a point where things turned around rather than continued. If they had continued I might have tried anything to get her to see the dangerous path she was on and the risks she was taking and the impact she was having on herself & the people who love her.

As for the idea that there are loads of support out there for parents and families that is rubbish ime. There is little in place for those with the problem, let alone the families & what there is, is often cosmetic and inaccessible especially where there are problems with cannabis. My professional life means I know what is available and how to access it and it was still a nightmare.

I stopped writing about my children when they started school, and have never written about them since. I would dearly love to write about them, but I don't think I have the right to do it. Whatever they do, their private lives are not for me to write about.

" happen to know for a fact that she did write the LWT column. Cannot divulge how I know but take it from me that I do. She did."

Intriguing Beanorx.

IF the above is true (and nothing but a public admittance from JM or her agent herself would totally prove this - v. unlikely) I wonder if JM is at all worried?? Because reading "The Lost Child" with the knowledge that she may be the author of LWT TOTALLY changes the way you experience the "truth" of that book. As a "one-off" cathartic expose of a family's struggle with a drug-taking son, it obviously raises enough hackles judging by this thread. But off the back of MANY years of writing about her children and earning her living from laying bare their teenage tantrums and misdemeanours (including the son who is the subject of The Lost Child)I think it leaves her in am extremely dodgy position.

What on earth would she have written about if he had done terribly well at school and gone off to Oxford??

I am shocked at the link to the LWT article.

I don't know ANY families who have teenage kids who speak to their mother like that

Jake sounds like a total pain in the arse to me. Typical spoiled bratty teenager. Vile, self-obsessed yuk yuk yuk.

Mind you I do think it's a BIG mistake of JM to go so public with her story. It does make for an interesting debate but it will be/is very destructive for her own relationship with her son. Which pretty much sounds destroyed.

Actually, not typical teenager at all. He sounds particularly ghastly. Poor Myersons.

I went back to read that link. I have had three teenagers. They have sworn at me. They are now 20/22/24 - they are delightful. One now says she can't believe how she used to be. Teenagers obviously differ in how they are and why they are as they are and parents differ in what they will tolerate or not but I certainly didn't regard that description as different from how many teenagers are. You haev to think about them too - it is very hard to have all those raging hormones and it's such a difficult time. Many kill themselves. It can be the hardest time of their lives. I wonder how much love and tolerance and respect the Myersons have given theirs in what is really only a holding pattern you maintain for a few years after which they emerge great. If they are alienated in that period you haev lost them for a lifetime. If you do it right you have friends for life.

Agree he sounds ghastly, loathsome, hideous but he is still their child and this all started when he was 13.

They HAVE to look at themselves in all of this and wonder why he started taking drugs in the first place. I still maintain children do not turn into drug addicts overnight for absolutely no apparent reason, other than to be annoying to the parents. It must be absolutely heartbreaking to see your child self destruct (as they see it) but they have to take some responsibility for the way he has turned out.