Tuesday 4 December 2007

Britney and Amy and All the Rest



No they don't look alike, but they are alike. Two talented young women throwing it all away. And for what? Drugs, booze, inappropriate choices in marital partners. Their type has been around before. Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin come to mind.

What is with this self-destructiveness? Are they so spoiled they can't see how enormously fortunate they are? What will it take for them to see it? Losing custody of her children didn't make Britney wake up. A drug overdose and arrest hasn't made Amy wake up. My daughter asks me difficult questions about these two. Why do they behave that way? What will happen to them? Do I think they are talented? I only know the answer to the last question, which is yes. I think they are tremendously talented. But talent is no excuse for bad behaviour. And these two are the poster children for Bad Behaviour.

They make me angry because they remind me of another once young woman I know who lost her life to drink and drugs: my stepsister. (Welcome to another post about my vastly dysfunctional family.) My stepsister didn't have the talent of Britney and Amy, but she certainly has had the advantages. She went to six (!!!!!!) colleges and still doesn't have a degree. She married a man who had cheated on her with her roommate. When they made up and he got her pregnant, both families forced them to marry. He then was sent to rehab by his parents and wasn't around for the birth of their first child. Neither was very disciplined about money and they ran up enormous debts, which they couldn't pay because they didn't work (except sporadically for his parents). He went back to rehab, she went to rehab, he got out of rehab, she got out, they had another child. They had lots of help along the way with their dysfunction by both sets of parents. They split up but never divorced. He would resurface in his children's lives from time to time, then leave as quickly. Their kids went to live with my stepbrother, and hopefully won't fall into the addiction vortex. Stepsister is currently back in rehab after leaving her wildly inappropriate boyfriend (on the sex offenders' register). Her husband is in jail awaiting trial for stealing from a relation of stepsister. (You would think we were from a low-income, poorly educated background. We are not.)

So Amy and Britney, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee. You are role models for our daughters, and you are failing abysmally. Make something of your lives besides a mess. Insecurity is not an excuse.

7 comments:

Flowerpot said...

I quite agree, wakeup. Not that I have daughters, but life is about making mistakes and getting over it, I think (speaking as someone who's made too many mistakes!). What is so attractive about these two anyway? I suppose teh media have caught onto them and made them a target. Very sad.

Anonymous said...

It is surely a parent worst nightmare to find out their darling son or daughter is on drugs or suchlike. I know where you come from with this but I also wonder what is so special about these two no-hopers. It's such a shame that they are throwing it all away. In that respect, they don't deserve to have fame and fortune.

Crystal xx

Cate said...

The Britney and Amy Winehouse stories are so sad. I know there are lots of reasons why we shouldn't feel sorry for them but it's just such a waste.

the rotten correspondent said...

Sometimes talent really isn't everything. There needs to be some gratitude or giving back or simple respect for others in the world.

I don't see that from either of these two. At all.

Fire Byrd said...

It is difficult to find words here about idiots wasting their lives in this way, whomever they are.
Except that addictive behaviour can happen as a result of inner pain that cannot be owned and drugs are the only way to help deal with their feelings of self hate.
pxx

Kelly Innes said...

I don't know how to write the noise I am making now in an appropriately sickening way....not at all what I would like to expose 'Pip' to!

wakeupandsmellthecoffee said...

flowerpot: Making mistakes is part of life. But some mistakes are much bigger than others. And some learn from their mistakes and others don't. I wonder if either of these women will see our age?

CJ: I dabbled in drugs myself in my yoof. But I grew up and moved on, and drugs never were the focus of my life. If I had the advantages and talent of these women, would that have been different for me? I doubt it somehow.

blueangel: Hi. Welcome to my blog. I do feel sorry for these women and others like them to a point. But only to a point.

RC: I imagine these two, particularly Amy Winehouse, will die young. I don't see them growing old at all. And they will leave devastated families behind, no doubt.

Pixie: You're probably right. But many people feel inner pain and self hate and don't need drugs to quell those feelings. Is it nature or nurture that makes them turn to drugs?

Kelly: "Pip" is in the safest place he/she will ever be in right now, sheltered by you from everything bad. Don't worry about your noises.