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Britney Spears lost her children on Monday. After a court order, she voluntarily surrendered them to her babydaddy, Kevin Federline (A.K.A. “FedEx”). Or at least her babydaddy’s bodyguards. What does this all mean exactly? And why does the world still care?
“I don’t care,” I hear you scoffing. Well, close the tab then.
No! Wait! Come back! Ahem. Anyway, someone cares. Lookit this picture of these paps around her car! They’re like pimples on Sienna Miller’s butt!
Source: Britney.cl
There seems to be alternating opinions about why Britney lost her kids. In some corners she is being pilloried as a party girl and a bad mother on a downward spiral. There are allegations of drug abuse in front of the kids and worse.
Other people, logically, say there are simpler reasons for the court order: she missed court appearances and she did not undergo required drug testing. She did not jump through the requisite hoops for adults going through an ugly divorce. Britney and her mother, after years of peas-in-poddom, had a notorious schism. Maybe, as Jenn Satterwhite suggests, she was missing that support system of caring people who could say, “Hey! Get some sleep! You gotta pee clean on Monday.”
Rebecca at I’m Just a Girl laments the fact that so much attention is being given to this story (and I’m obviously one of the guilty parties here), when there are single moms all over the place who are doing well with their children and their lives. Indeed, where are those examples? Moms who spend time with their kids and make healthy choices do not sell magazines, right? I don’t think anyone can definitively say what being a “good mother” means, but we as a society know when we see how not to be.
All of this media hoopla and he-said she-said made me start to think about Britney as an actual person, rather than as some kind of modern-day Medea. Could this have been prevented? Is Britney even an adult? Part of the apocrypha of Britney’s history is that she quit school at the end of eighth grade, after years of spotty tutoring. After that her life became touring, recording, more touring.
To further my point, I will confess to you that a few years ago my sister and I gleefully watched her hot mess of a reality show, Chaotic, aired when she was in the honeymoon period with FedEx. I thought it would be full of spoiled-brat shenanigans and rocket-scientist moments, but what struck me the most was how alone Britney was. Alone in hotel rooms, alone on balconies, alone on workout equipment, and confiding in her makeup artist, her employee, before shows. The names of the cities flashed across the bottom of the screen, cities that I would give my left spleen to visit, but there were no attempts by Britney to go outside and taste the local food, see some sights, absorb some culture. Each city featured the same homogeneous hotel room and her alone with her ignorance.
At what age are we considered an adult? For me, it was probably seventeen, out on my own with my record collection and a fresh boot print on my ass. Part two of that was when I held my first little howling bologna loaf in my arms at twenty-three with no nanny battalion in sight. For someone like Britney who has been coddled, kept isolated and ignorant, maybe not even having children did it. My first thought is for her children. I hope they are safe and happy. But I also hope Britney pulls out of this nosedive in time to experience the joys (and horrors) that come with a healthy, non-tumultuous parenting experience.
