Advice to Jamie and Lynne Spears — stop treating your celebrity daughters like cash registers! Do you think it's a coincidence that one of your girls has had to be committed to the mental ward of a hospital and that the other is 16 and six months pregnant?
Could that have anything to do with the fact that they've been put to work from the moment they could sing and read a script? Has it occurred to you that they might feel more like
bank machines than like precious members of a loving family?
Now it's true that Britney was adorable and got rave reviews for her recent comeback performance on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Yes, she seemed completely normal and cured and it has miraculously been only 12 weeks since she was strapped to a gurney after holding her son, Jayden James, hostage.
But that's the point, it has only been a month and a half since she was released from the hospital a second time. And while Brit was sane and smiling on screen, apparently she was a mess off-screen while taping the show. The new issue of Star magazine reports that at one point she stood in a hallway in full hearing of other cast members and screamed on the phone to her younger sister, Jamie Lynn — "You're turning on me like everyone else. First Mama wanted to sleep with Kevin and now you're calling him. And you live in a house I paid for!"
To me, the words "A house I paid for" are very revealing. I wouldn't be surprised if Britney feels angry about having had to bankroll the Spears family operation for her whole young life and yes, the house her mother and sister live in, in their hometown of Kentwood, Louisiana was paid for out of the proceeds of her tremendous success.
And now almost the first thing that her "guardian" father, Jamie Spears, does once Britney is well enough to appear in public, without embarrassing herself, is to put her back on her work hamster wheel. "Britney could easily be asking herself 'Does my father want me to get well for me or because he wants me to work?'" points out psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman, author of Bad Boys: Why We Love Them, How to Live With Them, and When to Leave Them.
Imagine if you felt that your parents loved you only because you were a performer, not a person? You might well think you'd been exploited. You might well rebel against the image they had given you of being America's Little Miss Perfect.
Psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow, author of Living the Truth, also worries that Britney's current situation — living with a parent (her dad, Jamie Spears) and going to work — is reproducing the exact same childhood situation that could have led to her mental issues. And it doesn't help that Jamie is now being paid $2500 a week from Britney's accounts to be the conservator of her affairs.
"It's not OK to be her dad and her employee," warns the psychiatrist. Wouldn't it be great for her if he could just be her dad? And how about just letting her work on her psychological issues?
Now, as for little sister Jamie Lynn, who derailed her promising career and is planning to marry her 18 year-old baby daddy, isn't it interesting that she also found a way to get off the Spears family moolah-making machine, at least for a while. "Both Britney and Jamie Lynn are doing things that get in the way of making money because they are angry that they aren't being loved for themselves," believes Dr. Lieberman. Their antics even managed to successfully squash their mother's ability to publish her own potentially-lucrative parenting book. Somehow, I don't think that is coincidental!
So I say to Jamie and Lynne Spears, if you really want to prove your love to your daughters, how about trying to nix the reported deal to sell Jamie Lynn's upcoming baby pics for $1 million?
Why not try to break the pattern of "pimping" the family's children out to make money starting NOW? That might really get through to your girls in a way they would truly appreciate.
For more celebrities, gossip, news, and photos, visit StarMagazine.com.
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What;s pathetic about all this is the fact that this whole white trash soap opera is treated as being important and relevant news.What the hell?These dysfunctional rednecks don't deserve a miilionth of the attention wasted on them,and the "journalists" and photographers who fuel the mouthbreathing public's desire for this asshattery all need their asses kicked.
I felt hope when the parents stepped in and seemed to get Britney away from people who were fueling the destructive behavior --for example Sam Lufti. But I now don't think her parents will every really get it. Her Dad taking a salary to look after her affairs says it all. I'm lucky to have parents that want the best for me, and any and all help they offer has no monetary strings attached. I hope Britney finds her way, but I think the outlook is cloudy at best.
Nothing else to write about? Without Britney, seems you wouldn't have a writing career - and, it's really none of your business is it.
Bonnie may I, respectfully, disagree?
People started respecting Britney, a bit, after her acting role. Everybody needs a self esteem moment. B. was once a high achiever.
People are mean, she's had kids and can't weigh 80 pounds. a role now and then is good for the ego, because being pretty and feeling ugly is destructive.
It could help her keep seeing her kids.
Jamie Lyn is not accepted socially. People said Suri Cruise was a scientology experiment til her photo shoot. photos would make it a real baby, and put the baby into society.; people are mean.
jamie Lyn could give $200.000 to people fighting inflammatory breast cancer, (my charity), or Housing in New Orleans, La. SHE NEEDS THE MONEY-- SO DO CHARTIES. NO FREE PAPARAZZI. !
You are right. Threapy and self first. They need to make the right deceisions without dad, mom,, agent, or Paris Hilton. Like the rest of us! God bless Jamie Lyn. There are murders who have suffered less than her in the press.
What is it going to take for Jamie and Lynn to realize that their daughters need some sort of help, love and support that they haven't yet been given?? They need to parent their daughters in a new way. Obviously whatever they have been doing until now hasn't worked--they need to try something else.
Not using them as ATM machines is a very good place to start!
Also, 12 weeks is definitely not long enough for Brit Brit to be "normal" again. I am not surprised that behind the scenes, she is still bizarre and erratic.
Jamie and Lynn, you really need to help your daughters. If you don't know how, you should ask a good shrink!
Celebrity or not, children are dependent on their parents and the environment that is created for them. An abused child doesn't see clearly outside of their environment, it's all they know.
I think that it is fascinating that with celebrities we get an incite into the workings of the family dynamics, Paris Hilton her mother and sister, Britney and her sister, mother and father, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt with their multitude of kids. How are J-Lo's babies going to turn out?
By having the fortunate opportunity of having celebrity status or parents of celebrities it doesn't give you a license to treat your children in any other way than creating a comforting nurturing environment and teaching them good values.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: Britney (and apparently Jamie Lynn) do not want to be stars, they want to be normal, everyday people. They're screaming it from the top of their lungs, they just don't know how to say it in a way the world will listen to and understand. I've never gotten this message from the famous before, but it sure is coming through loud and clear to me with this one. T
With Bonnie's posting in mind, I have one question: Who really benefits here?
Talk about milking a cash cow for whatever it's worth.
I think Britney's family act like many unsophisticated people who win the lottery. They are all caught up in a larger life than they ever dreamed possible and they don't know where to begin to help their daughters or how to go about it, even if they have the best intentions.
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Posted March 27, 2008 | 11:00 AM (EST)