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I have just spent the evening watching an old movie about the Australian opera singer Marjorie Lawrence. Marjorie was born on a farm in 1907 and somehow managed to go from distant Australia to France to study and then onto New York to rise in the operatic ranks. Being an Australian girl she was very physical and she was the first soprano to perform the immolation scene in Götterdämmerung by riding her horse into the flames as Wagner had intended. Good old Marjorie also performed the Dance of the seven veils in Richard Strauss's Salome[1] "more convincingly" than most other sopranos!
Not long after she married she contracted polio and was left confined to a wheelchair. She managed to resume her career and sang for some time afterwards. She even travelled overseas to entertain the troops after WWII and I think even during the Vietnam War. Marjorie died in 1979.
The movie starred Eleanor Parker as Marjorie. Dear Eleanor I believe was nominated for an Academy Award. I can only think that it was either in the category of "most overacting actress" or "worst lip synching by an actress in a muscial". Hey Brittany Spears wasn't born yet! [In case you missed it in other parts of the world, little Brit is in Australia and audiences are walking out because she is lip synching her way through the concerts and badly at that!]
Anyway, the movie was the usual Hollywood bad retelling of a great story. Marjorie was disappointed with the result saying that it did not represent her life at all. Bad movie, as it may have been, the subject, Marjorie Lawrence, really interests me. I want to know more about her now.
I went online and was able to track down a 2nd edition copy of her autobiography "Interrupted Melody" which is what the movie was called also. The blurb says it is a little damaged, but heck it was published in 1949! It claims to have been signed by the author also, so I am a little chuffed. I don't usually buy second hand books as I love the feel and smell of new books, and I worry about introducing book worm into my own library, but in this case there was no choice, To get a copy reproduced through a library would be more expensive.
So, I hope all goes well, and hopefully the book will arrive in a week or so. I hope Marjorie told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth....more than what can be said for the movie!
http://www.ingenio.com/details/Mark-Sichel/Other/5148124
Sweet Jesus. Enuff said.
I've been practicing for over twenty years and am experienced with
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with your mate or your spirit, nerves, or trauma, let's get to work and
get YOU feeling better fast. My social worker 'spidey' senses tingling, heart sinking, I began reading.
The Reader's Digest version of the article is, writer, Julie Myerson is accused of writing about her children, thusly denying them both respect and privacy. She is accused of betraying love, intimacy and motherhood by various rabidly angry critics and Mark Sichel, rather than taking a more objective, principled high road, throws a few more sticks on Myerson's pyre in the town square. He states that Ms Myerson, "resigned from her job as Jake’s mother", after asking her 17 year old son to leave the family home for his drug abuse and chaotic behavior. A strategy known to many parents as "tough love".
Mr Sichel might have chosen to explore the historical context of tough love, and how various people have experienced this parenting strategy as both powerfully positive and also horribly horrific. He may have wanted to look at the sorts of advice parents are given from family, friends and so called 'experts' about how to manage an 'out of control child'. He might have looked at how very often the responsibility to manage these 'out of control' children resides with the mother. He may have chosen to look at the social constructions of motherhood, mother blame and 'good enough' parenting as presented by psychologist Donald Winnicott. He may have wanted to acknowledge that Myerson is hooped either way she fights the fight: Allow her son to remain in the family home, exposing the larger family to the chaos of a drug abusing teen - or ask him to leave ... either way, she will be criticized as a mother, as a woman.
Sichel criticizes Myserson's decision as an abdication of parenthood and frames it in the context of Myerson's estrangement from her own father. There is a suggestion here that Myserson has somehow failed to 'learn the lesson' inherent in her own experience of parental estrangement . Sichel however, does not go on to explore the very frequent pattern of inter-generational family estrangement, or to consider how Myserson may have been profoundly shaped by her experiences. There is little of compassion in Sichel's criticisms of Myerson, a quality I consider as primary and central to the family estrangement discourse.
Sichel points out that Myerson may have used her son's period of abstinence 'as a stepping-stone to repairing the rift
between Jake and his family' and seems to freeze this possibility as a one off opportunity, now missed - due to the fact Myerson broke the Golden Rule, Thou Shalt Not Write About Thy Children. It should be said that even after a fairly vigorous search for this literary 'rule' I have seen no evidence of it. The world is full of books, blogs, magazine articles of people writing about their kids. It is not until we see mothers, speaking of their experiences of parenting in less than glowing terms, that the 'mommy police' come out of the woodwork. [see my recent post, Bad Mommy]. Had Sichel included even a brief mention of this phenomena, I'd have been appeased. But no.
"Julie chose to publicly expose her child’s drug problems and the related behavioral problems caused by the drug abuse. Now that, in my opinion, is off limits, indecent and obscene." So says Sichel. "Any parent with respect for their child and human decency, love and kindness would not be critical of their child in their writing and publicly humiliate them for their own glorification as a writer." Suddenly Myerson is without decency, love or kindness and has behaved 'obscenely'. There is no room given for Myerson to write about her obviously very difficult experiences as a parent, no question about the truth of her experiences having equal validity, no room for Myerson to be central to her own story.
In Sichel's opinion, "Julie Myerson, however, made two indefensible moves: she not only publicly defamed her son but she never, at least in public, reflected on her role in her son’s problem." Is it defamation to speak truthfully, openly, passionately about how Myserson as a mother was impacted and influenced by her child's behavior? I say no, no it is not. I have read excerpts from Myerson's book, 'The Lost Child: a True Story' and no offense to her, she is perhaps more literary than some, but it's nothing that I haven't read in numerous places (books, blogs, articles) from other parents and mothers who have parented through a teen's crisis. I would argue that Myerson's choice to write at all about her children may be viewed as an effort to make sense of her experiences as a mother, and is nothing if not a reflection of her role in her son's difficulties and broader life.
All this leaves me wondering what is it about Myerson that brought the "mommy police' out in all their rampant glory? As I ask that question, I am quite cognizant that it doesn't have to be much, luck of the draw, wrong place, wrong time, one 'hostile bystander'. Why Myerson, remains however a valid question.
I'd like to see Julie Myerson's choices as a writer considered both from a place of gendered analysis and also framed in context to larger research about family estrangement. Hell, I'd like to see Julie Myerson's choices as a mother considered from the same places. I dare say the article would read considerably different from that of Mark Sichel, a publicly acclaimed psychologist and an "expert" in family estrangement.
I am so very grateful that I did not find my way to Mr Sichel's office to address my family estrangement issues. Shame on you Mark Sichel.
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Without question, being in a perpetually hurtful relationship hurts. Many people come to estrangement after years of working really hard to try to mend broken relationships, heal wounded ones and grow stunted ones – and failing. For most people, estrangement was not their first choice, but does estrangement really put an end to the hurt?
“I don’t have to deal with new hurt.
That’s the ‘gift’ of estrangement. I know if I were involved with my
family, I would fall right back into being their punching bag. I’m not ok though. Not ok at all.”
Estrangement can seem like the only solution when it feels like you
have tried everything else. In the case of truly abusive and damaging
relationships, estrangement might appear a wise and healthy choice indeed. “My father sexually abused my sister and me. He has no remorse around any of it. We don’t need him in our lives.”
However, some people who have consciously chosen to estrange to prevent
further injury, will report feeling emotionally tethered to the
relationship, even though the person(s) are no longer a part of their
lives. “I feel like I have spent my whole life looking for people
to give me the love, acceptance and approval I never got from my
mother. We will die without me ever having known why she couldn’t love
me.” Other people who are estranged from a family member report very high levels of ambivalence about their relationship and
choice to sever the relationship. “I don’t want to be around him, but it hurts to be without him. I’m numb about the whole thing.”
Estrangement carries consequences that
people may not consider at the point of choosing to cut away from their
families. Each family member carries a piece of the ‘collective’ family
story and to lose even one person, is to lose an essential part of the
history and story of the family. “I have no photos of myself as a
child. My family would have them, but I can’t ask for them. I feel like
I am a ghost sometimes.” Estrangement also carries some very pragmatic losses. “I’m
pregnant and will be having my first child. I have no idea if there are
health things I should be aware of..you know, stuff that runs in the
family … because I don’t talk to anyone in my family.”
Estrangement does not always end the hurt, and in fact, can create a whole different set of consequences, which are often just as painful.
Things to ponder ….
- Has estrangement ‘fixed’ your hurts?
- Has your estrangement created hurt for others?
- How do you emotionally ‘manage’ your estrangement?
- Do you feel like you have lost part of your family ’story’?
- Do you ever feel like you have lost essential pieces of your own history?
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