Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Just shoot me

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  • giovanni tiso,

    When you write about your kids it's in such a proud and caring way, you really have nothing whatsoever to fear. Interesting cautionary tale, though - it sits at one extreme but we'd all (bloggers, commenters, twitters, Facebook autobiographers) do well to consider to what extent we might be revealing the lives of others.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen,

    I don't think you need to be shot yet Russell.

    From my perspective, if your sons ever read your blogs later in their lives they'll see just how much care and love you hold for them. That doesn't seem like exploitation to me.

    However David shameless baby photo blogging is a whole 'nother story...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Actually I'd welcome a guest post from your sons, Russell, if they ever want to share their perspective on your very public presence.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Geoff Lealand,

    An interesting case of power relationships. I have encountered cases of researchers using their own children as actors ("respondents') in their media use research. I suspect it has a lot to do with the excitement generated when your own children start to reveal complexity and sophistication in their responses to media, and the world. It is not so much to do with the my-child-is-a-genius syndrome but with suddenly discovering that your own child is actively contradicting the stereotypes which circulate in the public discourse.
    Nevertheless, I always try to exclude my own children from my research, especially when I go to their schools--and tend to regard their experiences as private and not for general circulation, even though they can tell a fascinating story or two.

    Screen & Media Studies, U… • Since Oct 2007 • 2562 posts Report Reply

  • Leigh Kennaway,

    Way back before blogging and the interweb, when computers ate cards that you were sternly warned not to 'bend, fold, spindle or mutilate' my loving mother used to submit some of my more pithy sayings and childish actions to 'Over the TeaCups' in the NZ Womens' Weekly. Do you think I have a case for suing them both?

    sunny Pt Chevalier • Since Mar 2008 • 40 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    I'd be thankful it wasn't your wife submitting gems to the "Mere Male" column. Poor bastards..

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • James Littlewood*,

    RB: I remember you interviewing someone on the Wire, some kind of heatlh researcher. Might have been something to do with Meningitis immunisation during that whole flare up.

    She made a side comment about some impact on autism, and you corrected her, very curtly, very assertively, and - I guess - very knowledgably.

    You'd already posted a lot about your family's experience with autism, and you clearly knew your shit.

    I recall this not as incident of over exposing your personal life (ooer), but rather, making use of your own experience in something to become an active participant and to allow that to inflect the interview in a way that was both highly subjective and highly informative.

    That is, it's all good.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 410 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    Hold on. She and her husband were "snooping" around the bedroom of a bright, hardworking child, searching through his CD cases for … what, exactly? He had trust and security issues? No bloody wonder.

    And her reaction to finding the cannabis (decided to ignore it, he was doing well at school), doesn't look good next to her claims that he had fallen so deeply into cannabis addiction that he needed to be turfed out.

    Hindsight is wonderful, but you don't want to take a little bit more on yourself about where intervention could have helped your son? Isn't that somewhere near the top of the list of parental duties? Even a wee chat about acceptable use of drugs (ie, not providing it to your younger siblings?).

    What a cow.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Michael Stevens,

    A thoughtful and interesting post Russell.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 230 posts Report Reply

  • Public Servant on a tea-break.,

    <However David shameless baby photo blogging is a whole 'nother story...>

    Now, let's not judge to harshly. As I recall, had David not published photographs of that poor wee child, that boy would have been eating cold sand for Christmas last year, all because of his good for nothing Daddy...

    Wellington • Since Apr 2008 • 67 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    I hit this dilemma when I did the Holland Diaries column. Several people have asked for more, but the older my daughter is in the columns, the more uncomfortable I am about them. It's a weird little line that, which I can't quite nail down. I've considered asking her to guest-blog one, torn between 'your perspective is valuable and people would really enjoy hearing it' and 'jump up here and be the hearing-impaired performing dog again, would you love?'.

    It's hard to disentangle your own stories from the other people involved in them, to get across stories that matter without damaging the people you have a duty of care to. We try. Julie Myerson, not so much.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    Ouch. Yes, indisputably, Myerson wrote too soon -- and too much under her own name, thus endangering her son's own chances of finding his own way through his own story. The story is not over until it's over, and by writing the story down, Myerson has arrogated to herself the privilege of wrapping up the narrative.

    No matter how naughty or nasty or beguilingly deceptive her son is (and I'm not saying he is, but who knows, he might be), that's just mean. Based on what I'm reading in the tabloids and on internet chat groups (all of it worth approximately as much as the paper it's written on), it sounds like Myerson and her husband wildly overreacted to some (gulp) not abnormal teen behaviour. With unhappy fallout for big brother and, down the line, his younger siblings.

    But... I don't think the topic per se is entirely out of bounds. Compare these two other recent books about wayward adolescents, written -- at least to some degree -- with the blessing or cooperation of the young people in question: Debra Gwartney's Live Through This and David Sheff's Beautiful Boy. NB Gwartney's daughters participated in a radio version of their story, and Sheff's son Nic wrote his own book.

    Huge disclaimer: I haven't actually read any of the three books, nor Myerson's. I'm too scared to!


    I guess the question is: who are these parents writing for, and why? Writing in search of understanding and community with similarly troubled parents is not a crime. But trespassing on your children's (adult) privacy is. Isn't it? And/but/or is it worse than a memoir published under your own name about how horrible your (alive, or recently deceased) parents were? Of which the list is so long I don't even know where to begin, but Running With Scissors would be a start.

    Given the meta-fictional nature of Myerson's project (something that might have lent her book subtlety but has been blown wide open by the media palaver), there's another parallel: Siri Hustvedt's novel What I Loved, which contains a fictionalised version of her husband Paul Auster's troubled son. Myerson is not the first or the last to use family tragedy as grist for the fictional mill. She may be the first to be so thoroughly pilloried for it, though. To paraphrase my home boy Ali G, is it because she is a muvver?

    So... should Myerson have worked harder to fictionalise Jake? Or just waited longer to publish her thoughts? Is this not so much about what can be said, but when?* Cue discussion on the 24/7 nature of news cycles, the rise of real-time memoir, the appalling Jade Goody death-watch, etc.

    Not defending, just musing.

    * See also Auster's diplomatic, circumspect 2002 response to an inquiry about his son: Daniel "is currently finding himself -- ask me again in a couple of years."

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • nic.wise,

    Interesting post. I havn't seen it in the papers, because, despite living in London and working for the BBC, I avoid the media (especially the printed media) at pretty much all costs.

    Even the non-insane outlets are, well, kinda insane. I had no idea just how insane until I got here, and the closer you get to the "celebs", the crazier it gets. Womans Day and co have nothing, absolutely nothing, on the pap mags here.

    But hey, at least she didn't kidnap her own daughter then try to get the finders fee.... tho to be honest, I'm not sure which one is worse.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 87 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    Oh and to echo Emma: the bright line (not very bright or liney) for writing about one's children is, for me too, age-related. Which must have something to do with knowing that they can read and respond and speak for themselves.

    Which strikes me as paradoxical - shouldn't one instinctively be more protective of those who can't respond? Or are we (and by "we" I mean me) guilty of some horrible writerly version of that ghastly medical lie that babies don't feel pain?

    Totally guilty as charged.

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • JackElder,

    Frankly, my mother thinks we're mad for just having pictures of our daughters on our flickr page. "It's the internet! Anyone could copy them!"

    Wellington • Since Mar 2008 • 709 posts Report Reply

  • MikeE,

    Am I the only one who read it and thought...

    "Its only bloody pot"

    ???

    How is a 17 year old smoking a joint newsworthy, let alone novel worthy?

    Washington DC • Since Nov 2006 • 138 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Beard,

    Unfortunately, she seems happy enough to twitter about it interviews.

    Twittering during an interview? How rude!

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1040 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    Am I the only one who read it and thought...
    "Its only bloody pot"

    No.

    (Then I do some second-guessing of myself. Perhaps lots of other people have actual addictions to the stuff, as opposed to what I think is the usual response: sitting on a couch giggling and eating lots of cheese.)

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    I may have to read the book, if only to find out what else the Myerson parents tried before moving straight to 80s style "Tough Love".

    Which apparently doesn't work, anyway.

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • Helen Searancke,

    Yes, it's a fine line, but I'm pleased it's one you, Russell, and other PA bloggers dare to risk crossing. When I log on, I want PA's insightful, well-researched analysis of the themes of the day, but it's the tender, from-the-heart, sometimes humorous, sometimes heart-wrenching personal stuff that has me riveted. I've read some great blogs here that leave me either laughing out loud or with a lump in my throat. And often the personal experiences blogged about point up wider issues that need to be aired.

    So, thanks (and, indirectly, to your family, too).

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 24 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    'jump up here and be the hearing-impaired performing dog again, would you love?'

    Emma, you clearly get this so well and you do have my sympathies for the position that puts you in. Ignorance would be bliss.

    To me, it's related to that thing we discussed briefly about the social pressure to play out our strengths and weaknesses in public - with all the unfortunate historical echoes of the freak show and singing for our suppers.

    Us disabled people can be so darned inspirational and full of gratitude. But why should we have to be? And why should our parents have to resist that on our behalf? It is in everyone's interests for attitudes to change.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Jeremy Eade,

    "But I do understand what it is to have an angry, disruptive presence in the family"

    That's cats for you....

    Jake comes across as a pretty switched on guy....well rounded thoughts and empathetic beyond his years to his tormentor.

    auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 1112 posts Report Reply

  • Stewart,

    Wouldn't it just have been better for Ms Myerson to have kept shtumm about the fact that it was based on her own son? Blabbing about it being her son & based on real-life (where the hash/skunk is evidently the same thing) is the sticking point for me.

    Maybe she got to be the centre of attention for a little longer...?

    Te Ika A Maui - Whakatane… • Since Oct 2008 • 577 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    Here's an illuminating excerpt from the book. He certainly sounds depressed -- not getting out of bed, not wanting to move house, not wanting to go to school. The boy needs help.

    And yet, here he is throwing things through the windows and breaking into the house. "By early May, he will have punched his father. By late May, he will have hit me so hard on the side of my head that I’ll be in A&E with a perforated ear drum," writes Myerson. He's supplying drugs to his younger siblings.

    This is just one side of the story, of course. There's a horrible mutual escalation going on here, and a child in danger. But other people are in danger too -- and I'm still not sure I can fault the parents entirely.

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • Hilary Stace,

    Thanks Russell for the timely reminder. It's that informed consent thing. I am one of those guilty of talking and wrting about my son, but I do ask his permission each time. My daughter long ago taught me that children do not want to be singled out, for whatever reason, as it is very important to be seen as normal not special. But I am still so proud of them both as neither has had an easy life (and it is a mothers' privilege to be proud of her children).

    Interestingly, my son has a natural aversion to cameras and even though he goes to watch the filming of Back Benches most Wednesday nights, you will never see him on film.

    By the way Julie Myerson also talked about her family in her 2005 book 'Home' - the history of her Clapham house, and all the other people who ever lived in it..

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

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