Whether or not the young man is an addict; whether his parents were…

First review of the book itself, rather than just the people involved, at the Guardian.

Although I wonder if it's more personal than it seems. Lawson is a colleague of Myerson's and had already conducted a sympathetic interview on Radio 4.

There's [[http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adult_fiction/713727-Julie-Myerson-why-am-I-not-surprised-that-a-book|some interesting discussion of the review further down…

Between them, I wouldn't be surprised if the Myersons blamed Jake for global warming ...

. . . whereas to anyone with the good sense to be born after ca. 1959 it's plain that global warming, along with whatever other pressing issues you might fancy, is all due to the…

The most toxic thing in that Jonathan Myerson article is the way he blames Jake for his younger children's behaviour.

Between them, I wouldn't be surprised if the Myersons blamed Jake for global warming ...

Jonathan Myerson has now weighed in with a piece in The Guardian.

Myerson sure comes across as dishonest, self serving and eager to abdicate his own responsibility as a father.

If he thinks pot smoking is the reason his son is alienated, angry and unmotivated he should read up on…

Your problem starts when your child smokes his first skunk.

...

Meanwhile, +1 for the Guardian's page impressions from me, one little step closer to more of the same...

I'm saying nothing.

It is no mystery why modern students can't think for themselves, they have had it squeezed out of them by a system that measures only outcomes and is not bothered about process or what isn't measured.

Part of it is the drive for so many to go to university, but…

One…

The Advanced Level exam is the elite qualification in Britain's secondary education system. Merely obtaining four A-Levels (the most that can be taken at most schools) would be the mark of a superior student. An A in every subject is ... ambitious.

Well firstly you can now get A* grades,…

I'm not quite sure what that meant. Graduating high school? Getting a scholarship? Not sure.

The Advanced Level exam is the elite qualification in Britain's secondary education system. Merely obtaining four A-Levels (the most that can be taken at most schools) would be the mark of a superior student. An…

It was the "along with their four As at A level" that got me more.

I'm not quite sure what that meant. Graduating high school? Getting a scholarship? Not sure.

She refused to let us have a lot of food marketed to kids, insanely popular breakfast food in the 1960s.

Er, my paragraphs were in the wrong order there.

Well, the guy sounds disturbingly zealous, but I agree with him about the importance of getting kids to maturity with a desire for fresh, varied food.

It was the "along with their four As at A level" that got me more.

Having long since been obliged to come to terms…

. We are determined that, along with their four As at A level, they also reach maturity with a desire for fresh food, varied food, healthy food.
Ouch.

Well, the guy sounds disturbingly zealous, but I agree with him about the importance of getting kids to maturity with a desire…

Wonderful presents mean rich parents, not good parents.

Not necessarily. Could just be thoughtful. One of my girls told me she remembered one of her best presents: a homemade pair of jungle print boxer shorts and a matching pair, with tail hole, for Bunky the monkey.

By the Myersons' own account, they decided that it was Jake's fault her novel was ailing, and that therefore he should be co-opted in to fix the narrative — kicking, screaming and consulting lawyers if necessary. I think she quite clearly lied about the degree of consent obtained.

This is…

Correlation is all it is. What is true is that those users who go on to develop Schizophrenia tend to use most heavily, which is most likely an attempt at self medication.

I wasn't suggesting cause and effect. Only that he may be a heavy user because he's ill. It…

Why begin the torment all over for parents who see their children vilified once more, as if their original grief was not enough, or rebrand someone stupid in the past but…

I actually think Packer's right — if you're going to claim authority (whether it's through your persona as a fearless teller of "unpleasant facts" or having your musings printed in a major metropolitan daily) then you don't get to sex your copy up (to coin a phrase).

That's what's bugging…

I know it's OT, and sorry sorry sorry, but could somebody tell me if the the digital decoder allows you to set a timer…

Do I need to upgrade to Sky Digital, then?

Oh. :)

I don't think it's a special package – I only have the 'basic' Sky Digital.

Press release here.

our brand spanking new Comedy Central channel from April 1! Yay.

Where? Where? What? Who? Do I need to upgrade to Sky Digital, then? I was kind of proud of my holdout status. And do you need a special package, like with Disney, or the basic will do?

It had already destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and devoured the stock; also it had met the municipal rubbish van and, when the driver jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon it.

I think an…

(truthiness?)

Speaking of that, for NZ Colbert fans who may not have noticed: The Colbert Report will be showing on our brand spanking new Comedy Central channel from April 1! Yay.

Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the…

Yes, a reactive notion after being confronted with the tales of "bad
children.""
Can't we accept that modern parenting is still in it's infancy and when confronted by parental idiocy the tribe might want to speak up…

Anonymity broken & details embarrassing for children, so feature pulled – OK.

Mum writes 'fictional' book detailing family traumas based on recalcitrant son's dabbling with drugs – Still OK with that.

In interview, mum outs own son as protagonist of…

Perhaps you were thinking of Scoop-- where truth isn't a virtue, but a professional disability whether you're running a newspaper or a whorehouse.

True. I guess A Handful of Dust came to mind because it contains yet another Bad Mother whose child falls unheeded by the wayside while she's in…

See also David Sedaris...

Ah, yes, old David "if it's 97% true, I think that's true enough" Sedaris. Fine, if you're knowingly making shit up you put that little factoid at the front of the book, and don't market it as non-fiction. A quite proportionate response, I think.

See also David Sedaris

Irrelevantly: I could not love him or his sister Amy more. LOVE. That piece of his about being Santa's elf in Macy's... ahhh.

PS Jolisa, thanks for the recommendation (some time back) of The 10PM Question , which is just wonderful.

Perhaps you were thinking of Scoop — where truth isn't a virtue, but a professional disability whether you're running a newspaper or a whorehouse.

This comment really confused me until I checked Wiki for the Evelyn Waugh novel, rather than thinking of the (fairly) virtuous local news site we all…

It's just there's so much flippin' archetype at play in this narrative: Bad Mother-Writer, Ineffectual Intellectual Husband, not to mention Romantic Broody Intoxicated Youth, all Chattertonesque and Keatsy. Waugh would have had a field day with this material. Oh wait – he did, A Handful of Dust comes close.

Perhaps…

I'm not saying it shouldn't be criticised, but the response does seem to be insanely out of proportion to the 'crime'.

News must be slow. In the US, this kind of stuff has a much better place on pantomime stages like Jerry Springer.

Of course Myerson was out of line – but that far out of line? Or just a convenient person to play the "pale" beyond-which-we-do-not-go?

I don't envy her the tabloid odium — no one deserves that — although it hasn't quite been comprehensive: quite a few of the Daily Mail…

And Ethan, your analysis is very astute. Those Guardian columns are disturbing for all sorts of reasons, not least the fact that their content struck a chord with many readers.

A note: apparently "Jack" in the columns…

Beat up what would otherwise be just another fluffy story about the evils of marijuana and shit parenting...

Since you've read the damn thing (and I've absolutely no interest), I'd appreciate your opinion Ethan. If this was on the news pages, and Myerson was making allegations of "vicious — semi-criminal even" conduct against a third party, do you think her "exaggerations" would have made it to print?

One…

Since you've read the damn thing (and I've absolutely no interest), I'd appreciate your opinion Ethan. If this was on the news pages, and Myerson was making allegations of "vicious — semi-criminal even" conduct against a third party, do you think her "exaggerations" would have made it to print?

Ah,…

The tradition of parent-child feuds in literary circles dates back to Chaucer, who dubbed his son Ian 'a nancie boye both faire and true, who taketh it up the ers for a groat or twoe'.

Genius. Plus everyone knows that Chaucer has been writing that anonymous blog about a call…

evidence based policies

they've got what? bomb them!

This young man may have a mental illness, given the correlation between heavy cannabis use and the onset of symptoms of schizophrenia in vulnerable individuals.

Correlation is all it is. There was a very large Danish study recently showing that rates of Schizophrenia in using and non using cohorts are…

The tradition of parent-child feuds in literary circles dates back to Chaucer, who dubbed his son Ian 'a nancie boye both faire and true, who taketh it up the ers for a groat or twoe'.

Kid dishonours parents and gets booted out of the house. Sounds fair to me. What's all the wailing about? Mum wrote a book?

Grant: If I had a pair of narcissistic baby boomers turd-blossoms like that for parents, I'd being on something a damn sight stronger. Oh, I'd probably also…

(This after being forced to stop writing her anonymous newspaper column after her son [either Jake or his younger sibling] had to find out about it from his friends — who she had told without telling him!)

I often enjoyed the anonymous Living With Teenagers column in the Saturday Guardian…

This young man may have a mental illness, given the correlation between heavy cannabis use and the onset of symptoms of schizophrenia in vulnerable individuals. His distressing behaviour might contribute to it's lack of…

But if I ever start to look like Julie Myerson, please, somebody send me a very, very stern email and tell me to stop. Should that fail, I guess you'll just have to shoot me.

Oh no, Russell, I can do a lot worse than that — point my eyeballs…

But if I ever start to look like Julie Myerson, please, somebody send me a very, very stern email and tell me to stop. Should that fail, I guess you'll just have to shoot me.

Tough question I guess. So long as your family are consenting, there's little harm in…

Just don't write about your 12 year old's pubic hair. You'll be sweet.

Public hair. Not.

Kid dishonours parents and gets booted out of the house. Sounds fair to me. What's all the wailing about? Mum wrote a book?

0/10

Disappointing. Better start earning your keep or they'll foreclose on your bridge.

And ditto on the comments thread. What happened? Guardian comments used to be reliably, genuinely witty; now they're bollocks.

Oh yes, and predictable. They're more depressing because it's the Guardian. Although it does make me feel really good about PAS. We may have our dramas, but we seem to avoid…

Basically, my parents are very naive and got caught up in the whole US anti-drugs thing. There is a very big difference between smoking a spliff and being a drug addict.…

And ditto on the comments thread. What happened? Guardian comments used to be reliably, genuinely witty; now they're bollocks. I just don't feel about that, as my 3 year old is given to sighing when something puzzles him.

(Oh…

In tangentially related news, this would have cheered me up at 17. Heck, it would cheer me up today.

Jolisa, my son's high school swing-shifts so kids can attend from 10 – 4 if that suits them better.

The comments thread accompanying that article was of course the usual work…

That tough love theory eh....the Kurt Cobain experiment....I thought that didn't go so well.Tough love is an insult to the word love.

If he was a girl i'd still be appalled.If the father wrote the book he''d be under the same examination surely.

Teenage Stoners are pretty common over there. Ask Liam and Noel. Ask Sir Mick Jagger and…

He certainly doesn't come off entirely sympathetically — he was an arrogant little shit at the time of his ejection, it would seem — but it really annoys me that his mother…

When will these children get their revenge?

They can write their own books about their childhoods, can't they? I don't know, kids of today, no gumption.

Perhaps Jake could write a column called Living with writers for one of the quality tabloids.

There's still something weirdly fishy about the intensity of the brouhaha.

This wierd sort of self-feeding media firestorm appears to be the norm in the UK at the moment. Just ask Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand...

And this is the bit I keep getting stuck on. Because the "little we've heard about it" consists of one interview with her, one with her husband, and one with her son

One interview with her son, but she's done several, including the original, entirely sympathetic, one in The Observer.…

And he's an interesting counter-example to the notion that as long as one writes only sweetness and light about one's children (as opposed to "my rotten druggie son boxed my ears and I felt like a crap mother"), it…

A while back, Mark Taslov quoted a Chinese proverb here, that went something like Men should should fear fame as pigs fear becoming fat. Pushing one's children into any…

To me the judgement is the behaviour, backed up by writing all about it for profit. It seems like her only concern from the little I've heard about it is herself and her publishing.

If only writers made as much money from books as people think they do. I wonder…

He certainly sounds depressed — not getting out of bed, not wanting to move house, not wanting to go to school.

Sounds like a many teenagers. Was he wearing all black and having stupid hair down over his eyes?

Jolisa, I'm not sure if the judgement is so much about…

I mean its his ma. He says , "don't do it" and she ignores that request . That's a major dump on the relationship .That's arguebaly the death…

Or he just hasn't been paid enough yet :-)

I'm sure the Daily Mail would have printed it if he'd said it, but he explained that he wouldn't do so.

And yes, the flapping chequebooks were the reason I wondered whether I should write about it at all.

Maybe when writing about our own kids we could fictionalise them, or change their name?? But if the anecdote is sympathetic maybe its OK. I read Leo's words with great interest and respect. He has added to the sum of my thoughts.

I used some video of Leo talking about…

Ian Jack has a very sage and balanced take on the whole thing, in the Guardian. He's so much more eloquent than I am and says much of what I've been struggling to articulate.

The Guardian is in an odd position, because it presumably can't acknowledge what no one is…

And, also, maybe help remembering the boundaries between one's own drug use and that of much younger family members,

It is worth noting that that element of the story is hotly contested.

and that it's not OK to hit people, even if they want their door keys back.

Of course.…

I think she is on trial for exploiting her son for profit.

Evidently. But is that what she has done? Or, is that all she has done?

(Not being a duffer; genuinely interested in teasing it out).

I should add that I'm entirely sympathetic to the basic points of Russell's post, which I…

Er, when I said help, I meant help. Not quote-unquote dismissive or panic-mongering "help." Like, help to sort out what he wants to get out of school or if he wants to be at school at all. Help…

Perhaps lots of other people have actual addictions to the stuff [pot], as opposed to what I think is the usual response: sitting on a couch giggling and eating lots of cheese.

Eating lots of cheese? That's not what I did, 'though it did also involve couches...

For clarification, in…

Have you either met a 17 year old? It's an insane time for a lot of kids.....and drugs are everywhere in the U.K , let's…

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

You might think that but... it's not just pot, it's SKUNK, the extra potent man-eating strain of pot, which drives even merchant bankers crazy.

It was the subject of a media beat-up in Britain this time last…

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.

No; we weren't there.

And although I don't…

And yet, here he is throwing things through the windows and breaking into the house. "By early May,…

Maybe she got…

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.

'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…

Which apparently doesn't work, anyway.

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…

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

Twittering during an interview? How rude!

"Its only bloody pot"

???

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

Which strikes me as paradoxical – shouldn't one instinctively…

Even the non-insane outlets are, well, kinda insane. I had no idea just how insane until I got…

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…

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

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…