When Challies.com linked to this article— I decided to take the bait and be one of the reviewers for Lynne Spear’s (mother of Britney & Jamie Spears) book entitled Through the Storm. While I could never have initially stomached the thought of buying the book and funneling more money into the Spears’ coffers, I was all for reading the book if I could get it for FREE! And why not? Their story is the fascinating tale of how a small town talent became a world-renowned fame and world-renowned tragedy. I was interested in seeing if Lynne Spears would own any of the responsibility for how her children turned out. And mostly, I wanted to see why in the world Thomas Nelson thought this book was worth publishing.
Lynne Spears grew up in a small southern Louisiana town and attended the Methodist church every Sunday with her mother and siblings. Her dad had some issues with “churchy” people and wasn’t a regular part of this ritual. And so… Lynne Spears grew up in a home where the spiritual leader of her home was… her mother. She was a byproduct of the ever so common matriarchal home.
As a young woman, (against her father’s wishes,) Lynne married an alcoholic, and says that she never even noticed Jamie’s drinking problem until it hit her “square between the eyes.” This “unaware” trait follows her throughout the rest of her life and especially characterizes her parenting.
However, that “unaware” quality of hers was not her fatal flaw. No, I would have to say that her fatal flaw can best be captured in chapter three of the book, entitled “Why Did I Say Yes?”
“Why did I say yes to Britney’s career? That’s easy. I said yes…because I wanted to help my daughter make her dream come true.”
I can honestly say that I’ve met Lynne Spears a hundred different times in a hundred different churches. She’s that mom who is running to ball practice, running to dance lessons, running to scouts. Running, running, running. Running around “making her kid’s dreams come true.” And yes, church is one of those things that sometimes gets included in the running– tacked on– like Jesus is just one more activity that competes against the sports and all of the other extra curricular activities that the kids are in. (Sadly, Jesus usually loses out in this competition.)
Lynne recalls fond memories of her child raising days:
…we spent hours going to his [Bryan’s] basketball, baseball and football games. If we weren’t sitting on the bleachers somewhere, we were invariably at one of Britney’s dance lessons and recitals…I tried hard to cook healthy meals and keep a clean, orderly house. I sought out the best schools and church programs for my kids, and I happily shuttled them to sports events, dance, karate–you name it–not to mention to their friends’ homes for play dates.
When a parent makes a “child’s dream” the deciding and driving factor for what takes place in that child’s life– well, that’s a recipe for disaster. The Bible says, “There is none who understands. There is none who seeks God.” (Romans 3:10-11) If you’ve been a parent for a while, this truth becomes painfully apparent. If I were to follow Lynne Spears’ lead and let my ten year old follow her current dream, my Anna would right now be a cheerleader. But by the grace of God, I have the wisdom and maturity as her mother to know that the path of cheerleading might not be the best one for her. If you had heard the song (Pink’s So What?) that recently accompanied our town’s mini-cheer-camp halftime show routine (performed by elementary girls ages K-6), you might agree. (Not to mention that all of the little girls were coached to cheer “Shake your tail feathers!” and then they proceeded to shake their “tail feathers” at the audience!!) This is all, of course, a precursor to the overtly sexual moves that many high school cheerleader’s routines consist of. I know the godly dads agree with me on this one. This is not a dream for my Anna to pursue. This is a dream that I intend on killing. “NIP IT IN THE BUD, Ang! Nip it! Nip it! Nip it!”
Britney’s childhood dream was to be the next Madonna or Whitney Houston. You can decide what you think about that dream.
Lynne Spears is typical of the neo-orthodox American churchgoer in that she has faith (mainly in faith itself), but she separates her faith from her practice. All through the book, she speaks of God and even credits God for opening the doors to her daughters’ successes. She does wince a bit when Britney at age nineteen confides in her that she “Just didn’t know if there was really a right or a wrong way anymore.” She asked her mother, “I mean, is anything really wrong?” Poor Britney was confused because although her mother had taken her to Sunday School week after week as a child, she had no problem standing around with Britney sipping on mixed drinks, letting her wear a prostitute’s wardrobe and allowing her debut album include songs like Sodapop. (Which are very mild compared to later hits.)
Lynne said that the first time she felt that her anchor was slipping– the first time she felt that her authority as a mother was really undermined, was Britney’s first Rolling Stone cover in 1999. But what is clear to the reader is that her anchor had never really held in the first place.
She also chronicles Jamie Lynn’s career and answers the question “Why did you say yes– again?”
“So why did I say yes– again– to my second daughter, allowing her to pursue her own dreams? Because back then, there was no bad side…”
Concerning Jamie Lynn’s pregnancy she says:
“Was I right in trusting the two of them– two basically good teenagers– taking their word that the relationship was as pure as I had hoped and as blameless as I had been led to believe it was? Perhaps I should have questioned them more deeply, but I am telling you, Jamie Lynn had never done a solitary thing to raise even an eyebrow.”
Lynne Spears in one word? Clueless.
At the end of the book, she does admit that she should not have trusted her children blindly and does seem to have some wisdom in hindsight. (Don’t we all?) I finished the book feeling very sorry for this woman. My husband always says: “Where there’s a fog in the pulpit, there’s a mist in the pew.” It seems that Lynne Spears has been walking around in the mist since her childhood.
And that’s a sad thing. ” But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23)
So, am I glad that Thomas Nelson published what seemed like such a piece of tabloid nonsense upon first glance? Well, yes. I think that many average, American moms will read this book and see just a little bit of themselves in Lynne Spears. And hopefully, they’ll stop and be introspective for just a moment and ask themselves, “Why am I doing with my children the things that I am doing? And what will the ramifications of our activities and priorities be ten years from now?”
And that’s a good thing.
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