Saturday, June 19, 2010

For love or money

I have recently read Elizabeth Jane Howard’s autobiographical memoir, Slipstream. I missed it when it came out in 2002 – not surprisingly really since I had little time for general reading around that time, but it was probably seeing or hearing the reviews which made me think I had actually read her obituaries.

One thing that struck me about this tale is that, yet again, it shows the great difference it makes to be born to a life of relative privilege & affluence. She never fell into completely desperate circumstances despite not having the kind of education that such a girl would get today, of having a less than totally supportive relationship with her mother, & a string of what might be called unwise, unhappy or sometimes plain abusive relationships with men. The handing over of her daughter to others to bring up, with a network of family, social & work friends & contacts helped her through - plus of course her own gifts as a novelist & her determination & hard work, not just in her writing but in her looking after the needs of others.

Vulnerable young women from less advantaged backgrounds are not so fortunate if they fail to live up to the standards expected of them.

We do not know the details of the serious case review of the ‘kidnap’ of Shannon Matthews which led to her mother being sentenced to 8 years in prison. The other accusations against the mother which were spelled out in the newspapers however include:

Being a neglectful mother who engaged in a series of relationships with different men.

Routinely putting her own needs before those of her seven children.

Failing to put the need for a consistent & secure parental relationship over her own need for relationships with several male partners.

It is also variously reported that she was not given the contraceptive advice for which she asked, or that she persistently failed to take her pills (an assumption on the writers’ part that there were no good reasons for not being on the pill). Elizabeth Jane Howard mentions two abortions, which were not at that time legal but were easy to arrange by those who were in the know & could afford the doctors bill.

In the famous writer the ‘great hunger to be loved, to be in love’ is, if anything, a plus.



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