Born into rock and roll royalty, flying in Learjets to the Virgin Islands at five, making pot brownies with her father’s friends at eleven, Mackenzie grew up in an all-access kingdom of hippie freedom and heroin cool. It was a kingdom over which her father, the legendary John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas, presided, often in absentia, as a spellbinding, visionary phantom.

Part of her story includes spilling personal secrets such as a 10-year incestuous affair with her father. Why does the world need to know this? 

Mackenzie Phillips has struggled with addiction problems since she was a teenager. Is this a necessary part of her treatment and healing?  Is this another form of brutal honesty?  Her father is dead. He’s not around to defend himself. The affair happened when she was an adult. I do not get the point of telling this particular part of her dark and troubled history. This news is going to affect everyone related to both her father and herself.

Maybe I’m troubled because it’s such a disturbing idea. Incest is one of those subjects that makes me cringe and I’m guessing that most people have the same reaction. I’m puzzled by the purpose of this book. Is it supposed to help people?  Is the purpose to gain attention and make money?  

Everyone grows up with challenges of one kind or another. Part of being a responsible adult is making healthy decisions. I don’t see writing a tell-all as a particularly healthy decision.

Image credit: Barnes and Noble.com

Post from: Blisstree

I Won’t Be Reading High On Arrival

She talks about how she feels that interfering with her son’s failures – bailing him out of jail, paying for his fine when his car was towed, etc – actually enabled him and prolonged his period of drug use. She found it impossible to turn away, to not help him when he needed help.

Cataldi: I blame myself all of the time. Absolutely I felt like a failure, like a failure as a mother. I should have been able to fix it. I should have been able to do something differently. If I could have cut out my heart and given it for him to be well, I would have done that.

“I should have been able to fix it.”  What mother does not think that phrase at some time?  When my daughter would struggle, I would do her work for her, I was so desperate for her to not fail. Instead of helping, I enabled her. It took failing on her own for it to sink in and unfortunately, it’s something she is still working through.

Or maybe it’s not unfortunate. Maybe it’s just part of the process of growing. I still fail, I’m still struggling. My mother offered to help me pay something the other day and I was appalled. I haven’t needed her help financially in years and I will not go back to that now. I have already figured that particular problem out and I didn’t need her help, thank goodness. Just the offer of it freaked me out. I did appreciate it. I don’t want to sound like a bad daughter.

Learning to own your mistakes, to embrace your failures, is a big part of learning to be a grown-up. It takes some of us a little longer to get there.

This book sounds very interesting and even if you are not the parent of an addict, I think mothers will find a reason to relate to Libby Cataldi.  I’m going to take a look at the book, although as the ex-wife of a former addict, I have a hard time with the subject matter. (Shows like “Intervention,” might be great entertainment to some people, but are a reminder of hell to me.)

Image credit: Amazon.com

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Stay Close-Memoir of Mothering & Addiction

 What can one write in six words to express their life? Carol O’Dell, author of Mothering Mother and More, tagged my Alzheimer’s Notes blog for this meme, Is Your Life a Six Word Memoir?  So I thought I’d share this with my readers here.

What words can I use? What words can you use to describe your life?  This would vary at different stages in my life. I can include experiences now that I didn’t several years ago.

Wife, mother, grandmother, author, quilter, and visionary  come to mind. I’m also a teacher, speaker and business woman. However, the first six seem to encompass the others. Also, as the years roll by, I realize we still can visualize our dreams and work toward achieving them.

I’m not going to specifically tag anyone for this meme. However, if you’d like to participate, leave a 6-word memoir as a comment below, or go to Carol O’Dell’s blog (link above) and follow the directions.

At least it will give you something to think about…directions for your life, thoughts about where you’ve been and what you’ve become.

(c)2008 Mary Emma Allen

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Write a 6-Word Memoir for Your Quilting Life