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Madonna. Breaking the Rules.
Posted on 28th March 2016
Blog writing has
taken a bit of a back seat of late as life, four year-olds and writing a new
show got in the way.
If you have an itch you need to scratch it
though and something is bugging me so much I can no longer ignore it.
As the custody
saga that Madonna and Guy Ritchie are currently embroiled in, rages on, I
cannot help feeling terribly sorry for their son Rocco and the other children
caught up in this fiasco.
The aftermath of
a divorce can be difficult. It’s not the kids fault the two people they love
most in the world don’t want to live with each other any more. My ex-husband
and I made the decision that however pissed off we were with each other, we’d
keep it from the kids. It’s hard. Really hard. There is a hell of a lot of lip
biting involved. But no one is best served by two parents slagging each other
off.
When you don’t
approve of your ex’s behaviour, the kids can sense that. I’ve lost count of the
number of times I’ve had to walk into another room as my teeth are cutting into
my lip. When they used to come back from their dad’s chattering away about what
happened that weekend and what they saw, it’s not easy to keep a lid on it when
you don’t agree with parenting decisions. One year the kids went to my ex
in-laws for Christmas. Imagine my horror when my daughter came back and told me
my ex-mother-in-law had taken it upon herself to tell her that Santa Claus
didn’t exist, as it "was time she knew”. She was nine.
My parents split
when I was five. I would play them off against each other. I’d say: "Dad only
gave me a fiver” and my mum would give me ten pounds.
Thankfully whenever I moaned about my
mother in my teenage years – as all teenagers do – my father would tell me that
my mother was doing a good job and bringing up children is a difficult and
thankless task.
Rocco
Ritchie is 15 years old. He’s been on tour with Madonna and allegedly doesn’t
enjoy being on tour with her. After a trip to see his father at Christmas he
didn’t return to his mother. Madonna has been awarded custody of the children;
Rocco -who they had together- David and Mercy who they adopted together. When
Rocco bitches about his mum, Guy needs to back her up. He’s fifteen. He’s
supposed to huff and strop and then tow the line. What does Guy do? He takes
him away for a month’s holiday in The Maldives. If I were Madonna I would be
going batshit crazy. Your own child rejecting you must be the most hurtful
thing in the world. I think it’s unsurprising that Madonna has had a few
moments recently. She is a single-working mother. Not only that, she is under
fire because she is committing the ultimate crime as woman in the public – she
growing old and doesn’t seem to care about it. The shame. The horror. I’m sick
of reading articles about how unstable and crazy she is.
She
is a driven, self-made woman who has been at the top of her game for 30 years
and her ex-husband is not helping the situation. The fallout from their
domestic situation will be affecting the other children. From her eldest
Lourdes to the 11 year olds she adopted from Malawi. It must be difficult fro
them to be suddenly missing a brother.
I’m
really saddened for them all and I very much hope they can resolve the
situation soon. In the meantime can we all lay off Madonna for a bit?