For the past few years, society has been re-evaluating how it treats the youngest and most vulnerable, particularly in the spotlight. But only retroactively. The cycle still continues, we’re just angry that other people, or even the same people, participated. Everyday there’s something new. Men complaining that they can’t pursue literal high school students without being called predators. Stans continuing to harass teenaged actors and actresses for any reason, or retroactively apologising to those society attacked in the past. Sometimes everyone just all pulls away from a very famous child at once, which we will almost always find out was psychologically traumatising.
I would say it’s interesting, but honestly, it’s tragic.
Look at the way people discuss and mock Millie Bobby Brown. Obviously, the homophobia jokes exist almost outside of her, and since I’m not part of the community, I can’t really speak on it. But recently, there was a podcast clip where two women discussed how she “feels like a bitch”, based solely off their instincts. I’m not going to call that clip special. In or out of context, people have been turning on child actors for growing up and being confident for decades. But it is telling for how they look at her.
In a more historic example, look to Lindsay Lohan, a woman treated as a walking punchline until it was profitable to pity her. What is the difference between her and Brown, except we’re at the start of the cycle with one, and the end with another?
Or Billie Eilish, who stepped into a more adult femininity and immediately became hyper-sexualised and attacked for…having female friends?
Corey Feldman, treated as a joke throughout his adult life despite significant and consistent claims of abuse?
Jennette McCurdy, who’s memoir detailing parental abuse is being mined for PopCrave tweets about Ariana Grande?
Well, we’ve got a new target, and it’s a bit of a remix. Currently, as writing this, Britney Spears stans have decided that the appropriate reaction to Kevin Federline releasing videos of his ex-wife parenting their two sons is to…attack the children. For the crime of not being part of their mother’s life currently.
For those out of the loop, here’s the three things that have happened specifically with those two boys (15 and 16 currently, both with birthdays next month) in the past few years:
1. Sean Preston Federline was assaulted by his grandfather Jamie Spears, and both boys were removed from their mother’s custody while he was still her conservator.
2. Jayden Federline went on Instagram Live, after his account was discovered by Britney Spears fans, and answered questions regarding his mother. The account was shortly deleted.
3. Neither attended their mother’s recent wedding.
As far as evidenced actions, that’s it. The charges against Mr Spears were eventually dropped, the Instagram Live contained minimal content and was shared by gossip sites and fans in support of the popstar, and the wedding was, at least publicly, an adult’s only event. But within the past few weeks, they’ve become active characters in the stories surrounding Britney Spears and the state of her freedom.
Following the conservatorship being dissolved at the end of 2021, many seemed to expect that Spears’ life would simply slot back into place, where it should be in 2022. Instead, it’s clear that the mess of more than a decade of abuse and isolation will have ramifications for the rest of her life. And two of the victims are Sean Preston and Jayden Federline.
There was a lot of talk throughout the legal drama that she was robbed of her motherhood. Which is true and a fair complaint. Britney Spears clearly loves her children, with custody being a defining reason for the conservatorship in the first place. That is a loss that cannot be righted easily. But there is a second and third party in that loss, and that is the two boys she was fighting for. If she lacked them for children, they lacked her for a mother. It isn’t her fault, but it is the truth of the matter.
The adult Federline using them as weapons against their mother, for whatever reason, is cruel. It must be incredibly painful for Spears to have her sons remain distant. But regardless of what is happening, it is not the fault or the duty of either son to be part of her life.
And the reaction of fans is inadvertently proving one of Federline’s points. I’ve seen people online use downright nasty language to describe those two. The lightest is usually “brat”, but I’ve seen “scum”, “demons” and “cunts” as descriptors for two young men who are caught in what is essentially a custody battle. Calls to cut them off financially and never talk to them again. Claims they support the abuse of their mother. People have taken what is a domestic issue between mother and sons and blown it up to have yet another villain to conquer.
Moreover, it's blatant hypocrisy.
Because do you know who was in the comments of that Instagram Live that now populates a six-tweet thread about how awful that child is? The same fans who now use it as evidence against him and his brother. These are the same people who flooded his comments and DMs demanding he talk publicly. Those who thought the appropriate response to finding a child with an Instagram account was to use it to access his mother’s life and private information. Because like with all children in the public eye, once their utility is done, they’re just nuisances to these people.
I don’t think fans can recognise just how easily they’re being swayed, or how much harm they’re doing. If every person in her life is a villain, Britney Spears is going to end up alone. Isolated. Without friends or family. Her husband is under suspicion. Her assistant is harassed until she responses and then harassed for responding. Her son are targets because of what their parents are fighting about publicly. Who is she left with when they’re done “protecting” her?
I’m sure Britney Spears has issues with her sons that are being addressed behind closed doors. As equally as I am sure that they have their reasons, outside of what their father is choosing to publicise, for wanting distance from her. It may be a product of the abuse she suffered, that they don’t feel comfortable around her in this new environment. It may just be teen angst. We don’t know and we don’t need to know. Just leave the kids alone.