Why We Need To Talk About Britney
On disability, mental health and having your sanity questioned.
I’ve been listening to “Baby One More Time,” a lot lately. When I was a little girl, I nervously sang the Britney song at a concert recital, completely ignorant to its sexual undertones. I was naïve to a lot then. Around the same age, my single mom had a brain aneurysm that put her in a coma, leaving my guardianship up for question. While my mom’s friends knew my grandparents, my legal guardians, were probably not the best replacement parents for me, the law said they were next of kin, so I moved across the country to live with them. Thankfully, mom woke up. Eventually, we moved out on our own. But her new physical limitations meant that, in many ways, our parent-child roles were reversed.
Shortly after moving out on our own, we watched I Am Sam, about a single dad with an intellectual disability fighting to retain custody of his daughter as she starts to reach an age that surpasses his mental ability. There’s a heartbreaking scene where the dad (played by Sea…