The Profound Effect of Neglectful Parenting
In the documentary Amy, the audience is led to believe that media attention drove Amy Winehouse to her death. We are fed lines about how Amy didn’t want to be famous, and that the constant attention and pressure of popularity is what led to her drug addiction and later downfall. I don’t buy this interpretation, because media is not evil. Media is like money, something that is meaningless until we use it and give it meaning. It’s used for both wonderful things and horrific things. Media, like money, is a type of capital that people often use for their own gain.
Perhaps media was used against her, but the responsibility does not lie with the media. It lies with the people closest to her. Specifically, her neglectful father, and her bystander mother.
As a child, Amy had a strongly emotional personality, one that requires constant discipline, presence and care. Amy’s father “wasn’t there, even when he was.” This absence had a clear negative effect on her upbringing, leading to her engagement in destructive behaviors, like partying and drinking, to cope. This also had an undeniable effect on her childhood depression. Her mother, as well-meaning as she was, hurt her daughter by not setting healthy boundaries for her as a child, and failing to provide her with the emotional support that she needed. This was the environment in which Amy grew and developed, leaving her without the coping mechanisms needed to live a healthy and happy life. She didn’t know how to set her own boundaries, she coped through substances, and she searched for her own self-worth in male figures that resembled her absent father: unfaithful, emotionally unavailable, and unsupportive. Her parents created a legacy that haunted Amy throughout her short adult life.
When her father came back into her life, it was when she began to experience financial success. She looked to him for guidance and support, and he made her decisions with fame and money in mind before all else. When she needed to go to rehab, her father denied her alcohol problem and insisted she continued touring and making money. When she didn’t want to perform, he made sure it happened anyway. When she wanted to be alone, he brought along cameras and found a way to profit. In nearly every situation, Amy’s father directly sabotaged his daughter’s health and happiness for the sake of money and attention.
Although her father did play an actively detrimental role, her mother’s nearly absent influence is just as harmful to Amy. Throughout her life, Amy pushed boundaries to see who would tell her no. She said herself that she just needed her to say no, and this need influenced her decisions throughout her life as she continued to push her body to the absolute limit with drug and alcohol consumption. Not only this, but she ignored signs of bulimia in the early years of Amy’s life. Amy had explicitly told her mother that she throws up what she eats, and her mother did nothing to help her. We don’t hear her mother speak up for her at all in the entirety of the film, and this silence speaks volumes.
Parents have almost complete and total influence on their children, and children have nearly no control over their own upbringing. The fate of each generation rests in flawed people who enter parenthood with no idea of their own power on the greater society. Parents have more influence on a single person than fame, drugs, money, success. Many people are faced with these lesser influences, and whether they can stand up to these pressures depends on the skills they were given as children. Amy wasn’t given a fair opportunity, and this saddens me.
This concept is the core of my life passion. Our society needs more educational media for children that fills the gaps that parents leave in their child’s knowledge of managing emotions, making smart decisions, and finding self-worth. Furthermore, we need more resources for parents and future parents that teaches them how to be the best influence they can be on their kids. This education needs to start much earlier than typical parenting years; lets teach our youth the true responsibility of parenting, preparing them in middle and high school as they begin to reflect on their parents’ influence and engage in sexual activity. This will lead to less absentee parents, less abuse, and less childhood trauma. The fact that this kind of education isn’t commonplace for children, youth, and parents absolutely baffles me.
