Britney's Memoir: Trading Her Freedom for Her Kids

"Play by the Rules" or No Kids

In her new, best-selling memoir “The Woman in Me”, Britney Spears says she traded away her freedom to see her boys. She had to agree to “play by the rules” in order to visit with her own children.

That meant allowing herself to be subjugated to both the father of her children and her own father. Patriarchy in action. Rule of the Father persists, even with a woman as famous, loved and wealthy as Britney.

My freedom in exchange for naps with my children—it was a trade I was willing to make. There is nothing I love more—nothing more important to me on this earth—than my children. I’d lay down my life for them. So why not my freedom?”

Because I played by the rules, I was reunited with my boys.

After decades of MSM spinning Britney’s life and circumstances to favor the fathers, we finally hear the truth in her own words. It is quite shocking to learn the extent of abuse and torture she was subjected to.

It is a book well worth reading, albeit an emotional ride. The audiobook, narrated by Michelle Williams, is getting rave reviews. A 20 second sample is embedded above.

Britney’s memoir is an incredible story of strength and survival and discovery of self, of the Woman in Her.

BRITNEY’S STORY

The memoir begins with a poignant account of her childhood, which was awash with emotional abuse of her brother and her. She also recounts generational abuse involving her grandparents and great-grandparents. Generations of trauma inherited.

Britney’s favorite escape was music and dancing and she was a born performer. She says performing was the only time she felt really free. She gained the attention of VIPs in the industry at a very young age and her career got started on Disney’s The Mickey Mouse Club at the tender age of 11.

We’ll skip ahead to her Post-Separation Crisis, the horror that would consume her life and is the driving force of her memoir. If you want to hear more of her story without having to read the book, this is a great video essay by Swiftologist.

[Since we do not use fathers’ names, we will refer to the father of Britney’s kids as “K”.]

After becoming pregnant with her second son, the emotional abuse began. As K was becoming successful in his music career and gaining celebrity, he began to treat Britney badly and she discovered he was cheating on her. When her new baby was 2 months old and the older one 14 months, K told her he wanted a divorce. But he tricked her into being the one to file for it, saying that way she would not be humiliated. She was still in love with him and didn’t want a divorce, but she went along with that plan.

It turns out this was a premeditated strategy to keep him from looking bad for leaving her, and, more importantly, he could use the false narrative of her leaving him to gain an advantage in the custody case and make her look bad in his upcoming PR campaign. He actually announced, “Today I’m a free man—f**k a wife, give me my kids, bitch!” That makes it sounds like he read the fathers’ rights book “Screw the Bitch”. A not so subtle clue as to what was to come.

K was photographed for the cover of a popular magazine with another famous female performer. The PR campaign worked: the media seemed to take great pleasure in portraying him as the good guy and Britney as bad. MSM often acts as an arm of the Old Boys.

Britney was crushed. Much later she recognized how naïve she had been and how K had played her like a fiddle. And her previous, even more famous first love had too, causing her to have trust issues. But what was way worse than the PR blitz, and what she also did not see coming, was K filing for full custody of the baby boys, claiming Britney was “completely out of control” and should not be able to see the children at all.

They were supposed to share custody while the divorce was being litigated, but he kept refusing to return the boys after his parenting time. Sometimes he would keep them away from her for weeks at a time. This was torture for Britney, as any mother of babies can relate. She was “completely beside herself with grief”. She imagined her babies “not knowing where their mother was, wondering why she didn’t want to be with them”. She was becoming depressed from being away from them so much.

One time he refused to return them, she went and begged to see her babies. She had been made to move out of the marital home, the home she had bought, while he stayed there with the kids. So she had to go to her own home and stand on the doorstep begging to see her own children.

The paparazzi filmed this debacle, which pissed her off, so she went to a salon and cut her hair off. She knew her hair defined her with the public, so that is how she took some power back.

Shaving my head was a way of saying to the world: F**k you.

Britney went back a couple days later and tried again to get her kids back from K, but he still refused. She was again fed up with the paparazzi for harassing her and reacted by hitting one of their cars with an umbrella. These two relatively mild events, a bare head head and an umbrella, were blown way out of proportion to make her look like she was drug addicted and crazy.

K used this against her in the Family Court case. She was told she would have a better chance at getting custody if she went to rehab. Although her problem was grief and anger, not substance abuse, she agreed to go if that would help her get custody. It was the first of many times she would be coerced into rehab or some kind of mental health treatment to support the “mad” tactic, using her contact with the kids as leverage. The silver lining with that rehab stint was that she started healing from all the abuse she had endured by her family and exes.

After that, she got 50/50 custody and was happy, but K was not. He wanted sole custody and kept the battle going. He continued to falsely accuse her of abusing illegal drugs and being crazy.

LOSS OF CUSTODY

At the end of one her visits with her boys, now 1½ and 2½ , she had a maternal moment and didn’t want to give her baby up. She let let the older one get in the car but locked herself in the bathroom with the younger one, saying she just wanted a little extra time, just a few more hours, to cope with the separation. She was told yes so she came out, but they not only took her baby away, they strapped her on a gurney and took her away to a lock-down psychiatric facility—as if she is crazy for wanting to keep her baby.

Contrast this with K maliciously keeping the children away from her repeatedly for weeks at a time. Nobody put him on a gurney. Nobody took him to a psychiatric facility. Nobody made him give the kids to her when it was her time. But within minutes of Britney not giving up her baby to the father, she was restrained physically and taken away.

The hospital released her early, because, of course, she was not a danger to herself or anyone else. That scene was crafted to make her appear crazy and be used against her in court. And surprise, surprise. The judge did reduce her parenting time—children being used to punish a mother for daring to defy the almighty father—for a few minutes nonetheless.

Britney’s father saw this as an opportunity to take control of her and her finances. He, along with her mother and sister, set up a sting in the guise of an intervention. They asked her to meet them at their family vacation home, one she had bought for them. When she got there, a SWAT-like team of about 20 cops descended upon her.

THE CONSERVATORSHIP

They forced Britney into a conservatorship under the threat—wait for it—she would not see her children again if she didn’t “play by the rules”. So, once again, the children were used as leverage so once again she was coerced into going along with it. She was led to believe it would only be for a short time. Against her strong objections, her father, her childhood abuser, was made her conservator and given complete control over herself and her finances.

Conservatorships are supposed to be for people who are so incapacitated they cannot take care of themselves, but Britney was working hard, as usual, on her many creative ventures and making a ton of money. The whole thing was completely bogus—another tactic to disempower her and swindle her out of her money and her kids.

K was complicit. He had a lot to gain from Britney being in a conservatorship. He finally got what he had wanted all along: complete control of the children, and her through the children. He could now decide when and if she could see them. Along with the increased child support, extra $$$ for letting her see the kids for any extra time, and whatever else he may have been compensated.

The guardianship enriched Britney’s family immensely, especially her father who made millions off it. There were lots and lots of other people who profited off her pain too.

After 13 years of being enslaved, Britney famously testified at a very public zoom hearing objecting to the conservatorship. She revealed how abusive it was and requested it to end. Millions were listening; everyone was horrified. The perpetrators had all been caught red-handed, including the judge.

Soon after that it ended. Britney was freed. But she was still not home free with her boys.

FREEDOM WITH A COST

When Britney got free of the conservatorship and, on paper at least, she regained some legal power to see her children. But that triggered the longstanding threat. Because she was no longer “playing by the rules”, because she was not agreeing to be controlled and dominated by the fathers, the boys were manipulated into thinking their mother was bad and mad and they should not see her.

When Britney got married to her long-time boyfriend, the boys would not go to the ceremony. They said it was because she had not invited the family, so it would not end on good terms. Britney had finally made healthy boundaries with her family, those who had been abusive and taken advantage of her, all the while still treating her as if she were not good enough.

I made peace with my family—by which I mean that I realized I never wanted to see them again, and I was at peace with that.

The boys were obviously being used to punish Britney for her newly formed boundaries and freedom from the family that still had psychological control over them.

K also went public denigrating Britney for posting sexy pictures on Instagram and declaring that was why the boys don’t want to see her. Can you imagine that?—teens, almost adults, being so harmed by sexy photos that they should not see their mother? That’s one of the “she’s so bad” tactics!

Britney responded with an IG post implying that the alienation had started long before the Instagram posts of her looking sexy.

It concerns me the fact that the reason [he is saying the boys don’t want to see me] is based on my Instagram … it was LONG before Instagram…

K is really reaching on this sexy photo thing. He has to. Because Britney is such an amazing mother and there is no valid reason the boys should not visit with her, or even live with her.

Britney hit back by putting a sexy picture on the front cover of her book. Good for her. Taking and keeping her woman power!

One of the boys said last year that he and his brother did not want to see Britney because she was mentally ill. He says their relationship could be fixed if she gets better, which will take a long time. He says, "It's just going to take a lot of time and effort. I just want her to get better mentally. When she gets better I really want to see her again."

The irony is that Brittany’s mental health symptoms have largely been caused by the trauma resulting from the breaches of her relationships with him and his brother. All she has ever wanted since she gave birth was to be with them, to mother them. Her symptoms, if she still suffers from them, could be “fixed” by their relationship being “fixed”.

And then the coup de grace: This summer, just a month before the oldest turned 18 and aged out of the system, and a few months before Britney’s memoir would reveal ugly truths about him keeping the boys away from Britney, K whisked the kids off to Hawaii to live. Phew, just in time. (It is unclear whether they reconnected with her before they were taken across the sea.)

Unfortunately, there is often so much damage done to children psychologically during the time Family Court has given a father control that when they age out, they may be physically free, but not mentally. Sometimes they come around, but sadly sometimes not.

Let’s hope Britney’s boys read her book and come to appreciate how much their mother loves them and the extremely high costs she paid—physically, mentally, and financially—just to be able to be with them. She dedicates the book to them, saying they are the “loves of her life”.

TAKE AWAYS

Britney focuses on K’s maliciousness in keeping her boys away from her and on her family’s abuse during the conservatorship. But it’s very important to keep front and center the fact that they could not have tortured and enslaved her without Family Court judges enabling it.

Britney says she does not like being called a victim, but she definitely suffered greatly from the Post-Separation Crisis, like millions of other women around the world. She experienced all three prongs of the Crisis: loss of custody; inability to protect her children (from the emotional abuse of maternal deprivation and alienation); and financial fleecing.

Britney’s story demonstrates the strength and sophistication of the systemic agenda to keep men entitled and empowered in their families—even women as famous and wealthy as Britney can be brought to heel via viable threats of no contact with their beloved children.

This male tactic of leveraging children is not new in sexual politics. Men have weaponized children in their quest for control over “their” women for millennia, ever since patriarchy took hold, when women lost the power to keep and protect their children. Children have always and forever been their #1 weapon. You don’t need a psychology degree to understand the extremely strong maternal bond is the best way to control women. Mothers would rather endure any pain than the loss or abuse of their precious children.

The Old Boys were not about to give up this unparalleled form of power just because women finally, after 10 long millennia, gained a legal right to their children. No, the Boys simply devised a system that got around that pesky right: Family Court.

Still, it is astonishing that such a loved entertainer like Britney did not have the power to keep or protect her children. Even she was not immune from the male entitling that underlies the Family Court system. A moral of her story: Women—it was/is not anything you did or did not do. It was not your fault. The system is rigged.

But the main moral of Britney’s story of having to trade her freedom for her children is that women will never be truly free until they have the power to keep and protect their children.

Women will never be free until they have the power to keep and protect their children.

Join us at The Women’s Coalition in fighting for our freedom.

LAST WORD

The Women’s Coalition applauds Britney for finding the Woman in Her and bravely telling her story to millions. She has succeeded in holding accountable publicly all those who’ve abused and taken advantage of her, including Family Court, her exes, her family, MSM, paparazzies and other parasites.

Although she does not spend much time talking about Family Court’s role in her memoir, she says she wants her story to make a difference for “people like her” who are suffering from the “corrupt system”. It sounds like she might need some enlightening about the fact that the problem is not a generic, gender-neutrally “corrupt” system that is victimizing “people”. It is systemic male entitlement that is the problem and women being oppressed. It is a gendered, power issue.

Britney has, admirably, taken her power back.

It’s been a while since I felt truly present in my own life, in my own power, in my womanhood. But I’m here now.

Congrats to Britney on her new-found power and on this great memoir! She is inspiration for the countless women around the world enduring their own Post-Separation Crises. And she is welcome to join us at the Women’s Coalition to help end the Crisis. Share this post far and wide so she may come across it.

[NOTE: The facts in this column rely on Britney’s memoir and MSM reports. They have not been independently verified.]

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UPDATES

FATHER MURDERED JUDGE CASE

In our column last week, “Father Murders Judge Hours after He Gives Mom Custody”, we profiled the case of a Maryland judge who was murdered by a father the same day he granted primary custody to the mother.

The U.S. Marshals Service launched an interstate manhunt. The father’s body was found in a wooded area on Thursday, about a mile northwest of where his vehicle was found the week before. The cause of death was self-inflicted gunshot wounds.  

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SISTERS FORUM

Our next Sisters in Solidarity Forum will be on November 11th, 1pm Pacific; 4pm Eastern; 9pm GMT/UTC.

In order to join the Sisters, you need only want to engage in activism to end the Post-Separation Crisis and agree it is caused by systemic male entitlement, resulting in the disempowerment and oppression of women. We are mobilizing a counteroffensive to regain our long-lost power to keep and protect our children and our resources/money.

If you are interested in joining the Sisterhood, please read this column and watch this video powerpoint presentation. If you agree with the Women’s Coalition’s position on the crisis, fill out the form linked above and in the column. You will be sent the link for the zoom a few days before the forum (check alternate boxes and spam). Please do not share the link; it is only for Sisters.

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You may also support the Coalition’s work through a one-time or recurring contribution at paypal.me/TheWomensCoalition

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