I'm Glad My Mom Died (2024)

I was not a huge fan of Nickelodeon, and I watched their shows only once in a while during my childhood. Drake & Josh and iCarly were the two shows I watched. I particularly remember the part where Sam (Jennette McCurdy) talks about reading in iCarly, which became a famous meme.

Her acting in iCarly was spot on and funny. Jennette did a brilliant job while acting, which is why people like me who rarely watched the show still remember her.

Whenever we hear the name Jennette McCurdy a bubbly, loud, energetic young lady comes to our mind, as her friend Miranda Cosgrove mentions in this book. This book tells us that there were a lot of hardships and sorrow hidden behind those energetic and brilliant performances.

Seven key ideas from this book
1) If child labor is unethical, aren't child actors too unethical?
During December every year, when it is nearer to Christmas, there is something that everyone all over the world (especially in America) will do. It is to rewatch the Home Alone movie. The family dynamics of the McCallister family, ingenious script by John Huges, brilliant direction by Chris Colombus, fantastic music by John Williams, and extraordinary production design and sets will make us relive our childhood. Home Alone is pure nostalgia for many people.

Apart from everything mentioned above, the biggest factor that brings us back to rewatch Home Alone is the amazing acting by Macaulay Culkin. I was shocked when I heard that he had to sacrifice his entire childhood to entertain us. He was abused both physically and mentally by his jealous father. The law caught him with marijuana possession. He was arrested for speeding and many other illegal activities. The abuse has affected his mental health, which pushed him into addiction.

Parents using their children as money-making machines by making them actors and making them overwork for different movies when they should be going to school has been a severe issue in the life of many child actors. If we closely observe the career graph of child actors, we can see that only very few become great actors when they grow up.

In Jennette's story also, we can see that she was not at all interested in acting. But her mother forced her to act even from the age of six. Nobody even cared to ask her what Jennette liked to do. She tells in this book that she hated acting, which is why she quit acting after her mother died.

If child labor is unethical, then child actors are also unethical. Then the million-dollar question of who will do the children's role in the movies will arise. If child actors were not there, how would they have made movies like Harry Potter, where most of the main actors are children?

“I HATE ACTING CLASS. Even though it's a chunk of time away from Home, I don't look forward to this class the same way I look forward to church because I find acting even more uncomfortable than being stuck at Home."

2) How did the "Creator" make Jennette's life miserable?
This is another big problem child actors face, the predators on the shooting sets. The author mentions a "creator" who behaved harshly toward her. This same creator also allegedly misbehaved with some other crew members in a sexually inappropriate way.

We have heard about many child stars who were sexually harassed on the shooting sets. Some even make them work overtime, destroying the younger kids' enthusiasm and courage.

I think the only way to prevent child actors from being exploited by parents and crew members is by appointing an internal committee in every shooting set that even has access to mental health care professionals if needed. This committee should ensure that a certain percentage of children's earnings should be solely used for children's personal needs like education. This will prevent the children from being monetarily misused by their parents.

It is challenging to implement this as different countries have different rules and procedures. A very few countries have tried to implement a similar method. But they were all disasters due to their lack of planning and coordination. If Hollywood and people in the USA start implementing it perfectly, all the countries may slowly follow it. A similar rule should be implemented for the children on social media (especially a few family channels on youtube.), even though it will be a little bit more complicated to implement in those cases.

“Cut!” The Creator yells off camera, his mouth full of something."
“But our wardrobe designer said that The Creator explicitly asked for bikinis, and so she had to at least have me try on one or two of them so he had the option. ”

3) How are children's life affected by their narcissistic parents?
Falling into a narcissistic romantic relationship is a harrowing experience. Being the daughter of a narcissistic mother is a much more painful experience. This book shows how her mother totally controlled her daughter's life. The author tells us how proper medical help and therapy after such a long physical and mental abuse helped her recover from such abysmal despair.

"My mother emotionally, physically and mentally abused me in ways that will forever impact me."
"I realize that she's happy and I'm not. Her happiness came at the cost of mine. I feel robbed and exploited."

4) Do we need to romanticize the dead?
This is a tough question to answer. Some say objectivity is born after a person dies. It is true that death changes the light in which we see people. But up to what extent? Can mourning alternate realities? These are a few among the many questions I have asked myself after reading one book some time ago on this topic. The author brings this topic back into the limelight.

Some people say it is better to speak about the positive sides of the dead person during the time of grief, but not focus on their negative facets as everybody also has a negative side to their personalities along with the positives. But what will we do if the person only has a negative side and the positive side is almost nil? I think it is better to remain silent than to focus on the negatives during mourning.

These are the questions that we should contemplate a lot before answering. The answers to the above questions vary depending on the individual's personality and character.

“Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can't we be honest about them? Especially moms, they're the most romanticized of anyone. ”

5) Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa
Both anorexia and bulimia are eating disorders. In anorexia, people restrict their food intake to lose weight. In bulimia, people will eat an excessive amount of food in a short period of time and then purge them using various methods to prevent weight gain. Both these disorders will cause severe health problems. For example in bulimia due to repeated trauma to the esophagus due to vomiting gastric acidic contents, the person can develop esophageal adenocarcinoma. So, this is a serious medical problem that healthcare professionals should treat.

"Jennette, what you're describing is... really unhealthy. Your mother essentially condoned your anorexia, encouraged it. She... taught it to you. That's abuse."

6) Friendship.
Building a good friendship takes a lot of time, effort, and sacrifice. We can see the author talking about friendships in this book. I remember reading about different types of friendship in a book.

Friendships can be classified into three.

-1) Friendship of pleasure - Friendship ends when the enjoyment and fun end.

- 2) Friendship of convenience - Friendship ends when the convenience factor end.

- 3) True friendship - Friendship based on mutual respect.

The author mentions that she dislikes friendship of convenience.

"I don't like knowing people in the context of things. "Oh, that's the person I work out with. That's the person I'm in a book club with. That's the person I did that show with." Because once the context ends, so does the friendship."

7) What is the problem with comparing our life with that of successful people?
In this age of social media, every one of us has a tendency to know more about the life of successful people from their social media profiles and compare our life with theirs. The biggest problem is that people only post the positive side of their lives on social media. So checking others' Instagram profiles and comparing our life to others can push us into anxiety and depression.

In Jennette's case, she had Ariana Grande as the co-star in one of the shows, and she developed a habit of comparing her life with Ariane's. This is a habit we should never develop, and the author tells us all the troubles she had to face due to this behavior.

"The third is that Ariana is at the stage in her career where she's popping up on every 30 Under 30 list that exists. And I'm at the stage in my career where my team is excited that I'm the new face of Rebecca Bonbon, a tween clothing line featuring a cat with her tongue sticking out. Sold exclusively at Walmart. And I frequently make the mistake of comparing my career to Ariana's. I can't help it. I'm constantly in the same environment as her, and she doesn't exactly try to hide her successes."

My favourite three lines from this book

"Suddenly, I feel just like that little eleven-year-old girl who was confused and scared and uncertain. That eleven-year-old girl who was doubtful that I knew the whole truth of my situation, who was unsure that my mother was the hero she pretended to be, but who shoved that doubt down."

"I don't like when grown-ups make faces or sounds that I don't understand. It's frustrating. It makes me feel like I'm missing something.”

"And the kids who are annoying, don't take direction, ask questions—those are the kids who won't get sent out on auditions. The kids who will get auditions are the ones who shut up and do as they're told."

What could have been better?
The title of this book is a brutal one. I think Jennette should have given it a much more positive title. This current title will indeed pull the attention of many new readers to this book. But it also has its demerits. Whenever the author hears or sees the name of this book in the future, the first emotion that will come to her mind might be anger and sadness just because of this title.

I can never tell that the author should have forgiven her mother as she had to suffer a lot due to her. But still, I think the title is brutal, and it should have been a different optimistic one.

Rating
5/5 This celebrity memoir might be a difficult book, but you should never miss the opportunity to read it.