Britney Spears’ son is being exploited — like mother, like son

Gaslighting is a family tradition in the Spears family so its no surprise Jayden Federline is in the thick of it. And documentary filmmaker Daphne Barak is here to make sure he never forgets it.

Britney Spears’ 15-year-old son was recently interviewed for Barak’s documentary (which — coincidentally also ended up in a series of click-baity Daily Mail pieces). Whether or not a child can consent to an interview is unclear, but as far as I’m concerned, Daphne Barak has exploited this boy.

In the interview, Jayden Federline (who is a 15 year old child) is asked for his take on this mother’s conservatorship. Of course he’s entitled to have an opinion. But I wish he had been protected from predatory journalists until he had an understanding of the facts about his mum’s case.

In order to earn money, Daphne Barak has opened this child up to worldwide criticism. She asked a child for his opinion about a nuanced, emotional, complicated matter. He’s expressed his adolescent opinion — but the question isn’t fair because he doesn’t fully understand it.

Good people on both sides?

The first problem is that Jayden lives with one side of the narrative. He’s looking at the situation from his father’s and grandfather’s perspectives. The Spears family claims that they had Britney’s best interests at heart. But (thanks to eye-opening documentaries Framing Britney Spears and Britney vs. Spears sparked by modern day citizens’ uprising in the form of the #freeBritney movement) the public beginning to understand just how much Britney’s family violated her.

When the conservatorship was put in place, Britney was a young mother of two toddlers. She was an international superstar going through a marital breakdown. And she was behaving erratically.

Her punishment for her extremely understandable mental ill health? Her family stripped her of everything, including:

• Her financial autonomy
• Access to her children
• Input into her own medical care
• Control of her career and workload

And on and on.

Meet the ‘morally insane’

Just like the so-called hysterics of the 19th century, Britney was locked away when her behaviour was deemed unacceptable. Like Elizabeth Packard, a wife and mother of six who was sentenced to life in an insane asylum in 1860 for the ‘defying domestic control’. In other words, she stood up to her domineering husband.

In her article The Dark American History of Silencing Women Through Psychiatry, Kate Moore explains the plight of women in the olden days. In order for a woman to be accepted in polite society,

‘Every genuine emotion had to be stifled. Every act of difference from society’s prescribed model of femininity had to be suppressed. Elizabeth could not display her anger at what had happened or even hint at hatred for her husband. Her psychiatrist was watching — and her unladylike emotion would justify continued incarceration. After all, women who had “ungovernable” personalities and “strong resolution…plenty of what is termed nerve” were literally textbook examples of female insanity.’

Make no mistake: very little has changed.

But back to Jayden

Jayden Federline lives in a world in which his mother, who pays his father $40,000 per month for his care and lifestyle requirements, has no input into his care. He’s been pursued by paparazzi since the day he was born. His mother, the most famous woman on earth, spent the first years of his life in a mental health crisis.

He must have felt afraid and alone. Confused. Now he feels frustrated with his mum’s on-going mental health struggles. And his feelings are 100% valid.

Not a boy, not yet a…you know…

Jayden Federline is too young to understand the nuanced ways in which women are still controlled by the patriarchy. When his prefrontal cortex develops, he might understand more about the circumstances that led to his mum’s conservatorship. But that’s not tipped to happen for another 10 years.

Jayden’s mother was forced to work when she didn’t want to. She was denied access to her own money by the people who were spending it. The same people also prevented her from freely leaving the house, accessing social media, or dating the people she wanted to date. She couldn’t choose her own lawyer.

Under her father’s guardianship, Britney Spears wasn’t allowed to have her IUD removed. I repeat. Under her father’s guardianship, Britney Spears wasn’t allowed to have her IUD removed.

When Jayden’s brain matures, he might develop some compassion for his mother, who was held prisoner by the very people who benefited most from her imprisonment.

If Jayden has kids of his own, maybe he’ll wrap his head around the massive upheaval she withstood, how hard she tried, and how she was set up to fail. He might look back on the stories he was told by his grandparents and his dad and realise that — just maybe — he didn’t have all the facts.

And he might reflect on his own opinions and realise that as an adolescent (and through no fault of his own) he was a victim-blaming apologist for the family members who stripped his mother of her life’s work and her dignity.

Save the children

Jayden Federline should be able to experience this metamorphosis just like other young men: in private, and with the guidance of safe, caring adults. But Daphne Barak stripped him of that right. Under the guise of wanting to understand the Federlines, she has put Jayden square in the crosshairs.

While her son in being exploited, Britney is stuck between a rock and a hard place. She can’t protect her son from tabloid journalists like Daphne Barak and she can’t defend herself. As K-Fed’s Britney-funded gravy train comes to a shuddering halt in the next few years, I assume he’ll be leaning on the boys for more paid tell-alls.

Jayden Federline is a child who doesn’t fully understand the facts. He doesn’t have access to both sides of the story. Now, thanks to Daphne Barak, his unexamined opinions have been published, permanently. What should have been a private family discussion is a matter of public record.

If that isn’t Toxic, nothing is.