Latest news with #mother
New York Times
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Her Famous Mother Was Always Inaccessible. Then She Developed Dementia.
HOW TO LOSE YOUR MOTHER: A Daughter's Memoir, by Molly Jong-Fast 'Pour one out for me,' Molly Jong-Fast writes in 'How to Lose Your Mother,' her memoir of 'the worst year of my life,' 2023, in which her stepfather dies, her husband is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and her famous, forever unreachable mother succumbs to dementia. But she's not referring to all that: She's referring to one sentence in the best-selling 1973 novel 'Fear of Flying,' which made Erica Jong into a second-wave feminist icon, offering a woman's perspective on no-strings-attached sex, or what she called the 'zipless fuck.' 'Think about being the offspring of the person who wrote that,' Jong-Fast writes. In the memoir, the political journalist and novelist describes her childhood with a mother who had more time for media interviews and dinner parties than she had for her child. Jong 'went from man to man trying to find an identity,' the daughter writes, while leaving her with a nanny Jong then fires when it suits her. At times 'I bristled at the whole project of this memoir,' Jong-Fast writes: 'a daughter trying to come to terms with the loss of a mother. But I never had Erica Jong. How can you lose something you never had?' When her mother did pay attention, her affections were erratic. Jong-Fast 'started going to Venice as a child because my mother had a lover there,' she writes, an Italian man who was married to a German countess. Jong would spontaneously invite her daughter into her bed to watch TV and eat Ben & Jerry's, and take her on budget-less shopping sprees at Bergdorf's. 'Mom had that fairy dust,' Jong-Fast recalls thinking at the time. 'There was just a feeling with Mom that anything could happen. … She was singularly the most glamorous and inaccessible person I'd ever known.' As a teenager Jong-Fast copes with the chaos via drugs and alcohol, then gets sober at 19. When she tells her mother, a lifelong alcoholic and narcissist, that she wants to go to rehab 'because I'm going to die,' Jong replies: 'I think you're being overdramatic.' (She has a similar response decades later, when Jong-Fast nearly dies in childbirth.) At the same time, Jong-Fast says, 'she was always so proud of me, always so delighted by everything I did.' But this attempt at magnanimity feels at odds with her suggestion that Jong needed her to succeed, lest the child's failure reflect poorly on the mother herself. Having overcome a learning disability to end up in a profession similar to her mother's, Jong-Fast has written a memoir that feels like an effort to transcend her mother's narrative with her own, while still remaining deeply bound to the family form. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Herald
11 hours ago
- General
- The Herald
Olorato Mongale murder suspect wanted to end his life, says last person to see him before shoot-out with cops
The Mason Arbor Town tenant who rents vehicles — including one to Makhanya last year — and asked not to be named told TimesLIVE the murder suspect visited him in the early hours of Wednesday and again on Thursday. He said on Wednesday Makhanya called him to hire a car. 'He wanted me to give him an address or I must direct him to my place. When he got here I gave him a code. When he came here he was a person who desperately needed a car and he was with another person,' said the tenant. 'I had learnt he was someone who was being pursued by the police. I told him I am unable to do business with him because his photo was being circulated widely,' he said. He said Makhanya came back a day later with the same plea. 'He asked me to hear him out and expressed his intentions to kill himself. He was crying while we were in the parking lot,' he said. The tenant said Makhanya accompanied him to his third floor flat where he opened up about his life. 'He told me his mother was against this [criminal activities] and often called him out. But he did not listen to his mother. He said had he listened to his mother then things would have been OK,' said the tenant. 'The whole conversation took over three hours and he wanted to kill himself. There was just the two of us and I was in a predicament because I had to calm him down. I told him the solution was not to kill himself but rather own up and get sentenced because he said both his parents were working. 'I could not do anything at the time because I did not know what he would do. Even though he had taken me to his confidence, I did not feel safe. I also did not spot the firearm but saw the cellphones he had,' said the tenant. He said he was alarmed to learn about a string of cases Makhanya was facing and that he did not intend to kill the former TimesLIVE journalist but rather he wanted to extort money from her. He said Makhanya finally agreed to hand himself over to the Amanzimtoti police at dawn. 'He even told me he wanted to take a moment and pray which is the time when the police invaded my place,' said the tenant. He said the incident had taken a toll on him. The tenant would not elaborate on the shooting between Makhanya and the police, or where he was during the incident. KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi said the suspect was found with 28 ID cards and about 20 cellphones. Mkwanazi said the tenant claimed Makhanya confessed about the murder and claimed he had been locked up in his flat while Makhanya went to buy food and get money. A nyone who spots the other two suspects should immediately contact Brig Edwin Nama on 082-778-9035. TimesLIVE
CBS News
18 hours ago
- General
- CBS News
9-year-old boy hospitalized after accidental shooting in Troy
A 9-year-old boy was seriously injured after he was accidentally shot Friday afternoon in Troy, Michigan, according to police. At about 4:12 p.m., officers responded to a home on Crooks Road for an injured child. First responders found the 9-year-old bleeding from the head and transported him to a local hospital. Police say the boy underwent emergency surgery and remains in critical condition. A firearm was recovered at the home, and it is unclear how the children got access to the gun. Police say the boy's mother was at home at the time of the shooting. An investigation is ongoing.
Daily Mail
19 hours ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
BEL MOONEY: Can I help my toxic mother be a nicer person?
By Published: | Updated: Dear Bel, I was brought up in a volatile household, scared of my mother. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.
CBS News
21 hours ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Baltimore County school fails to notify mother of brutal bullying incident
A Baltimore County mother is demanding accountability after she says her sixth-grade son was assaulted by two students at General John Stricker Middle School and that the school never informed her of the incident. The woman, who asked not to be identified for safety reasons, said her son was supposed to be taking the MCAP state assessment on Tuesday when he was allegedly attacked in a hallway. Video of the incident, which has circulated on social media, appears to show the boy being knocked to the ground and later stomped on the head by another student after briefly being restrained by a staff member. "I just want to go through the video and help my child," the mother said. "It's a bunch of adults just standing there. It makes me angry because of the amount of people who were standing around with no compassion." She said she learned of the incident not from school officials but from her seventh-grade daughter, who also attends Stricker Middle. The daughter called her crying, she said. "My stepdaughter calls me, I hear crying in the background," she recalled. "They said, 'He's on the floor and they couldn't get to him." Denied entry into school The mother said she rushed to the school, which is located less than a mile from her home, but was denied entry. She said a school resource officer confronted her outside. "She threatened to kick me off the property," the mother said. "She started a countdown telling me to get off the property, and I said, 'I'm not going anywhere. My children are in the school — I need to know what's going on with my son." The mother said she took her son to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a concussion. She claims that the school nurse and staff failed to call 911 after the assault. Baltimore County Public Schools issued a statement in response to the incident: "Any student that engages in disruptive and dangerous behavior — such as fighting or assaulting another student — would receive serious consequences aligned with the BCPS Student Handbook and Board policy. That behavior would not be tolerated at any BCPS school." The mother said her son will not return to Stricker Middle School and that she has retained legal counsel.
