This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Woman in Me" by Britney Spears. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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What was Britney Spears’s childhood like? How did Spears become a child star?
Spears was born on December 12, 1981, to parents whose marriage was already rough due to her father’s drinking. Spears writes that ever since she can remember, music was an escape from her problems at home, and singing was the only way she could safely express herself.
Keep reading to learn more about Spears’s childhood and her rise to stardom.
From Childhood to Stardom (1981-1998)
During Britney Spears’s childhood, she used dancing and singing to cope with her dysfunctional family. In her memoir, she discusses how her singing and dance career began, her early appearances on TV while trying to live a normal life at home, and the break that led to her first hit single and her sudden rise to international fame.
Spears was singing and dancing before an audience at the age of three, and by the age of five, she was winning dance competitions in her home state of Louisiana. When she wasn’t performing, Spears spent a lot of time hiding from her family. Her father’s construction business was failing due to his alcoholism, and her mother answered his growing abuse with vicious tirades of her own, all of which young Britney had to hear.
| The Prevalence of Dysfunctional Families Dysfunctional homes such as Spears’s aren’t uncommon. In the US, 75% of people consider their families dysfunctional, either due to divorce or estrangement. It’s estimated that 25% of children suffer abuse or neglect, while 10% of children live with an alcoholic. Such families are characterized by their absence of empathy and communication, as well as a prevalence of harsh criticism and one parent’s domination of other family members. Children like Spears who grow up in these environments often struggle with anxiety and low self-esteem while finding it hard to set personal boundaries and form healthy relationships. Fortunately, Spears’s choice of music as a means to escape her parents’ problems may have been a particularly effective solution to her struggles: Research shows that musical training has genuine therapeutic value by relieving anxiety and helping children learn to focus their attention. |
Music was the bright spot in Spears’s life, and when she was eight years old, she auditioned for a reboot of The Mickey Mouse Club. Though Spears didn’t win a part on the show, the head of casting recommended an agent in New York, who agreed to represent her.
(Shortform note: Agents such as the one Spears signed with use their networks in the entertainment business to connect performers with opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. There are many agents that specialize in representing child performers, but the role of managing a child’s career often falls on the parents.)
On Stage and Screen
After Spears turned 10, she competed on an episode of Star Search, worked as an understudy on an off-Broadway production in New York, and finally landed a role on Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club, where she worked alongside many up-and-coming talents including a young Justin Timberlake. Spears relates that her time with Disney taught her the skills she’d need in her pop star career going forward. Spears was 14 when the show was canceled, and while many of her co-stars dove right back into the entertainment business, Spears returned to her Louisiana home and went to school as an everyday teenager. Looking back, Spears remarks on how much she cherished that time in her life—it was the last taste of normalcy she’d ever have.
(Shortform note: The Mickey Mouse Club TV show on which Spears got her start has gone through several iterations in its history. Its original version debuted on the ABC network in 1955 shortly after the Disneyland theme park opened in Anaheim, California, and it ran through 1959. Later versions were broadcast from 1977-1978 and from 1989-1994. The program launched the careers of many budding performers who went on to even greater fame.)
For Spears to get into the music industry, she and her mother decided that she’d audition as a solo act rather than joining a musical group as some of her peers had done. At 15, Spears signed her first record deal, left home with a family friend who’d be her adult chaperone, and moved to New York to record her first album. Spears recalls that filming her first music video was one of the peak creative moments of her life. Despite still being an unknown, much of her artistic input was incorporated into the final product. The song “…Baby One More Time” and the album of the same title both debuted at #1 on the charts, the first time a female performer achieved both at the same time. Overnight, at the age of 16, Spears became a household name.
(Shortform note: Spears’s debut single “…Baby One More Time” was composed by Swedish songwriter Max Martin, whom Spears credits as having a strong creative input on her first album. The song had previously been offered to and rejected by such groups as the Backstreet Boys and TLC. Though the song was released on October 23, 1998, the album didn’t come out until January 1999, after Spears had turned 17. According to Rolling Stone, Spears’s debut album changed the sound of pop music by infusing it with elements of new wave and disco.)
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- The key takeaways of Britney Spears' memoir about her career and private life
- How the media's portrayal of Spears differed from her experiences
- How the music industry treats women differently than men
Brittany where are you? Don’t stay in hiding,how are you?? You are beautiful..hope you are good..from Mae c in oklahoma
I love Britney. I’m a fan and wonder how’s she feeling when she sings. This chance is good in my book. I’m working on myself and seeing how I can be.