Peaches

You will be shocked to hear that I didn’t know Peaches Geldof. We didn’t really move in the same circles. But I was shocked when my friend messaged me to tell me she had died. It was so out of the blue, so strange and it really seemed to resonate with people. Twenty something women just don’t drop dead out of the blue and so people took to social media and expressed their shock, their sadness. People expressed their sadness for her two boys, for her husband, for Bob Geldof. A family that had suffered so much already were going through it again. Then it came out that her death was linked to drug usage and the sympathy stopped.

It wasn’t that her death stopped being sad; it was more that people didn’t think that she was now deserving of sympathy. Then the other comments started: how her death was selfish, how could a mother do that to her children? But the manner of her death doesn’t make it less sad, or tragic or a waste. If anything it makes it sadder; she didn’t get the help she needed and her death was preventable.

I think the problem was this: now Peaches was a mother she was no longer allowed to be human. It was no longer just about her. She had responsibilities.  In short – her children should have saved her from addiction.

No pressure kids.

Now first let’s deal with the obvious. Children are many things but they are not a cure for addiction. If they were then rehabs would go out of business, methodone wouldn’t exist. There would be no AA meetings. People would simply go to the doctor and be handed a small child. Cured. Well women would be cured. Men would probably stick to the conventional methods as they are not completely defined by their reproductive ability. Addiction is an illness not a choice. She didn’t love heroin more than her children, she probably hated heroin, loathed it and it’s role in her life but she was overwhelmed by addiction and she happened to have children.

Motherhood is not a super power. It’s a state. Any problems that were there before are more than likely going to be there afterwards – with less sleep. Motherhood doesn’t make you untouchable. If you had a gammy leg and a short temper before, then chances are you will afterwards. Horrifically self righteous before? Add a child and well… I’ll see you in a few years. The point is that the child may spur you on to want to be a better person, give you a reason to change yourself, make you want to be a role model but somethings are just overwhelming and innate.

Peaches didn’t fail her children. She was failed. We boxed her in to a corner where she wasn’t allowed to have faults. It didn’t help that she gave many interviews where she pretty much said that motherhood had saved her and her life was perfect (addicts lie – who knew) but we all went along with it. What would have happened if she’d told the truth? That she was struggling? That she was out of her depth and having two small people totally relying on her wasn’t pulling her through her demons? Let’s face it – we would have thought that she didn’t love her kids enough.

Which is bollocks. Of course she loved them. She loved them so much that she lived furtively and perhaps didn’t get the help that she needed for fear that they would be taken away from her. If she had been allowed to be openly flawed perhaps things would have been different. Perhaps if we had looked as her as human first? It was a lack of love that killed Peaches but her love for kids was never in doubt.