Hold the front page – teen son plays off his parents...

ROWS between teenagers and their parents are ten-a-penny, particularly at this time of the year. But when the mother is Madonna, an event that would scarcely earn a mention in another family gets blown out of all proportion and becomes emblematic of all that is wrong with the Material Girl. Madonna’s 15-year-old son, Rocco’s refusal to fly to New York to spend Christmas with her has been interpreted as the inevitable rebellion of a teenager who has grown embarrassed by his mother’s love life, her revealing costumes and on-stage exhibitionism. Pundits with an apparent inside track on Madonna’s domestic life say that her monumental narcissism and controlling behaviour have pushed poor Rocco into the arms of his father Guy Ritchie and the promise of a more stable home life.

Surely the more likely explanation is that Madonna has refused to allow Rocco do something he has his teenage heart set on and that, like many children of divorced parents, he is simply playing one parent off against the other?

Rocco is lucky to have two parents devoted to his welfare and happiness. He is also lucky to have a mother who is extraordinarily successful and has worked hard to give him the good life while also furnishing his father with a luxury lifestyle thanks to a generous divorce settlement.

If she dates men young enough to be her son, or gyrates on stage like a popstrel half her age, she is only following in the footsteps of Mick Jagger and other rock gods. Yet she is pilloried for behaviour that is glorified in males and her son’s normal teenage tantrums used as a stick to beat her with. So much for the free-and-easy music industry.