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Published by Weinstein Books
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A dazzling honest and provocative family memoir by former child actress and current Fox Business Network anchor Melissa Francis --
both a startling personal story and a cautionary tale for both
parents in competitive times. When Melissa Francis was eight years old, she won the role of
lifetime: playing Cassandra Cooper Ingalls, the little girl who
was adopted with her brother (played by young Jason Bateman) by
the Ingalls family on the world's most famous prime-time soap
opera, Little House on the Prairie. Despite her age, she
was already a veteran actress, living a charmed life, moving from
one Hollywood set to the next. But behind the scenes, her success
was fueled by the pride, pressure, and sometimes grinding cruelty
of her stage mother. While Melissa thrived under pressure, her older sister -- who had
tried her hand at acting and shrank from the limelight -- was
often ignored by their mother in a shadow of neglect and
disappointment. Tiffany could do nothing to please her mother, but
it wasn't until after Melissa had graduated from Harvard
University with a degree in economics, found love, and married
that Tiffany's personal problems culminated in a life-and-death
crisis. When Melissa realized the role of her mother continued to
play in her sister's downward spiral, she resolved to end the
manic, abusive cycle once and for all. Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter is a fascinating
account of life as a child star in the 1980's, and also a
disquieting tale of a family under the care of a highly neurotic,
dangerously competitive "tiger mother." But perhaps most
importantly, now that Melissa has two sons of her own, it's a
meditation on motherhood. She asks the questions so many of us ask
ourselves: how hard should you push a child to succeed, and at
what point does your help turn into harm? pub date: 2012-11-06 | Hardcover | 9781602861725 |
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