Anticipation is building steadily for the release of Lynne Spears's Through The Storm: A Real Tale Of Fame And Family In A Tabloid World, a sort of My Life by Bill Clinton for the absentee parenting set. As luck would have it, the National Enquirer has secured an advanced copy of the three-time grandmother and world class permissivist's memoir, in which she weighs in with astonishing honesty about her powerlessness over her teenage daughter's extra-curricular activities:

Britney Spears' mother is set to lift the lid on the troubled singer's life - with revelations that she was drinking at 13 and lost her virginity the following year.

A source has told how Britney was dating the football star while at school, and how her mother encouraged the relationship because she thought it would make her more popular.The budding singer spent a lot of time at her boyfriend's house and eventually lost her virginity there. Her mother later admitted she regretted allowing her to date an older boy but still allowed her to share her bedroom with new boyfriend, Justin Timberlake. Mrs Spears was said to be sure the teenagers were having sex. [...]

The book also reveals that she knew Britney, then 15, was experimenting with drugs when she went to Los Angeles to record her breakthrough album 'Baby One More Time'. She thought she was going through the typical teenage problems, but they seemed to be more than that, when the singer was allegedly caught boarding a private plane aged 16, cocaine and marijuana was found in her bag. [...]

In the book, Mrs Spears expresses how much she regrets handing over control of Britney's career to managers and allowing her daughter to be promoted to as a sex object in raunchy videos at such a young age. Apparently, Britney's mother was told that if the singer was going to compete with sexier and older stars like Mariah Carey 'she needed to be marketed more like a 'Lolita'.

There was a time, we suppose, when Britney's early exploits—holed up inside a New Mickey Mouse Club tour bus, chugging Bartles & James and blowing lines off a Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch Trapper Keeper—would have still possessed the power to shock. That, of course, was a whole generation ago, and Britney herself could and should be widely commended with having ushered in the new new face of America: A Lolita Nation, with liberty, justice, teen sex, and tattooed commitment rings for all.

• 'Britney started drinking at 13, lost her virginity at 14 and took drugs at 15,' says her mother in shocking new book [dailymail.co.uk]

Tags: britney spears | lynn spears | parenting