Diary of a Stage Mother’s Daughter ~ Melissa Francis

Sometimes in a digital world like ours I forget how much I love to read. And then something like pneumonia hits and kicks my butt to bed for what’s going on a two week period, and I find myself with all the time in the world to escape into a good book.

Last week, my night stand real estate was taken up by Diary of a Stage Mother’s Daughter, a captivating read by actor Melissa Francis.

Melissa’s memoir of growing up as a child actor under the highly competitive and neurotic care of her ‘tiger mother’ was compelling. While Diary of a Stage Mother’s Daughter talks about Melissa’s acting career, most notably her role as Cassandra Cooper Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie, the book is really centered on her family unit and how each member is affected by her over bearing and neglectful mother. 

‘The Glass Castle’ meets ‘The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother’ in this dazzlingly honest and provocative family memoir by former child actress and current Fox Business Network anchor Melissa Francis.  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 primetime 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, as fame and a mother’s ambition pushed her older sister deeper into the shadows.   ‘Diary of a Stage Mother’s Daughter’ is a fascinating account of life as a child star in the 1980’s, and also a startling 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, and the value of pushing your children: how hard should you push a child to succeed, and at what point does your help turn into harm?

While the book does cover Melissa’s whole life from early childhood to current day, I still found myself with questions unanswered and some confusion over the hot topic of finances and why her Father did not protect them. I wish she had gone a little deeper into those areas. Regardless, this is a great read and an interesting look into Melissa’s world growing up in Hollywood. It was written open and honestly and I think you will find the memoir to be a refreshing change.