She’s not the only one of my children interested in film. Jermaine, who attended classes at the American Film Institute, wants to direct and produce. He has a producing role in the ABC miniseries about the family, which is currently in production. Marlon, too, wants to produce. “I want to show that black people can make great films along the lines of Terms of Endearment and Out of Africa,” he says.

     A dozen years after he co-starred in The Wiz, Michael remains keenly interested in the movies, as well. Among the many projects he’s considered in recent years was the starring role in Steven Spielberg’s planned version of Peter Pan. I’m reminded of his interest in that project every time I look at Michael’s toy and doll collection at the house and see the Peter Pan doll that was made for him. The doll is black and has a Michael Jackson hairstyle.

     But even though Michael identified with Peter Pan’s leading lost children into a world of fantasy and magic, he decided, in the end, not to pursue the project. It was a question of image. By 1983 he had adopted a tougher, more streetwise public persona.
One of Michael’s priorities is in finding just the right movie project. It’s a challenge for him; I know he’s gone through piles and piles of scripts. I don’t see him playing a lover’s role, or some macho part. What does that leave? Another musical.

     Michael loves musicals. He watches the classic ones like West Side Story and The Sound of Music over and over again. I’m sure he’d love to do a musical that would rank among the best ones ever made.

     While some of my kids look toward films, others remain focused on recording. Rebbie’s number-one goal, for example, is to achieve success with her new record label, Motown. She recorded her third and final album, R U Tuff Enuff, for Columbia in 1988.

     As for the Jacksons, they intended to continue to record and, someday, tour again. As Tito says, “We’re every bit as passionate today as we were in the early days. You have to stay hungry.”

     Ambitious as my kids remain, it does my heart good to know that they care about and want to help those who have the same dreams today that they had twenty-five years ago.

     RANDY: I’ve always loved playing music, but before my automobile accident in 1980 I was just living. I had no purpose. I was born into this family of talented kids, so I never had to struggle like my brothers. My first concert as a member of the Jacksons was in front of eighteen thousand people. I think I was a little bit spoiled. I know that I tended to take things for granted.

The accident changed all that. I think God was giving me a slap, telling me to wake up to myself. From that point on, I’ve had a purpose. I want to be a role model.

I want to help people, especially those who want to become musicians and artists. I know how difficult it was for my brothers when they were starting out, how hard they had to work. I know that my family wished that someone would reach back and give us a hand. I want to be that hand reaching out to young people with a dream. That’s my dream.

     If Tito’s dream comes true, the brothers will have a vehicle with which to support young performers: the Jackson family’s own record label.

     TITO: Not only do I see the brothers recording their first future albums for our own record company; I see us branching into recording new talent. I feel that we have an ear
for hit records, the ability to produce hit records, and the knack for matching the right
producers with the right songs.

     Seeing my children involved and successful in their careers, as well as the careers of fledging artists, is only one of my wishes for them. My other wishes are more personal, among them that they continue to steer clear of drugs.

     So far, the axiom “Bring up a child the way you want him to go, and when he gets older he won’t depart from the path” has worked for Joe and me. The children even held out by keeping a brotherly or sisterly eye on one another. If we hear from one of the kids that one of the brothers, for example, is associating with someone who may not be a good influence, we will call a Family Meeting and talk to that child about his friend.

     Knowing the way society is, however, I realize it’s still possible for one of my children to get into drugs. The child may even be able to avoid detection by the family initially. But I know that eventually I would find out. And I know exactly what I would do: drop everything, take that child by the hand, and get him or her help. I wouldn’t leave the child’s side for a minute until he or she was cured. For a mother or father to do any less would be to shirk her or his responsibility as a parent. The child’s life could be at stake.

     Another wish that I have is one that any loving mother has for her kids: that they continue to enjoy, or find, happiness in their personal lives.

     Three of my children, I am happy to say, have been blessed with successful marriages. In 1990, Rebbie and Nathaniel marked their twenty-second anniversary; Tito and his wife, Dee Dee, their eighteenth; and Marlon and his wife, Carol, their fifteenth.

     There’s no doubt in my mind that Rebbie’s and Nathaniel’s faith has been the key to the success of their marriage. To Jehovah’s Witnesses, the family is very important, and they have devotedly raised their children in the Truth.

     I’m her mother so I’m probably biased, but I really do believe that Rebbie is the kind of old-fashioned girl that a lot of men would like to marry but have a hard time finding today. Not only is she a great mother, she’s a great cook. And, as I’ve noted, she learned to wash, iron, and clean at a young age. Nowadays, the average girl doesn’t even know how to cook.

     A few words about Nathaniel: Over the years he has worked at a sawmill, run a janitorial service, worked for a computer company, owned a driver’s training school, and worked as a landscaper -- all in the name of being a good provider to his family.

     Tito’s and Dee Dee’s marriage, meanwhile, has endured because, as Tito says, they’re friends first. Also, both of them are easy people, and that helps.

     As for Marlon and Carol, they’re really happy together because they’ve worked at their marriage. They respect, love, and understand each other.

     However, three of my children -- Jackie, as well as Jermaine and Janet -- have had marriages fail.

     I was particularly sad to see Jackie’s and Jermaine’s marriages come to an end, because there were children involved. Also, each had been married a long time -- eleven and fourteen years, respectively -- and I’d come to love their wives, Enid and Hazel, like my own daughters. They found out shortly after they married into the family that I wasn’t a mother-in-law who meddled. After that they treated me like their mother.

     (In fact, the wives come to me as frequently as the boys when there was a problem in the marriage. It was easy for me to go back to the boys and talk with them; after all, they’re my sons. When the boys wanted me to speak to their wives, I would, although I have to admit that it was harder for me. However, my method was the same no matter who I was talking with. What I did was take the individual to the Bible to show him of her what I felt he or she might be doing wrong.)

     I’m thankful that Jermaine and Janet are currently in stable relationships and look forward to their remarrying. I’m especially anxious for Jackie to get married again. While most of my kids are careful about the kinds of foods they eat, Jackie is a confirmed junk-food lover. I’ll worry less about his diet when he has a wife to cook him some balanced meals.

     Then there are Randy and Michael, who have never been married.

     “Why don’t you settle down, and get married, and have a family?” I’m always telling Randy, who’s had many girlfriends. “Then I wouldn’t worry about you so much.”

     But Randy still doesn’t want to hear it. “I’m not ready to get married yet,” he’ll reply.

     As for Michael, I wish he did have the special someone to share his life with right now; his life would be richer. I think that, deep down, he does, too.

     I think the reason why he’s had so few relationships in recent years, is that he’s been approached so many times by women who are so obviously looking for that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that he’s grown wary. Michael wrote about this type of woman -- I call her a status seeker -- in his song “Dirty Diana.”

     When Michael was younger he joked that “when the love bug bites me, that’s when I’m going to marry.” By 1989 he was telling me, “The woman I marry will have to have a lot of money herself. That’s the only way I'll know for sure that she’s not marrying me for my money.”

     REBBIE: Even if Michael were to find the “perfect” woman tomorrow, I think
that he would be reluctant to subject her to the incredible scrutiny that he’s subjected to
every day. My brother is the biggest thing in life right now. I was reminded of that fact
twice in 1989.

The first time was at a hospital in Panorama City, where my mother’s mother was taken in February after she became seriously ill. Michael joined the rest of the family at her
bedside, and as soon as the word got out that he was in the building, the room turned into
Grand Central Station. Nurses, technicians, doctors -- even the security man downstairs --
were running in and out, looking up at Michael’s face, and asking for his autograph.

Michael also made headline news at the nursery that my husband, a part-time landscaper, does business at. All anybody could talk about for a couple of days was the fact that Michael Jackson had ordered three thousand square feet of sod for his ranch.

     Even if Michael’s wife did manage to adapt to life in a fish bowl, she’d also have to cope with the reality of Michael attending meetings, and members of his entourage constantly
pulling on him. Some of these people, no doubt, would view her as no more than a
competitor for Michael’s time.

     And yet, Michael seems happy. Even though he knows that he will never be able to live a “normal” life, he seems comfortable with his fame. I believe that when he’s good and ready to get married, he’ll do it, despite the inevitable press uproar.

     While I firmly believe that a good marriage promotes happiness, the surest path to inner peace and fulfillment, I believe, is through religion. This is why I also wish that my children will draw closer to Jehovah.

     I’m not worried about Rebbie. As she says, “The most important thing in my life is my relationship with the Creator, Jehovah God.” She proves it by attending every meeting at Kingdom Hall and doing her weekly Field Service.

     Dee Dee, Tito’s wife, has also shown a strong interest in studying. She brings their three sons over to the house on a regular basis to read the Bible with me.

     But Randy and Janet attend Kingdom Hall only occasionally, and Jermaine, Jackie, Tito, and LaToya not at all, even though LaToya was baptized a Witness several years ago. Marlon and Carol attend a Catholic church.

     Then there is Michael’s unique situation: In 1987, he left the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Michael didn’t inform me personally of his decision. When I learned of it, I was devastated. He had began missing meetings at Kingdom Hall earlier that year, but only because, he assured me, he was so busy finishing Bad and preparing for his world tour.

     There was a strong opposition to his “Thriller” video on the part of some Witnesses, even though Michael had an elder on the set during filming to advise him, and even though he ran a disclaimer at the beginning of the video stressing that he was in no way endorsing a belief in the occult. Perhaps the controversy figured in his decision to leave.

     But I don’t know that for a fact because I didn’t talk to him about what he’d done. I couldn’t. Witnesses do not discuss spiritual matters with a person who has disassociated himself from the Witnesses, including family members.

     But I want to stress that, contrary to published reports, I was not required to “shun” my son. Our relationship is as loving today as it was when he was a Witness. I just can’t ask him, “Why, Michael?”

     Two more wishes:

     I wish for a reunited Jacksons. I wish that Michael and Marlon would consider rejoining the group, if only on a part-time basis. For old time’s sake. For my sake.

     And I dream of a reunited Jackson family.

     As much as LaToya hurt the family by posing nude for Playboy and preparing a “tell-all” book on the Jacksons, I long for her reconciliation with us. The Jackson family is not whole without her.

     Although many of her brothers and sisters remained in touch with her, LaToya and I didn’t speak from late 1988 until the spring of 1989. It was the longest period of time, by far, that I’d ever been out of touch with one of my children.

     The first time she called in 1989, I made a point of not bringing up either Playboy or her book. After so long a silence between us I didn’t want to confront her immediately. But the next time she called, in May, I brought up the subject of her nude spread.

     “LaToya, whose idea was it that you pose nude for Playboy?” I asked.

     “It was mine, Mother,” she declared.

     “Come on, LaToya,” I said. “I know you. I know your personality. You’ve only been around me all of your life. And it was completely out of character of you to pose for Playboy. Why did you do it?”

     Silence.

     “Toya, why did you do it?”

     Her continued silence gave me the answer I really already knew: It was her manager Jack Gordon’s doing. I figured that we’d have the identical conversation if I asked her about her book, so I refrained.

     “Toya, from now on,” I said, “don’t let anybody persuade you to do anything that you really don’t want to do. Stand up for what you believe in, and be strong about it.”

     Before we hung up, I told my daughter once again that she was welcome to return home.

     In September 1989, it was reported to me in the media that LaToya and Jack Gordon had married. While LaToya publicly denied the report, I believed it. But I know deep down that LaToya didn’t marry Gordon out of love. In fact, I heard through the grapevine that people close to Gordon had advised LaToya to marry him so that he would be in a better position to “protect” her from her family.