Britney Spears.

That name likely evokes horror in the minds of mothers everywhere. It certainly does in mine.

I know she’s not the worst one ever to walk the face of the earth – it could be a lot worse – but she’s probably the most popular &uot;bad&uot; mother ever.

I don’t follow celebrity gossip as a rule, but it’s hard to ignore when she regularly makes headlines on CNN instead of just the supermarket tabloids like most of her peers.

My co-worker Amanda VanDerBroek and I both love to peruse national news sites, so we sometimes find ourselves discussing her latest atrocities.

Honestly, I can’t for the life of me figure out what goes on in that girl’s head.

After having custody taken from her for drug and drinking problems, she went on to mess up even her visitation rights by one night refusing to return her two young boys.

On that instance, she had to be briefly and mysteriously hospitalized.

Now, for the second time, she was supposed to appear in court to fight for her rights to visitation, but suddenly walked out of the courthouse without ever appearing in the courtroom.

What on earth?

I mean, I understand that celebrities are constantly hounded by photographers and the press, but really, if it’s that horrible then why don’t you hear about other celebrities freaking out and going wacko?

Britney is one of a kind.

I feel terribly sorry for her two innocent children because they are the ones suffering in all of this.

Amanda and I were saying today, imagine how those two are going to feel when they’re 15, 16 years old and are reading about their mother and the way she apparently doesn’t even care enough to fight for them.

If she can’t even get herself together long enough to ask a judge for the rights to visit her children, then I don’t know how in the world she can even function as a human being.

She has time to go out and party, but can’t take an hour to try to see her kids?

I just don’t get it.

Part of me thinks that she secretly loves media attention and so purposely pulls these stunts just to get idiots like me to write about it.

(Yet here I go, doing it anyway!)

And no wonder… Britney is like a puzzle just begging to be figured out.

I’m sure that I’m only one of many who wonder if there is some method to her madness or if she’s really just that crazy.

According to People, last weekend she invited two photographers back to her home for champagne after working on a dance routine for her new upcoming song.

If that doesn’t scream, &uot;I want attention,&uot; then I don’t know what does.

I only wish she would come to her senses before her 1-year-old and 2-year-old grow up and realize their &uot;mother&uot; (and I use that word loosely) would apparently rather live the high life than fight to spend time with them.

Want to let me know what you think?

Have a suggestion for a future column? Feel free send an email to: jennipher.dickens@r-cnews.com or call (252) 332-7208.