Photo gallery of Millie in courtKEY POINTS:
Pukhtoon women believe that keeping a sharp dagger under a newborn's pillow will protect it against evil spirits. Some Jewish mothers put red ribbons and garlic in a baby's crib to ward off demons and amber or coral amulets are believed to keep children safe from harm. Would that there was a talisman that could protect our children from drugs.
When TV3 breathlessly broadcast that Millie Holmes, daughter of broadcaster Paul Holmes, was being held in Auckland Central Police station after being charged with serious drug offences, plenty of parents knew exactly what Paul was going through.
It's every parent's nightmare to receive the late-night phone call - a phone call that can only mean trouble - and if you are a parent with a high public profile, that nightmare is magnified. Everyone has an opinion and everyone has a theory as to why your child has headed down the road to perdition.
When I heard the news, I rang Paul. I've known him for years, and there was a time when our children played together. The girls' paths diverged long ago, but I remember Millie and Kate as 4-year-olds, both of them cute as buttons and very much loved. The thought of that gorgeous young girl appearing in court on such serious charges filled me with horror.
And I ached for Paul, and indeed for every parent of a child who's made a wrong call. We all make mistakes, some bigger than others, and most of us are able to recover and learn from them. Some mistakes, however, are so monumental that nothing can make them right.
When I spoke to Paul, he sounded as I imagine every other parent with a child in serious trouble would sound - broken, exhausted and full of self-doubt. In such circumstances, you would question and re-examine every decision you had ever made in raising your child.
Was I too strict/too indulgent? Did I feed their self-esteem too little/too much? Were they given too much freedom/not enough? On and on it would go, the self-reflective soul searching.
And it's all very well and good telling parents that children will make their own decisions, and that we have to let them make their own mistakes - but our children's mistakes are never their own. The pain and self-recrimination involved when a young person stuffs up go well beyond the child and the immediate family.
Mum and I can laugh about it now, but it's only now that I'm a parent that I can appreciate the worry I must have induced when I rang home to tell my staunchly Catholic parents that their only daughter was pregnant, with no intention of getting married. Opening the Sunday papers to read that I'd been convicted of drink-driving was another low point.
I have very few regrets in life, but one of them is that Dad never saw me come right.
That was one of his mantras whenever news of my latest indiscretion broke. "She'll come right," he'd say. And I did, although he went to his grave never actually seeing the evidence that I had done so.
When I held my own baby in my arms, I understood what it was to love. I wanted the best for my girl, as every parent does, and I feared for her - again, as every parent does.
There are dangers around every corner and we cannot protect our children from all of them. We must cherish them and reward them when they make the right choices, and nurture them and love them when they make bad ones. So far, so good, with my girl.
But then, she's seen what can happen when you make wrong choices. She remembers living in a one-bedroom flat in Wellington when I was a waitress, where I slept on a mattress in the lounge and she had the bedroom. She remembers having to get up early to catch the bus to school because Mum had lost her licence, and she really doesn't want to go through it again.
But let's face it, she could have gone either way. It's a mixed blessing growing up in the public eye - although there are plenty of perks, the spotlight can't be switched on and off at will. And let's face it, when you're in trouble, all the freebies and special invitations in the world count for nothing unless you have parents who stand by you.
In that respect, Millie Holmes is a truly privileged child.
