NOW is not what one might call a golden moment for Hollywood parenting, especially if one is the teenage or early 20-something daughter of a highly strung celebrity.

Whitney Houston's 18-year-old offspring Bobbi Kristina is reportedly on suicide watch after informing relatives that she "doesn't want to live any more" in the wake of her mother's death last weekend. Courtney Love's daughter Frances Bean, 19, has revealed in a sworn testimony that her drug-addled mother has been putting their lives at risk and is responsible for the death of two family pets. And Demi Moore's daughters are bearing the brunt of the behaviour of their emaciated, increasingly erratic, mother following the demise of her marriage to Ashton Kutcher, an actor nearer their own age.

Time was when teens were the candidates most likely to be involved in drink and drug abuse, mental instability, anorexia, or histrionics over a broken relationship. These days - at least among show business's rich and famous - it is the so-called adults who are off the rails, and the teenagers who must pick up the pieces.

Prior to her death, Houston was observed skipping wildly and doing headstands before being led away from a party by her distraught child. Rumer Willis, 23, is said to have witnessed her mother Moore's collapse into convulsions after smoking an unnamed substance. Moore was then rushed to hospital, in a week that might otherwise have been devoted to celebrations of her third daughter Tallulah's 18th birthday.

Bean said of her mother, on whom she has served a restraining order: "She basically exists on ... Xanax, Adderall, Sonata and Abilify, sugar and cigarettes ... rarely eats ... often falls asleep in her bed while she is smoking, and I am constantly worried that she will start a fire (which she has done at least three times) that will threaten our lives."

Not that Tinsel Town fathers conduct themselves any better. Paris Jackson, 13, has described the masks she was compelled to sport as a child by her superstar father Michael as "stupid". TV star David Hasselhoff's teenage daughter slapped him back to life after one of his many collapses through alcohol poisoning. Actor Alec Baldwin threatened his "rude, thoughtless little pig" of a daughter for refusing to take his calls - which would have been characteristically comic had she not been 11 at the time.

Another day, another teenager on the receiving end of dubious parental life choices. Moreover, it is notably the daughters rather than the sons of such miscreants who shoulder the burden in taking responsibility for their actions. There is something in the adolescent female psyche that prides itself on being mature, on coping, on holding things together against the odds.

I should know, because I was one. Not that my parents were drug-riddled maniacs. However, my mother once admitted she always regarded me, the oldest of five, as an adult. And, boy, did I act like it. One of the reasons I have chosen not to have children is that, ever since I turned 30, I've felt like one of those newly liberated matriarchs who has ushered the offspring into adulthood and can get on with her own life.

The other reason is that parenting is a selfless, frequently menial act that I would not be terribly good at. This is a revelation that does not seem to occur to celebrities, who tend to regard their progeny as - at best - friends on whom to over-depend and - at worst - minor members of their entourage. Thus even "good" celeb parents (Madonna, Jerry Hall, Jade Jagger, the Duchess of York) socialise with their daughters, transforming them into a lesser mini-me.

Your child is not your friend; your child is your responsibility. While you may get top billing in your career, you cannot relegate your offspring to the status of bit players or emotional props.

I understand that suicide occurs at a point where no other option feels possible. However, whether or not Houston took her own life, her actions have fundamentally endangered her daughter's.