Elvis' Girl Shown Partying With Daughter
Dec. 5, 2006 — -- A prominent celebrity gossip site is running a picture of Lisa Marie Presley purportedly holding back the hair of her 17-year-old daughter as she kisses her 24-year-old boyfriend in a West Hollywood nightclub.
"That's what [Hollywood] moms are for," reads a brief description running under the photo, on PerezHilton.com, of Presley; her daughter, Riley Keough; and Keough's boyfriend, pop star Ryan Cabrera.
There have long been tales of parents in Hollywood partying with their kids -- and numerous critics believe it's not healthy.
"Some of these parents get so caught up in their kids' careers, they start to think they're celebrities themselves," said Katrina Szish, an ABC News contributing correspondent and Us Weekly magazine contributor. "A parent's job, especially of a young celebrity, is to remain a parent and not get caught up in the glamour, and I think a lot of Hollywood parents do."
Lindsay Lohan's mother, Dina Lohan, has been a gossip page fixture for appearing at parties with her 20-year-old daughter.
On Friday the New York Post reported that Lohan, who's reportedly been attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, drank champagne and launched into a tirade at the GQ Men of the Year dinner "under the watchful eye of her hard-partying mom-ager."
And Joe Simpson, father of Ashlee and Jessica Simpson, has been reportedly seen at a nightclub with Ashlee and sometimes criticized in the media for his close involvement in his daughters' careers.
"Joe Simpson is definitely an enabler -- not necessarily when it comes to partying but when it comes to promoting Jessica's sex symbol image," Szish said. "This former minister is really enabling the sexy sort of dumb blond image that his daughter has been able to cash in on."
She said Simpson's published comments about Jessica's physical attributes are "just gross."
Not all Hollywood parents appear as closely involved with their kids, Szish said.
"I think of someone like Natalie Portman or someone like Dakota Fanning," she said. "You never see those girls getting out of control on the party circuit, so obviously those parents are doing something right."
Anne Pleshette Murphy, parenting consultant to ABC News' "Good Morning America," said parents who share too much with their young children could be doing them few favors.
"Kids do not need you to be their best friends," she said. "They need you to be their parents. Parents need to share their values. That's incredibly important. That's your role as a parent. Treating them like they're your girlfriend is definitely not what kids need. Being the cool parent ultimately translates to being the parent who nobody respects."
