No one knows a daughter like her mother. And Amy Winehouse’s mom, Janis, is smart enough to already know about her daughter’s tattooed, belligerently drunk obstinacy. But she’s still worried, and has released to a local London paper a passionately concerned letter, begging her daughter to “come home” so that Janis can “wrap her in a warm blanket.” This letter comes after photos surfaced of the six-time Grammy nominee wandering the streets of London in her underwear.
If my mother wants to talk to me, she calls me on the phone or writes me an email. What she doesn’t do is to write a letter to the local city newspaper to beg me to come home. (Although, given, I am less taken to near-naked city wandering than Winehouse seems to be.)

Winehouse’s mother believes her daughter, who has been nominated for six Grammy awards, has struggled to deal with the attention her success has brought her.
“Early fame has overwhelmed you, it’s dizzied you and muddled your mind. For a moment, forget you’re a superstar. You’re also young and vulnerable, no stronger than any of the rest of us.
“You think you’re strong enough to get through this on your own, darling, but you’re not.”

While it is sort of odd that the only way Mrs. Winehouse thinks she can reach Amy is through a newspaper story, in some ways her speaking up is less odd than the reactions of the parents of other “troubled celebrities,” most notedly Britney’s and Lindsay’s moms, both of whom regularly are seen in the company of their intoxicated or otherwise misbehaving daughters and don’t seem to have an opinion about excising those dangerous behaviors from their lives.
Can you imagine what would happen if Mrs. Lohan or Mrs. Spears spoke up to one of their daughters, and said, “Honey, I’m worried. Let’s get you some help.” They might still be in the midst of whatever rebellion is caused by growing up too fast, with too much attention and way too much money, and might respond by pushing parental attention away. But maybe a well-placed word from the one woman in the world who has known them the longest might help.
It is undoubtedly this kind of scenario that Mrs. Winehouse had in mind when she had to take her concern to the media–a hope that concern will lead to her daughter’s salvation.