When dreams turn to nightmares

The life of a parent is full of dreams and visions. From the moment a child is born its parents project themselves into the future, forever in the role of good fairy to their own offspring, taking them by the hand from their first walking step, their first day at school, their first sight of the sea, even, far into the future, to marriage and children of their own. What nobody could ever begin to imagine - because bad thoughts might act as a magnet for bad luck - is passing the night waiting for the police to investigate the earth of a woodland floor which may cover their child's body.

The mind of a parent whose child has gone missing is a place which most parents have tried to visit only briefly, either when their own child vanishes momentarily, as children do, or when other peoples' children disappear. We can attempt to feel ourselves there,out of sympathy, but it is a place of such pain, such suspended emotion, such unplaced and unfocused feeling, that nobody can sense or describe it who hasn't been there. It is a state of no rest and a state of constant, agonised searching and self-questioning.

Parents whose children have gone missing and never been found are condemned to this state for ever. These parents, who search the faces of children in the street for years after, before reminding themselves that their child, had he or she lived, would be grown up by now, say that if their child had died it would have been easier. They say that a death is an ending, something appalling, but something to grieve and something to lay to rest.

Nevertheless, none of those parents would want to be in the place of the Chapmans and the Wells family last night, anticipating that their childrens' bodies might soon be found and the searching and the suspense would be over.

The disappearance of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, from the heart of a family barbecue, is baffling and somehow worse than other vanishings because the two of them were together. It is always a reassurance to know your child is with a friend.

And then Holly and Jessica are so modern, so jolly and feisty in their David Beckham football shirts. They are just the sort of little girls that 21st century parents try to bring up: bright, independent, savvy, friendly, at ease in technoworld with their computer skills and Jessica's mobile phone.

They seem to have wandered off when they shouldn't have - but they were in their home village, a safe place, an excellent practice ground for a life of growing independence.

Even outside small villages, parents nowadays like their kids to show some initiative. We want them to be safe and to do what they're told but if they cross the line and come back safely we secretly admire them for their nerve.

Families draw up rules and expect children to obey them, for everyone's sake, but deep down we'd secretly rather have kids that show a streak of independence and take the odd risk, than boring kids who do exactly what they're told and never risk anything. Parents may worry constantly about their children's safety and the dangers of modern life but they also know that children who never think for themselves and are models of obedience don't have much of a hope in the outside world. And that is our dilemma as parents. How do you simultaneously protect children and yet give them the experience and self-confidence to be able to protect themselves?

I would be very surprised if thoughts like this haven't been going through the agonised minds of Holly and Jessica's parents over the last week. The worst pain is learning that you can't protect the ones you love. But the pain is worse for a parent because protecting those you love is your job, your raison d'?tre as mother or father. I don't know a parent who didn't love that phase of childhood when you knew that your children were all safely tucked up in bed. But that total control doesn't last long.

The disappearance of Holly and Jessica is not their parents' fault. Self-blame is a natural parental reaction to the disappearance of a child, but what can these parents blame themselves for? Their daughters had been given all the usual lessons and the usual warnings and were expected to obey all the usual rules. They were cooperative, loving, bright children from loving, protective homes who, in a split second of mischance, met the wrong person at the wrong time. It is nobody's fault except the abductor's.

You could argue that the very success of their upbringing gave them the self-assurance to be unaware of danger until it was too late. And yet I don't see how any of it - the upbringing, the schooling, the village community, the exuberance of two happy, unaware girls - could have been any different.

What would be a mistake now would be for the shadow of these events to fall across the lives of our children. Venturing into the world is what children were designed for, what they must do. The answer is not to keep them indoors like hothouse flowers, nor to fill them with irrational fear of strangers. The fact is that their own families are far more dangerous to children than strangers, and most of the 490 children abducted annually are taken by a family member.

What our children need - and this doesn't apply in Holly and Jessica's case - is more more adventurous and confidence-building activities undertaken with the encouragement and mentoring of concerned adults. It's too easy to leave them to the TV and computer. The more that the good adults are out there keeping an eye on the children, the less chance the very rare bad ones have of taking them away.