YES, I have to admit I am the sort of mum who has control over what my children do in their lives. I like to know where they are and what they are doing 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

I say things like, "yes, you can go to the park and play with your roller blades," or "no you can't walk down the road to granny's alone in the dark".

To date I have been well on top of the situation, feeling confident about my ability to sense any hint of danger in their plans. This notion of danger is quite far reaching too. Nintendo, for example, is out of the question - it could render them completely thick.

Similarly, no video nasties in my home. Whether or not this would cause them untold psychological harm is, I accept, open to debate, but it would certainly terrify them.

Now, out of the blue, technology has infiltrated the protective fortress in the form of a brand new computer from their grandmother in New York and I find myself having a bit of a panic attack. I don't understand this business at all.

Will they be playing hours of blow one another up games with their CD Rom? Or will they grow up with a limited knowledge of the world because they can bypass anything they have no interest in and enter the realms of "selective learning"? Will they become warmongers? Will their brains stultify? Will they become zombies?

Computers are the future I'm told. I think it would be a bad idea to refuse to allow them to use it.

So there they are, on the internet, playing in cyberspace - is this dangerous? Where exactly is it? And who are they hanging out with Mandy the virtual porn queen?

Suddenly I haven't really got a clue what they are doing or where are they going. "I don't know what your talking about dear," does not sound like the voice of parental authority to me. This net surfing stuff is bad news for control freaks.