Jay will be 14 in January. In spite of the low timbre of his voice, and the dark fur on his upper lip, my son remains an innocent. In his bedroom, he is listening to a tape of Molokai storyteller Makia Malo and digging through boxes of Legos. He's almost 14, but Jay still spends hours building elaborate structures with the little plastic blocks.

When I was his age, I had already done too much. I hadn't yet had sex, but I had certainly parted with a number of my other little virginities. I had already begun to smoke cigarettes, though I hadn't yet figured out how to inhale. I had been drunk quite a few times, and I'd already smoked grass. And thanks to that rascal Merrill Durham, I had already, at the tender age of 13, seen my first penis. (I covered my eyes with horror at the sight of it, at which point Merrill blushed crimson, covered the offending object with a dishtowel and ran into the kitchen.)

I was a latch-key kid, you see, and I took full advantage of my situation every chance I got. My mother did her best, but she had to work, and I was beyond her control. At the age of 13, I did not want to be a child. I desired maturity and sophistication. I wanted to wear makeup and high heels, and to stay out until the sun rose. I couldn't wait to date men who drove cars.

I was a latch-key kid, headstrong and stubborn. And I got everything I wanted, far too early.

My Mother, The Pit Bull

My friend Jesse, whose childhood was similar to my own in many ways, now chaperones her daughter's middle school dances. She does not sit in the corner talking to other parents about last night's episode of Dharma & Greg. She moves around the dance floor peering through the darkness at all the couples. She gently moves the hands of young boys from the okoles of young girls, and, in soft but unmistakably firm tones, she tells the children to stop the grinding. Her daughter cringes with embarrassment and says that her mother is behaving like a pit bull, but Jesse doesn't care.

Like me, Jesse grew up with little or no supervision. She doesn't want these children to think that their prematurely sexual behavior is acceptable, and is horrified because other parents and teachers pretend it isn't happening. "Slow down," she says to the children. "You are too young to worry about this sort of thing."

Now I, too, am the mother of a teenager, and the pseudo-mother of several other children. Like Jesse, I find myself trying to protect the innocence of my kids with the ferocity of a pit bull.

According to an October study by the Safe America Foundation, 53% of teenagers said that they had come across Web sites containing pornographic, hate-based or violent material. 91% of them say that they hadn't actually been looking for the material – that they'd stumbled onto it unwittingly, while casually surfing or conducting research for school.

The monster is everywhere.

It is ten o'clock on a Sunday morning. I have just joined Internet Relay Chat, and prompted the program to list all active channels. (It might help you to think of IRC as a big party in an infinitely expanding house with an endless number of rooms.)

Currently there are 13,475 open channels – not very many, given that it's Sunday morning. The names of dozens of these channels contain both the words "teen" and "sex". A generous handful of channel names contain the words "teen", "sex", and "rape". There are 58 people in a channel called #!!100%preteengirlsexpics.

And in this same giant place, at this very party, I find at least seventeen channels just for kids.

NO child should be allowed to wander here!

Protect Your Children

Here's a list of the ways in which I keep my children safe.

1. When it comes to computers and children, I am a fire-breathing conservative. I rarely let my kids use the computer. All but a few of their homework assignments are done the old-fashioned way – with a pencil, an eraser, and several big, thick reference books. This provides my kids with an opportunity to work on a number of fundamental skills: penmanship, traditional research, and patience.
2. As many people do, I leave my computer on all the time. My machine's screen saver is password protected and set to start after five minutes of inactivity. This ensures that my kids will never have unauthorized, unmonitored use of the computer. If you're running Windows and want to use this feature, simply right-click on your desktop and select PROPERTIES. Select the tab called SCREEN SAVER from the box that pops up, choose a screen saver if you haven't already got one, and select "Password protect". Windows will walk you through this feature; it's simple and foolproof, and you can't break anything. My Internet connection is also password protected.
3. My kids don't get online – EVER - unless I am sitting in a chair by their side. Even then, I use the "Family Filter" option on my favorite browser to ensure that my kids will never have to look at anything that might rock their little worlds.
4. Chat is out of the question, period. No ICQ, no IRC, no buddy lists. I can count on my fingers the occasions during which I have allowed my kids to talk to another human being online. I believe these were situations in which they could speak one-on-one with their grandma.
5. E-mail, same thing. My children have sent e-mail and they have received it, but much, and not regularly. When they wish to communicate, I give them a stamp and an envelope, or I hand them the telephone.

Some parents purchase filtering software because they think it can adequately shield their children from the Internet's dangers. Others have their kids sign contracts for online safety. And too many let their kids get surf the Net without supervision, trusting that their children will be able to avoid the monster in all its many disguises.

I remember being thirteen, and I will not let my children into the tiger's den alone.

Caroline Wright, of WRIGHT FOR YOU Word Services, is a freelance writer. A former resident of Hawaii, she now lives in rural South Carolina. Feel free to e-mail your comments to Caroline at cw@wrightforyou.com.