IT'S not that I don't love them because I do. It's part of the deal, in the contract - unconditional.

Of course I respect them, more so now than I ever did. They brought me up, made the sacrifices, paid the college bills.

But I just can't shy away from a painful fact. The Folks are stupid.

In the early years I just saw them as embarrassing and would walk the obligatory 10 paces behind them when being dragged round town on a Saturday afternoon. But over the past few years I have become to regard them as a touch slow and it's only now that I dare share this with others.

Because I believe this is not exclusive to me. All parents are stupid.

It's not their fault. In their day, I'm sure they thought the same about their parents and when I am a parent, I too will give my offspring the impression that I am decidedly daft. It doesn't matter what achievements they made - or are yet to make - children have a dim view of the very people who brought them into the world.

Take Ozzy Osbourne. He has sold countless millions of albums, influenced generations of musicians and is still taking America by storm as the star of MTV's most successful programme ever with a fly-on-the-wall documentary chronicling life in the Osbourne household.

But what the show reveals (as viewers will see when it hits MTV screens in this country from Sunday) is that the self-proclaimed Prince of Darkness is just like a dad.

He can't work the remote control, has no respect from his children - one of whom even moved out when the cameras moved in - and ultimately comes across as a clueless fiftysomething trying to hold on by his shaky fingertips to his unruly clan - just like my dad and (I would guess) most others.

Society is to blame here. The world we live in is vastly different from what the Folks knew when they were my age.

Things were more simple then, less fickle, a lot more reliable.

My dad has kept the same trade he learned as a 16-year-old school leaver, while I am in my fifth different profession.

Entertainment for the Folks was confined to three channels on the television (then four) or listening to either tape or album of the more established artists' latest release. And they were happy.

Give them the remote control for the Digital flat-screen plasma television with stereo-surround sound and built-in sub-woofers, then tell them to flick through the 86 channels and they would look at you blankly. Dare to mention DVD and they would think you were talking about a complaint from sitting down too long and offer you an aspirin.

As for computers, Mother Dearest still thinks you could start World War III if you press the wrong button on a laptop.

When going out they went to the local pub (where you drank) or the same restaurant (where you ate) and tucked into some good old English food.

Nowadays the pub and the restaurant have got themselves so mixed up nobody knows which is which any more.

Ask the Folks about Will Young and Gareth Gates and they think you are talking about work colleagues.

Drop the name Limp Bizkit into conversation and they slowly inch away from you - and then offer the aspirins again.

You have to feel sorry for parents in today's world, revolving at break-neck speed.

The only way to know what it is like for them is to imagine being snaffled by aliens and dumped on a planet completely at odds to the one you left behind.

Whether that constitutes them being stupid is perhaps a trite harsh but the world's not going to slow down for anybody - and it's about time they caught up!