A MOTHER'S place is in the wrong. And fathers don't fare much better. It's been a bad month for parents. Mothers were banned from the inner sanctum at Wimbledon. Fifteen-year-old maths prodigy Sufiah Yusof disppeared from Oxford and seemed bent on blackening her parents' name and reputation. Then there was the Blairs' little difficulty.

Sufiah's family does seem a little strange. She and her brothers and sisters are all educated at home, with few outside influences. Her father believes in keeping the house cold to stimulate the brain. Not so much a hot-house as a cold frame, but the result has been the same - youthful talent forced to flourish sooner than average. With the result that Sufiah finally has enough and flounces off, spitting vicious e-mails at her parents.

So we all tut, tut and say well, what can you expect? And that it's not natural, and that children have to have their childhood... etc., etc.

But then there are the Williams sisters... I don't know much about their father, but if only half the stories about him are true, then Richard Williams seems pretty driven to me. He apparently tricked his wife into having two more daughters specifically so that he could mould them into tennis champions. Is this the behaviour of a rational man? From toddlerhood they were given tennis rackets and forced to practise, practise, practise. The girls are 18 and 20 and have no boyfriends, little life, it seems, outside tennis and the family. Utter dedication.

And Serena does well and Venus does brilliantly and we all cheer and say well done... You have to be dedicated and single-minded to achieve success. Aren't they lucky to have a father like that... You see the problem?

We judge parents on the way the children turn out. But while we're all there, battling away at the nappy bucket or making them do their homework or letting them go out or making them stay in, we don't KNOW how it's all going to pan out.

Some children, not allowed sweets or television and made to do their homework, their violin practice and go to bed early, turn into fine upstanding pillars of society, focused and hardworking. Others, brought up exactly the same, will go completely off the rails as soon as they leave home. Do you know which it's going to be? No. Neither do I. Neither does any of us. Actually, Sufiah's rebellion, though on a grand scale, is probably very reassuring. Despite that great maths brain, it seems she can be a stroppy little 15-year-old, just like all the others. Her rebellion is probably the most normal thing she's ever done. But we won't know for sure for years.

Parenthood is not an exact science. Children in the same family, with the dollops of the same genes and brought up in identical fashion, can still turn out diametrically different. And who can say why? Most parents do our best, muddle along with high hopes and realistic expectations. And if our children do brilliantly, they'll get all the credit. And if they do badly, well they, and the world, will say it's the parents' fault..

And if you don't agree with me - then blame my mum.

EASY Rider was the first and ultimate road movie of my student days in the 1960s. Thirty years later Peter Fonda astride a Harley Davidson still occasionally lurches into my consciousness - when I'm doing something mundane like washing up or trailing round Tescos - and I dream of bike leathers and freedom and blazing away on the open road.

Then I read about Peter Fonda's latest movie... He's playing the grandfather in the new Thomas the Tank Engine film. That's what happens to rebels. They grow up and became train spotters.

Guess I can put away my leathers... and my dreams.

VERY glad to hear that the Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Michael Turnbull, has declared his support for women bishops. Clearly a man of common sense.

Unfortunately he is one of only six bishops approached by the Sunday Telegraph who were supportive. The rest were either against or dithering. Considering we've had women priests for some years now, the problem is not exactly unexpected, so why does it seem to have taken people by surprise? Women priests in general have brought great energy, enthusiasm and new life into the church. Never has it been needed more.

THERE is hope for us all... after 14 novels and 50 years of rejection slips, 73-year-old Daphne Anson has finally had a book , Family Portraits, accepted by publishers, who say she has "great potential".

Now there's a lesson to all wimps who give up after the first failure, or sob in the corner after the second. Daphne Anson clearly believes in keeping on. I hope Family Portraits is a great success.