By Veena Bharwani

AS I interviewed Brenda and Sarah, one thought kept flashing: 'How am I going to raise a daughter in the future? It's just too scary.'

Sarah's story may not be the norm. She comes from a broken family, with a father who is in jail and a mother who is struggling to support her and four younger siblings.

But what about Brenda, who comes from a stable home environment? According to her counsellor, she has loving supportive parents, whom she is close to. She is smart, yet made errors of judgement when it came to sex.

So there is no guarantee that if I have a daughter, she will make the right decisions when it comes to men and relationships.

I was lucky. I was the youngest girl in my family and I had an established line of family members - my brother, father and grandfather - 'governing' me and protecting me.

My late grandmother, who perhaps watched too many Hindi movies, spent a lot of time telling me to be sceptical of men, no matter how nice they seem to be.

During my teenage years, I also spent a lot of time with a highly-educated aunt and I badgered her and asked her a lot of questions about men and relationships and, yes, sex.

So I had everything to protect me - a loving and secure home environment, and all the right facts about relationships and sex.

But what about the daughter I hope to have? Yes, I can try and provide the same secure foundation that I grew up with and give her all the information she needs.

But, times have changed and I'm not sure if I would able to impose the same rules that I grew up with on my daughter.

There are also other threats which didn't exist in my time, such as sexual predators on the Internet. Also, given the amount of time that parents nowadays devote to work, I'm not sure if I can guarantee the same attention to my daughter.

The worry list doesn't end there.

As one school counsellor said: 'Some parents become too friendly with their children and their kids tend to take advantage of this and push the boundaries too much.'

Being well-off and giving your child a good allowance can also be detrimental, apparently. Counsellors say that some teenagers with good allowances use the money to check into hotel rooms to have sex.

I can only hope that I can strike a balance between being protective and being accessible.