MADONNA has declared her children are not allowed to watch TV. "TV is trash... poison. We're a TV-free house," she said last week.

It is enough to strike terror into the hearts of the Queen of Pop's devoted followers who, up until now, have treated her every utterance with a certain reverence. For the young wannabe bleach blonde Madonna fans of the Eighties are now thirtysomething mothers themselves.

Like the central character of India Knight's comic novel My Life On A Plate, many women still emulate the stylish, gutsy, sassily independent and terrifyingly powerful Madonna they have grown up with.

Every time Knight's heroine Clara, struggling to cope with divorce and single motherhood, finds herself in the midst of a personal crisis, she asks: "Now, what would Madonna do?" or "What would Madonna say?"

Stuck in the middle of a personal crisis of my own this week - rain, five squabbling boys, half-term, tea-time - I asked the same question: "What would Madonna do?"

Since, I imagined, Madonna would order her chef to cook a macrobiotic meal, summon a member of staff to entertain the children, and then gallop off over the fields on one of her prize thoroughbreds, there was nothing else for it. I switched on the TV.

It was six o'clock, time for The Simpsons. So I enjoyed a golden half hour of silence while I got on with the sausage and mash.

Madonna would have been horrified. But show me a woman who bans her children from watching TV, I thought, and I'll show you a woman with a round-the-clock team of nannies.

The viewing habits in our house are best summed up in a hilarious scene from another of our favourite TV programmes, Malcolm In The Middle, where the American sitcom family arrive at their holiday destination and let their youngest son, Dewey, run on ahead to explore their accommodation.

Minutes later, he runs out screaming in terror, waving his arms in the air, face as white as a sheet. "What's wrong Dewey?" they ask. "There's no TV. There's no TV," he squeals, horrified. The only difference is that, in our family, it would probably be the parents doing the screaming.

Unlike Madonna, I am happy to turn on the TV in return for some peace and quiet. While I do draw the line at TVs in bedrooms, we recently bought a DVD player for the car so that long journeys are no longer such a nightmare.

So what if Madonna thinks I'm a lazy, feckless mother? It's important for children to have a taste of popular culture. I fondly remember gathering round the TV set with my parents and brothers and sisters every week to enjoy Coronation Street. Now we do it with our boys. And I like to think they might do the same in years to come with their children.

As well as the Street, The Simpsons and Malcolm in the Middle, we enjoy watching programmes like the trashy X-Factor, Strictly Come Dancing and the recent Dr Who series together. Sometimes it's pure entertainment, sometimes it's much better than that.

I feel sorry for anyone among my generation who looks blank and falls suddenly silent when the subject of Crackerjack, John Craven's Newsround, Magpie or Mr Benn comes up in conversation at a party. And when they can't even sing along to the theme tune of The Double Deckers, they're truly out in the cold.

TV is a common cultural denominator. A friend who lived in France for a year in the Eighties found everyone repeating the catchphrase "Giss a Job" and talking about Yosser when she returned home. Never having seen Boys From The Blackstuff, she hadn't a clue what they were on about. "I really felt I'd missed out on something important," she said, "Like I was really out of touch."

At times, it may be trashy, even, as the Queen of Pop says, poisonous. But I'm sticking with TV. After all, who wants their child to grow up to be the sort of High Court judge who one day asks: "Who are the Rolling Stones," or even: "Who, exactly, is Madonna?"

A FRIEND'S 11-year-old daughter saw an item on the news recently about Margaret Thatcher's 80th birthday celebrations. "Margaret Thatcher... Margaret Thatcher... I know that name from somewhere," she said. "Was she married to Henry VIII?"

I WONDERED if my three-year-old had grasped the change of name when his playgroup leader returned from honeymoon as Mrs Rogers, where previously she was Miss Sidgwick. "Was Mrs Rogers at work this week?" I asked him casually. "Yes. But, you know Mum, she's just the same as Miss Sidgwick..."

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