Pretty soon, we're going have to amend the favorite mom and dad moniker of the moment. Those much vaunted helicopter parents are turning into black-helicopter parents.

latest bit of high-tech surveillance equipment being marketed to parents. A company inauspiciously named Bladerunner has begun selling a jacket with a GPS device sewn into the lining. For a mere $500 plus $20 a month, a parent can track a child, or at least his jacket, all day long.

Once upon a time

a parent had two weapons for keeping kids out of danger: They kept their mouths open and their fingers crossed. Once upon that time, the second set of ears and eyes on children were those of neighbors.

Now we have a disharmonic convergence of anxieties, the dual fear that kids are endangered and/or dangerous, out of (our) control.

At the same time, parents are expected to know and control everything their kids watch, eat, do -- where they are, who they are texting, what channels and Web sites they are viewing.