Our kids can't watch the movies that scared us.

Some years ago, my daughter had a friend over for the night and wanted to watch a scary movie. I suggested "Psycho", the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock movie that had scared my generation into not taking showers. I turned it on for them and left the room.

Later they told me that it wasn't scary at all, that the guy with the knife in that famous shower scene was "lame" and that they didn't understand why I'd recommended it.

What I realized was that our kids have become so used to hacking and mutilating in movies that the impact of that shower scene just didn't register anymore. They were so used to much more graphic depictions of brutality that my idea of what was shocking was just standard stuff these days.

Which I find a little shocking.

I know about the "Saw" films, though I've never seen one (and don't plan to). Apparently there is so much sadism in movies these days, aimed at teens and those slightly older, that the old standards of what should be shown in movies just doesn't apply. These kids, yours and mine, are growing up thinking that torture is okay as long as it's only in a movie. And really nasty torture scenes, played out in slo-mo. But how do we know that a few kids in the audience -- the potential psycho-paths -- aren't seeing this as a rationale for doing that themselves? Why give them the artistic license to play this out in real life?

Movies are powerful. They influence our lives. The best inspire us. The worst are forgotten. But the most diabolical may stay with some of us in ways the move-makers never intended. There is no artistic merit to the "Saw" films. But they influence at least some of our kids. When torture and mutilation and pure violence is shown on the big screen, some disturbed kid is going to take that as license.

Should we censor movies? No. Adults should be able to watch anything we want, however repugnant. So how do we keep these other movies out of the minds of the most vulnerable -- and most dangerous? Well, we have a rating system, but it's pretty pourous. It filters out lots of sex but lets through lots of horrendous violence. Which is more dangerous? Would you rather your kid see some girl's nipple in a sex scene or see that nipple snipped off by a maniac's shears?

It's one of the dilemmas of living in a democracy. Anyone can put anything in print on the screen or online. We can't -- and shouldn't -- censor it. But is there a way to monitor it? To alert our kids to the dangers? I hope so.

It all comes down -- wouldn't you know it? -- to the parents. Aren't we always the ones left holding the bag? When everyone else bails out, it's always the parents we blame. Why didn't you just shut off the TV? Why didn't you keep your kids off the internet?

Jesus, can't somebody cut us parents a little slack once in a while? Can't someone higher up in the government rise to the occasion and say "Enough of this random violence on TV and in video games"? Why doesn't someone blame the game-makers, the movie mavens for a change?

Why is is always left to the parents, who have so little control over what society gives our kids to watch?

"Psycho" was a movie about a grown-up boy who couldn't imagine living without his mother, so he kept her alive --long after she was dead, but not to him. So far as I know, the "Saw" movies are mainly about torturing and killing innocent people for no good reason. One was a serious study of a psychotic killer; the others are just an exploitation of that murderous impulse.

Is there really no difference?

Correct me if I'm wrong.