I wonder which would be worse: living next door to a paedophile hostel next door, or next door to a free-range chicken farm? That must be a tough one for Sun journalists to answer, given their preoccupation with paedophiles and bird flu (a paedophile with bird flu - that would possibly be the perfect Sun story).

This is one of those issues where I get into trouble, so I'll first off say that of course it is really sad about Sarah Payne, and all the other children who are abused and even killed by stranger paedophiles. But the way the newspapers go on, a person has something wrong with them if they don't think that sex offenders (not all of whom are paedophiles) should be branded and painted orange so we all know who they are. And then shipped off to live on an uninhabited island somewhere.

What none of them stop to consider is that not all paedophiles are known to be such, and most sexual (and other) abuse of children is perpetrated be people known to the family, or indeed family members. [Switches on 'old lady' mode] In my day, we were told about strange men, and told not to let anyone mess with our 'privates'. We were told never to get in a car or go off with anyone even if they said they knew our parents. Then we were left to it, in a dangerous world full of flashers and perverts. Except that we thought that was normal, and we laughed that younger kids should need a cat who couldn't talk to tell them to beware of the man with the puppies [switches off 'old lady' mode].

In a way, it is like universal precautions in hospital. Universal precautions means that you always wear gloves and pinnies for certain procedures, and for more dangerous ones you wear gowns and masks, maybe even goggles, too. You do it for everyone, so you are protected from everyone's germs. Periodically staff would moan and say they wanted to know if people had HIV or whatever. I always argued that I was happy that the level of precaution I took with everyone was sufficient to protect me from everything, so why would I need to know a person's HIV (or HepB, or whatever) status? It would make no difference to the barriers I was using. Actually, come to think of it, the people who wanted to know most were the ones who hardly bothered to use universal precautions. And what if someone was HIV clear, but unbeknownst to anyone had TB?

That's the situation we're in with paedophiles, I think. We're looking helplessly at the government and shouting 'protect us!' instead of teaching our children to look out for the signs of danger from anyone.

There's no need to go mad about it. When Little 'Un is in the bath, I'll periodically remind him that his 'jumblies'(!) are private, and they are only for getting out in the bathroom, the bedroom, and the doctors (if asked). They are for him and no one else, and if anyone else tries to mess with them, then he must tell mummy straight away. No big deal. He must hold my hand when we are out shopping because there are a very few nasty people around who might want to snatch him. No big deal.

The people whose children (often younger than Little 'Un) are running blythely around the shopping centre are probably the ones who want to know where the paedophiles are. What are they intending to do with that information? Do they imagine that paedophiles don't have cars, don't go to shopping centres, don't go on holiday, don't visit friends and family?

Knowledge isn't always power. Say you find out that a paedophile lives next door. How does that change how you or your child should react to him? Are you going to move? Maybe even unwittingly move next door to another paedphile who hasn't been caught yet?

We can't protect our children 100%, and nor can the government. Sometimes they have to do part of the job themselves.