Not so long ago, children were brought up on homely advice and instinct. By listening to the mother or the mother-in-law and going with the flow. Today, though, the rules of the game have changed. According to the 2001 Census, there are 3.5 crore children under the age of six in urban India behind whom are double the number of anxious parents. Urban India is changing faster than ever. There are more sources of information, better communication and better technology. The remote control has replaced the rattle, the PlayStation is the new play pen.

Indian parents are faced with a multitude of complicated choices. Can a child really learn more between the ages of one and six than it can ever again in its whole life? Is TV good or bad? How much is too much? Should they first learn to swim or sing? Parenting has grown from being a full-time preoccupation to an investment-centric science, not unlike campaign or portfolio management. The expert advice is coming in from all corners, as counsellors, classes and cyberspace promise the path to effective parenthood and the superachieving child of our dreams.

Grandmother's remedies and nightly story-reading session are no longer seen as enough. An entire industry has been built on the fragile self-confidence and the guilt of the modern Indian parent. There are books and workshops on effective parenting, classes in dance and music for children as young as four years to websites promising all the answers. At one level this has made the Indian parent a more responsive one in contrast to the traditional, unbending disciplinarian. At another it has created pressures on parents who have high expectations of their own efforts and demand high achievement from their children.

Our cover story looks at New-Age parenting, with Special Correspondent Anupama Chopra putting together the story along with countrywide bureaus. Chopra, a young mother of two whose personal struggles to be the perfect parent inspired the story, says, "There is no such thing as a superkid; what you do see are lots of hyper parents." In spite of all the science, analysts and experts, one should, however, not forget that the fundamentals of parenting-love and understanding-will never change even though their means of expression might.