MOMMIE DEAREST

It's not the first time it's happened, so we presume that Madonna giving another interview to tell everyone about what a tough mother she is means that it's vitally important to Madonna that we know all about her take-no-bullshit approach to parenting. We're not entirely sure why a woman who stole acres of British countryside to protect her privacy and save her children from the public gaze thinks it's not an invasion of their privacy to talk about their tantrums and behaviour, but at least it confirms that she treats her own family the way she treats everybody else - people to be told what to do.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing is that one of Madonna's punishments is making the children wear the same outfit more than once - that probably doesn't sound much, but can you imagine if Vogue found out?

There's also a puzzling aspect to her approach to media. Taking a very upper class view that TV is for appearing on, not watching, even while she wants to create a TV series aimed at young girls (Kabbalah-themed, of course: "Each episode would be about girls finding themselves in challenging situations."), she won't actually let her own kids watch the telly:

"TV is poison. I was raised without it and didn't miss anything. My kids don't watch it. We have televisions but they're not hooked up to anything but movies."

You really hope that this is just a big fib to try and avoid having to pay the TV licence, but it isn't, is it? And, to be fair, Madonna did turn out alright despite not having TV at home - she didn't flee to New York and start making porn until she way well into her teens, and there's nothing spoiled or twitchy about her now she's an adult, is there?

And we're delighted there's no double standards at all about refusing to allow any sort of trashy television in - Newsround, The McLaughlin Group - while ensuring a flow of Hollywood fayre can come washing in. We wonder what they did when Guy Ritchie's thing was on Channel 4? Did they pop round to the Neighbours?

Seriously, though, it's a home where there's no TV news. So they must learn about the wider world from other sources, right?

"We don't have magazines or newspapers in the house, either."

Hang about... Madonna is unable to watch TV news, and doesn't read newspapers or magazines. We're starting to see why she's drifting away from the world so speedily...

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