Who does my little girl run to when she is hurt or upset? Who holds her and comforts her like no other? Why, me of course, I'm her mother and like all mothers the love I have for my child is unconditional.

My daughter believes I will love and protect her forever. I would if I could, but what she doesn't know yet is forever doesn't exist, at least not for us mere mortals. There will come a time when I won't be there for her to run to, I'll have passed on, but hopefully not before she's ready to stand on her own and replace me. It's the first lesson of life and sometimes it can be a very hard one to learn.

How hard?

Well, we're about to find out...

"She's sensible, she'll be fine," my sister told me.

I trust my sister's judgment, which is just as well because I've heard it said more than once that five is too tender an age for what my child is about to witness. But I was five, I coped all right, although I do still carry the emotional scars to this day. Everybody does, unless they've no heart.

No going back now though, the music has changed and the age of total innocence will soon be over. I wonder if my daughter's reaction will be the same as mine was, I thought men were wicked. Men that is, not women, because women are mothers and mothers give nothing but love.

"Faster Bambi, faster. Don't look back, keep running."

Oh please, please let both of them make it, but I know very well that they won't. I already have tears in my eyes and I'm a grown woman who's watched this scene any number of times.

It never gets easier and why did it have to be a man that killed Bambi's mother? Wolves could have done the job just as easily. Surely the important lesson was death? Why complicate things? Now every parent has to teach the lessons of mankind's morality as well. That's a tough one and people still argue the toss of what Disney was really up to.

At least Bambi's mother dies half way through, there's time left to show the cycle of life and give the children some hope. Not enough though, because there's only one thing every child watching is thinking... and that's the awful thought that their mother could be next.

Things don't turn out so bad from my point of view. I get the questions I was expecting and I keep my answers simple and direct. Yes, Bambi's mother died but she lived on in his heart. Yes, it was cruel and unfair but remember how cruel that nature program was on TV?

Why was she killed? I don't really know, but animals don't live forever and neither do people. But don't worry, Mummy will be with you for a very long time yet.

I can almost hear her mind whirring away, kids are smart these days and I'm sure she's much more aware of the world around her than I was at her age. There's just one thing she comes out with that bothers me...

"Daddy wouldn't do that."

It's not what she just said so much as how she said it, sounded more like a question than a statement of fact. I can only guess my husband's reaction when I tell him our little girl wants to know if he would shoot Bambi's mother!

Oh well. He's a man, he'll cope and for his own sake he'd better come up with a good answer.

steffanie xxx