Ever since I watched the 9/11 disaster from our summer home on the shores of New Jersey, this nervous Nellie has been a bit squeamish about going through the long Lincoln Tunnel that runs under the river from New Jersey and opens into the city. The city that I constantly dreamed of as a child, and that has for a long time held my heart, New York. But it finally took nothing stronger than a mother's love to pull me back again to the city of survival. My son, the rock star, was coming to town.

We arrived at Le Bar Bat on 57th Street where my husband and I were quickly ushered in behind the "big red velvet rope" guarded by men with muscles bigger than Arnold's.

Inside the door, we were stamped like a pork rump that has passed FDA inspection. From there a host herded us toward a pretty young woman in a fetching blue wig with a figure to die for who tagged us with Technicolor hospital-like bracelets that would allow us two free drinks.

She then moved us on to another amazingly handsome young man with the whitest teeth I have ever seen who pinned us with flashing lapel pins that said something I couldn't for the life of me read upside down. It could have said "Big Jerk for Letting This be Pinned on You", for all I knew. He then sent us on to another beautiful girl wearing a pink wig who decked us out in fluorescent blue neck ring. I think she said something about free massages and Tarot card reading, but before I could question my hearing that was altered severely by my rock concert earplugs, we were moved along like a herd of cattle by the swell of enthusiastic Tonic fans behind us.

One would think that after a few years of attending rock concerts and hanging out in the dressing room with kids who are my age divided by three, that I would be used to it by now. But long ago I have given up my pathetic attempts to blend in and not be so obviously, "What is she doing here?" The truth is that even the 'clueless' figure out that my husband and I have to be someone's parents.

Trust me, if you ever want to feel your age, just go to a rock concert. It is a humbling experience being with kids who never think they are ever going to be, nor look as old as you.

But in the end there is sweet ex-girlfriend revenge for old folks like us. While others are tramping through the cold to city garages, or waiting in the chilly night wind for a cab, bus, or subway to take them home, life can be sweet for the parents of a rock star.

For instance, when your son gives you a lift at 3 a.m. back to your Chelsea apartment in his new bright tour bus that is as long as a New York City cross-town block and the color of Christmas. And better than that, when he then drops you smack in front of your canopied door, you know you have a special life.

So what if the few bleary-eyed people wandering in the streets at that ungodly hour were scratching their heads at us two tired button-down seniors hopping (actually dragging) out of this crimson machine made to carry only young, hip people. And, okay, what if being supportive of your kid's things kind of makes you seem crazy sometimes. The truth for us is that there are no better perks that stepping out of a big red bus in the middle of the morning after a great night of forgetting how old you really are. Life just doesn't get better than that!

Sandra Hart is the former Ms. Sandra of the children's television program Romper Room and is a working actress in both film and television, an award-winning author and a popular motivational speaker. She is a member of the National Leadership council of NARSAD (National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression) and host of http://www.sandrahart.net and http://www.livingwithpmr.com