Okay, but then why wouldn't you wouldn't use pessimistic locking on the child? (I'm sorry, I'm being very thick, I know).

>Not *if* the only access to the child records was via the parent row's data entry form.
>
>>Okay, I think I'm catching up <s>. IOW, if you pessimistically lock the parent table, then the children are...What? Another user can't change the parent that you have locked, but they could change the children, could they not?
>>