BERLIN, Germany -- International superstar Madonna has a surprisingly tough take on motherhood: She doesn't let her kids watch television or eat candy, she told the German press.

"Children need limits, otherwise they go off the rails," she told the magazine KulturSpiegel. Ignoring television is also an authentic punk-rock attitude, she explained.

But as far as music is concerned, she doesn't want to stop Lourdes and Rocco from listening to anything, she said, adding that she had "confidence in their taste."

"I'm a tough mother," she admitted in another interview given a few days ago in Germany to the Frankfurter Rundschau.

At 49, Madonna said she still considered herself a rebel and wanted to pass on that attitude to her children. "I don't think that it harms children if their parents are always questioning the society in which we live," she told KulturSpiegel.

"If we are going to have to save the world, we might as well enjoy ourselves while we are doing it."

Madonna's new album "Hard Candy" was released Friday in Europe and goes on sale Tuesday in North America.