To parents of teenagers

It is over 20 years since my son was a teenager and while I did not have the conversation in the way it was discussed in this article, DS was most explicitly clearly taught to respect women. It was something that came up in many conversations I had with him.

But he had grown up in a family where everybody was treated with respect and demeaning remarks about other people or groups of people were not part of family discourse. His group of friends came from families with the same values as ours.

I think it is much more difficult now. I was discussing with DS and DiL this weekend the problems of teaching their two children, GS, aged 3 and GD, aged 6 proper respect and values in a world where it is almost impossible to protect them from online pornography. However careful you are at home, you have no control on what they see on other people's computers/mobile phones and tablets.

My sons are lovely lads, happily married or engaged, in good jobs, university graduates etc, but we DID have a similar talk. I told them about safe sex, about what stops the pill working and why they should always use a condom, and about being responsible. Their Dad told them to respect women and never treat them like objects. He also said that if they did get a girl pregnant they would take their share of responsibility for the child.

This was not because we thought for an instant that they would do anything bad to a girl - they were brought up to be kind and responsible: it was just that we wanted them to face up to the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be.

Anyway, they never got into any of that sort of trouble, but that's beside the point. The Talk us necessary.

Of course, what form 'The Talk' will take in the future is anyone's guess. Times change.....