I don’t mind people having an opinion, but if they are going to speak out loud, I wish for God’s sake that they would be informed. It gets boring having to constantly correct them. I’m debating getting a few stock answers printed on flyers and just handing them a copy, or rolling it up and poking somewhere unmentionable!!!

Lola x

“sometimes, no matter how hard you try, your child will still turn out to be an absolute nightmare on legs. a feminist upbringing does not preclude your child from becoming an abuser or a rapist or a misogynist or ANYTHING. i would know. and this man absolutely hated women.”

I agree completely, and ultimately every human has to be responsible for their own actions, regardless of how they were raised, and by whom etc That does not mean that we give up trying to raise children with feminist sensibilities, but that there is no guarantee of it working. Children, especially in their early years, learn everything they know about human interactions from watching the adults around them. So, if the adults are not respecting each other, for example, the child learns that the way to communicate with others is with disrespect. Again, that doesn’t excuse anything a child may do later in life, but it may explain it. If this person saw his father being abusive towards his mother, he would have learned that is just how men act towards women – that is how you do it. Now, a lot of children see their fathers being abusive to their mothers, and don’t grow up to be women abusers themselves, because whatever other socialisation the child receives, from other relatives, other children, teachers etc teaches them that what they saw at home was wrong. Anyway, you’re right, there are no guarantees that attempting to raise a child in a certain way will result in the kind of adult you would like to call your offspring. And so to your question:

“if you were a mother, would you really, REALLY want to know that your child was a rapist from someone other than the police? would you even believe someone if they told you that?”

If someone came to me and said that my son had raped them, I would believe them. I would be devastated, and beside myself with worry, and I probably wouldn’t know what to do about it, but I would believe them. I would talk to them, and listen to them, and believe them. I would most likely confront my son about it too. Apart from that, I have no idea what I would or wouldn’t do, and I hope I never have to find out.

I think, if you really want to tell his mother, even though there’s nothing that can be done now, perhaps you should. You may not be the first, and you may not be the last. She might be understanding about it. I don’t know, I’m just waffling really – but thanks for this post, and I’m sorry (again) that you have this in your life to put up with.

Because of this post, specifically.