Parents need to stop blaming schools for their children s behaviour and start taking responsibility
Parents who think they can outsource the most important life lessons to their child s school really need to think again
1 April 2021 • 3:30pm
Always listening: I am aware that my behaviour is being absorbed by four young beings
Credit: Blend Images
As a parent of four teenagers, all of whom are going through the independent school system, I have sat in countless beautiful chapels and gilded halls listening to head teachers promise that if we will give them our child they will turn them out into well-educated, courteous young ‘gentle’ men and women.
The Australian parliament and the Scott Morrison government are being rocked by an incident in which a young female adviser alleges she was raped in a minister’s office after returning from a night’s drinking with colleagues.
As a teenage boy I saw my mother beaten and assaulted as a result of domestic violence, so I’m the first to agree that women can be shamefully abused and victimised by men. At the same time, I refuse to believe society is riven with misogyny, that all men are guilty and that women are always passive victims.
As a result of the furore surrounding the alleged sexual assault in Canberra, one female commentator repeats the usual feminist tropes about women always being the victim of male dominance and exploitation. Without providing any evidence Caroline Overington, a journalist at