I know that your life is full of complicated problems you think I will never understand because I’m the “mom”. Yet, I want you to know that I do understand, and love you for the great man I know you will become, but my sweet little boy, you still have so many lessons to learn, and the idea of consent, will be the first of them.

At first, I did not know how to start this letter to you, how to teach you to be a better man than the one I read about one summer in 2016. Yet, when I looked back and read over the words of a young woman who was deemed a victim, but to me, was a hero in her own right, about a night that changed her life forever, I decided that I never wanted to see your name splattered across a million laptop screens for the same crime that boy committed. I do not want to see you become the villain of any story, or the monster behind a girl’s nightmare because if you do, then you will stay as the boy you are, and never transform into the man I know you can be.

Now, I want you to understand this clearly before I begin, the young woman I will tell you about was sexually assaulted by a Stanford college student named Brock Turner, she did not give consent to the sexual act done to her. Remember that, assaulted. No matter what the media puts in their articles or what a judge believes, that poor young woman was violated by the deepest degree, and the boy, Brock Turner, was given a shorter sentence than the one he deserved after. After the sentencing, the young woman wrote a letter directed at Turner that shook millions of minds across the internet, including mine. I never saw a person break themselves to pieces, and leave themselves bare for not only a jury to see but for their monsters to witness. She stood up against her nightmare and that nightmare was Turner.

Here comes the lesson you need to learn, the concept of consent. You will treat any girl you choose to date with the same respect you give me, if not more. If you are at a party and want to get to know a girl better, start a casual conversation, but do not touch her without her permission. Do not even lay the tip of your finger on her without the word, yes coming from her mouth. She must be sober, her words can not be slurred, her movements slow, and if you see that she is drunk and far from a state of consciousness, you do not look at her as a quick game to score, but as a person who needs your help. You will not take advantage of her unstable condition for your own personal gain because I can promise you, the end game for you will be behind the bars of a prison where men are looking for a quick little score like you.

I do not want to scare you into this concept, but I want you to understand the importance of it. I need you to know that our actions have dire consequences, and not everything can be fixed just by saying “sorry”. There are wounds that not even time can heal, and will bleed and seep through the stitches of a person’s soul. I do not want you to be the knife that had cut a girl too deep because it is the kind of pain not everyone can come back from, and sometimes forgiveness is given, but our actions are never forgotten. We are designs made up of the choices we act on, and I want to make sure the choices you make are the ones that build a real man out of you. I don’t want you to be the boy that Brock Turner was, and will still be for the rest of his life because he took away a young woman’s dignity to indulge himself in selfish pleasure for a few minutes.

I refuse to let you become that kind of boy.

I refuse to let you shape yourself into a reflection you could never face in every mirror.

I refuse to let you stray from the person you could be, to the monster you can become.

I refuse to let you be anything but the kind, loving, and passionate husband I know you will be.

I refuse to let you be anything less than the man I know you grow into:

My amazing son.