“Male violence against women and girls starts with words.” On the surface, the statement brandished on a placard by Patrick Vieira on Sunday seemed inarguable. “Doesn’t all violence start with words?”I asked myself as I read about the launch of Sadiq Khan’s new anti-misogyny campaign at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park ground – a campaign that will see adverts urging men to “Have a word with yourself, then your mates” displayed in football clubs across the city. One determined to change male “attitudes and behaviours” after a year in which 127 women lost their lives at the hands of men across the UK.

That’s when something snagged. What about the violence that starts before words? The learnt violent and misogynistic behaviour modelled at home before a boy can even express himself?

This isn’t the hair-splitting it appears to be. Not when you consider that Khan is calling on men to teach one another the correct way to speak to and about women, and on primary schools to give lessons on misogyny to kids as young as four – but that, yet again, parental responsibility is being ignored. Not when you note that the mayor’s comments have led to yet another spate of headlines, starting: “Schools told they must act on…”

Let’s have a quick recap on all the morals, ethics and concepts that have been rebranded extra-curricular subjects and dumped on schools over the past few years. Beyond and often above the three Rs, it’s now up to schools to teach our children how to express their emotions (a “traffic light system”). That’s alongside how to maintain excellent 360-degree mental health – a tall order if ever there was one. They also need to teach kids about racism and injustice and privilege and the correct way to self-flagellate. Don’t be a bully. Internet safety. Manners.

A few years ago, some British schools were so mortified by their pupils’ lack of civility that they started laying on courtesy classes and handing out thumb stickers bearing the message: “Manners Matter.” This led to a vigorous debate on whether schools should teach manners – one in which the headline “Parents urged to teach their own kids to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’” was notably absent. Oh, and if schools could also teach our children how and what to eat, that would be great. Lucky these aren’t overburdened and underfunded institutions trying to repair the devastation of the pandemic, isn’t it?

I’m neither a psychiatrist nor a criminologist, and I’m sure Khan is right to say that “What can often begin as inappropriate attitudes and behaviour can lead towards violence against women and girls”. But “attitudes” are a hard subject to teach in a classroom and in my mind it’s clear that parents should be the ones laying down a child’s basic moral and ethical foundations, before passing the baton to schools between 9am and 4pm, where firm guidance will continue.

If a teacher notices a misogynistic culture within a class, for example, then they should do whatever is needed to eradicate it within that environment. But it would be hard for them to counter any toxic hardwiring put in place at home. Certainly, they are powerless against the kind of brutal video game imagery and pornography many boys are subjected to from a young age, after parents (again) have failed to intervene.

Why don’t we talk about the diminishing parental responsibilities wreaking havoc on our schools and our kids’ futures? Because it’s too sensitive an issue for the government to broach. Because they would need to be honest about the many reasons why parents have abdicated responsibility towards their children in homes across the country – from socio-economic factors to an increasingly lazy middle-class. Because parenting is hard and telling someone off for doing a bad job isn’t just awkward but taboo, particularly after the pressures of the past two years.

I wonder whether the void left in the absence of basic morality is partly to blame. Someone needs to erect that internal moral scaffold in our kids and it’s just easier to get schools to do it, isn’t it? In less colloquial language, Khan’s slogan – “Have a word with yourself, then your mates” – could have come from the Bible. Which, ironically, would make it impossible for British schools to teach.