This week has been a difficult one for women. The news agenda has been dominated by disturbing allegations and accounts of sexual abuse which have been well covered.

What I’m about to talk about is clearly not the most important issue to emerge in the last few days but the coverage has sparked a conversation with my sons about consensual age-gap relationships. Whether they would entertain an age-gap relationship in their own lives and, somewhat uncomfortably, what my husband and I might feel about it. 

My sons are 22 and 19, both students and both in stable relationships. They follow the news and were genuinely shocked at the idea that a man in his 30s or older having a relationship with a young woman of 17 or 18 was anything other than unacceptable. 

Full disclosure: my husband is seven years older than me, which I reminded both Ollie and Joe about. They felt that was different as we had met as “fully-grown adults”-  in other words I wasn’t 16 when we met and he wasn’t 23. That, for them, would have been more troubling. 

It wasn’t long ago that both our children were at school. In terms of attitudes about girlfriends and boyfriends, we all agreed that not much has changed since my own classroom days. Mostly, you went out with people your own age. A year older was fine, but by the time sixth form arrived (Year 12 today), some girls might be seeing boys who were a few years older and even – deep breath – who had already left school and might even be working.

It’s in the post-education years that Gen Z views differ. An Ipsos poll for LBC earlier this year suggested that nearly half of people in Britain believe there is no upper limit on the acceptable age gap in a heterosexual relationship, but young men in my sons’ age group definitely don’t accept that, drawing the line at five years as the maximum acceptable age gap (though young women are willing to make that 10 years if the man is older).

My boys alerted me to the discussions taking place about a “staggered” age of consent. The journalist Ash Sarkar posted on social media about this, making the point that a 16 year old having consensual sex with someone who is 17 or 18 is a very different proposition to a 16 year old having sex with someone who is 30. It is already illegal for a person over 18 to have sex with a 16 or 17 year old if they are in a position of trust – like a teacher or a sports coach – but wouldn’t the staggered consent idea be a good thing anyway to be made law? Labour peer and barrister Baroness Levitt is cautious. She cited the old adage about making legislation in haste and repenting at leisure, but agreed that it needed looking at carefully.

So much of the conversation comes down to generalities: we all know people who don’t seem to act their age – they might be remarkably mature or remarkably unworldly for their years. So what would happen if one of our boys came home with a woman who was much older?

I might to say the right thing, the thing all parents fall back on: “As long as he’s happy, and she makes him happy, that’s good enough for me.” But would I mean it? My older boy put it bluntly: “You’d think it was weird, mum, and you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself saying that.” He has a point.

In the end, would I want to jeopardise my relationship with my boys over what may be a transient association? It’s a nightmarish puzzle for any parent in that situation – and for parents of girls, this issue becomes even more fraught.

What is clear is that Gen Z are very vocal about what gives them the “ick” and what they consider to be unacceptable. With this issue it may well be that they are right to stand against what previous generations have tolerated and tacitly endorsed. That may be the only good thing to have come out of a very grim week.