Let me start by saying this is a really tough topic to talk about so I'm asking for you to please cut me a little slack, if you will.

But as a new-age millennial man in complete touch with his emotions, able to be vulnerable to friend and foe alike, I am prepared to make this admission and make it publicly.

I have failed as a parent people.

Yes, I have failed. 

It's an awful thing to admit out loud but it's also something I have to be honest about in the hope I can bury these bad bits and emerge so much better, in future, both as a person and as a parent.

I have tried to raise my two sons to be what most of us would describe as "good people" - thoughtful, intelligent, inquisitive, curious and kind-hearted.

I've tried to ingrain in them a conscience, a sense of fairness, justice and the ability to discern right from wrong.

The worst thing is you think you've done an ok job, you fool yourself into thinking your efforts are laudable, then down comes the hammer and all that gets trampled to death like a fragile butterfly beneath the most unforgiving of bovver-boy boots.

Where did I go so wrong? Right now I'm in a well of soul searching to find out.

All I can now promise is to trawl the depths of my own character, uncover the worst aspects of my obviously flawed being, drag them to the surface of self-flagellation and learn from my mistakes in the hope of ridding this family of what must be a cacophony of unbecoming traits I've allowed to pollute the minds of two innocent and impressionable teenage boys.

As painful as it is to admit I have failed them and failed as a parent.

Yes, one of my sons has just started watching Game of Thrones.

Dear Lord, and I don’t mean the guy with blue eyes who rides the dragon, please forgive me..