A woman rushing to work was involved in her normal, daily frenzy to simply get dressed for her regular dash to her job.

She kept whizzing by her daughter who seemed to be moving a little slowly, but not more than usual – or so she thought.

She’d asked her child what was wrong with her a million times before.

Never in her wildest dreams did she expect the words she would hear come out of the 13-year-old girl’s mouth this time. The child would tell her mother that two boys cornered her and sexually assaulted her twice.

It appears that this little girl isn’t alone in her humiliation and terror.

There have been 354 similar experiences by children reported in other schools just this school year.

That number may surprise you only because we generally only hear about assaults when adults are the perpetrators, as in the case of Milton McFarlane, a former P.S. 78 teacher who was arrested for sodomizing two students in a classroom.

Parents around the city became upset when they learned this particular teacher was accused of another assault, but was allowed to be around kids anyway.

A coalition of priests called for the resignation of the Board of Education’s special investigator.

But what is missed by many of us outraged parents is the fact that most of these assaults are at the hands of other children – our children.

Even with the arrests of boys as young as nine years-old, it seems some kids are un-phased. In the last few weeks it seems as if there has been a young boy arrested almost every other day for touching a young girl in an unacceptable way.

Now we know what the results of years of female degradation has done to us.

We know now just how some of our young boys actually feel about females. After hearing them referred to as garden tools, female dogs, and all kinds of other animals for decades, how could we not think this kind of behavior would come up in the wash?

While I am not an advocate of censorship, I feel that as a parent I am more aware of the elements that my children are exposed to.

Yes, there is always a point when we become our parents.

But I feel in our community that there is no excuse for the generation gap since we all are exposed to the same things from music to the television to advertising. Except for some reason, our guard isn’t like that of our parents, who wouldn’t let us go to certain movies or talk a certain way or look at certain material.

Now it seems the parameters for the exposure of adult themes to children who can’t really process the information has softened.

It’s no longer just about record lyrics.

All a kid has to do now is turn on cable TV at almost anytime of the day, pick up a magazine or go to the movies to see sex and women.

If that is an immovable object in our society then we as parents have to become an irresistible force in countering the overwhelming messages our kids receive.

Just like we tell our daughters about the wrong things to look for from boys and men, we need to tell our boys what is unacceptable behavior.

Certainly they should know that if they are young, they shouldn’t be having sex, even if they believe they have consent of the other child who is too young.

Definitely they should not be forcing anyone to do something they don’t want to do. But they should also know that even less aggressive behavior is still unacceptable.

That "feel-up" or "brush-up" that garnered a laugh or won a bet will now get a boy arrested and charged with assault and gone are the days of sweeping incidents under the rug.

Educators and administrators no longer have discretion to call this behavior "horse play" or "boys being boys." The simple rule is simply do not touch!

Our young men have enough obstacles to worry about in and out of school.

I have always told them to "not even give the impression of impropriety." If a young man doesn’t touch a girl at all, then he can’t even be accused of something much worse. And even if he’s falsely accused, his previous behavior as a gentleman, will be his salvation.

Our daughters are the future vessels of generations to come. They should be treated like the treasures they are.