What do you teach your children about relationships? Maybe I'm cynical, but I think we place way too much emphasis on them. My sister's mother in law, for example, says the most idiotic things to my 10-year-old niece – as if my niece just exists to look pretty and "bag a man". It would blow the woman's mind if I said "you know, maybe she won't bother with relationships at all. Maybe she'll be more focused on her career and her friends."
When I was a teen (in the 1990s), it felt like relationships were almost compulsory, that you had to have them to be validated. It's taken me a long time to outgrow such thinking. I know three people who are long-term single (one male, two female). All seem happy and carefree, with loads of friends and hobbies. One of them – an attractive woman in her 30s – has never had a relationship at all, yet she's quite literally the happiest person I know. My married friends, on the other hand (with two exceptions), all seem miserable. Yet for various reasons (money, kids, houses, emotional fallout, etc) they are sticking it out.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-relationships, and I'm not anti-men. But I've seen so many people (both male and female) ruin their lives by getting involved with the wrong person. Obviously it would be unfair to scare the young, or make them think every relationship is toxic or doomed. But shouldn't we emphasize that a relationship is just one of several options, and that you should think very carefully before getting involved? Maybe I'm naive. Maybe most parents do that already.