It has been hours since I watched the final minutes of #Adolescence, the four-part series that just dropped on #Netflix a few days back.
(Context - A family's world turns upside down when 13-year-old Jamie Miller is arrested for murdering a schoolmate. The charges against their son force them to confront every parent's worst nightmare.)
I cannot shake off the uneasy feeling that sits heavily on the heart. I don’t have any teenagers to mother. Yet why should this drama affect me so much, moving the hardened me to tears? I ask myself.
I then remember that I mentor adolescents. I go to school and teach the young ones on the cusp of adolescence. I also remember how the Black Kurta Brigade and Pink Lehengaed girls take over our premises each time our condominium opens its gates to all and sundry for the ubiquitous Diwali Mela and how fights break out invariably between youngsters. The under-18s who believe and behave as though they are 25 years old.
I also cannot wish away the ever so slight anger that bubbles beneath as I go about my day. Will Mark Zuckerberg, that giddy idiotic billionaire, ever realise the fiends he has unleashed on the unsuspecting via Instagram, I wonder? (Purely a rhetorical question, as the tech giants have often cooed happily that smartphones are off limits for their children. Why bring the demons of SM home when they can make money out of other peeps’ insecurities?)
I watch the parents of my wards, gifting costly phones to their children just to stay connected, because of peer pressure. I remember the days when the teenage students would rib me incessantly as I refused to upgrade my old phone and laptop, as I saw no purpose, and how I would mumble a silent prayer whenever I interacted with youngsters, hoping the teenage years would slide easily on them, leaving no scars and horrors.
The mind remembers vividly a few scenes from the series that leave a deep mark. Because these feel close to home. Universally, parenting travails, challenges and fissures are the same. Scratch the surface; across the spectrum of cultures, the children too go through similar social distresses, wanting to be popular or alphas, navigating the dark alleys of toxicity and bullying, and the loneliness of being othered because the Mid rarely have it easy.
As far as the parenting game goes, we strive to be unlike our far stricter old blokes, wanting to give the best to our young ones. As we slave away to make their every tiny wish a reality, we often fail to realise when the cosy conversations dry up, when the children move away from squatting daily at the dining table to slamming the doors to their rooms and keeping us out of the loop.
We learn to accept the distance and the new barriers with a, ‘Hey, they need their privacy and space! They are growing up, aren’t they?’ ‘They are home; they are safe; they are surfing’ becomes our comforting mantra, forgetting that the online world is far scarier and dangerous.
Heaven knows what sites and what sights trap them and ensnare them, shaping/skewing their worldly vision, their self-worth, or their moral compass. Or when the pernicious masculinity, disregard of consent, and bitchiness get normalised under the garb of being cool, without the immediate family getting even a whiff of it.
All the more reason this series feels like a wake-up call to reopen those closed doors, bringing back conversations and bridging gaps with trust.
Because, God forbid, when an untoward incident does happen, if all hell breaks loose, it is the bloody guilt of ‘Was it our indulgence and oversight of small transgressions that failed them? Have we as parents done truly enough to save the kids?’ that we will be carrying to our graves.
That’s a very heavy cross to bear!
AJ wants to know if adulting can take a pause?
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