As a youthworker. As a guy. As a father. How I watched Adolescence!

It seems the whole world has watched Adolescence, or is about to! I was a little bit late to the party and only watched it last week. It was, as many people are saying, hugely impacting on multiple levels. Interestingly a few people have reminded me to remember that it is a piece of fiction, I hear this but also as a lifelong youthworker I know that there are people like all the characters that exist in the real world with their own stories. So as I have been reflecting and working through where it collides with my own story, I have found the drama speak to me again and again and again.

Like many of my blogs I am writing this for myself, I find it hugely cathartic to write down my thoughts and struggles, this blog is no different.

I wanted to share my thoughts coming from three different viewpoints, which will no doubt intersect occasionally.

What did Adolescence say to me as a youthworker, as a guy and also as a father?

As a Youthworker.

I have been involved in youthwork for over 30 years and bizarrely one of my reflections after watching Adolescence was how valid and needed our work is, I had a real sense of purpose and affirmation. Youth workers are not superheroes that can fix everything but I do believe that drastic cutting of youth services over the past decade has caused a lot of problems, particularly regarding young men. Whatever you want to call them; youth workers, mentors, role models, they are needed, now more than ever. At a time when young people are working out who they are, where are the spaces they feel valued and at home and who are they people they connect with and feel alive in their company. This is where youth leaders do become superheroes, this is where we ‘show our powers’, this is where we have something significant to offer. We make time for young people, listening to them, being un-shockable yet bringing empathy and insight, we create spaces where they can play, build friendships, be flawed yet accepted, where no matter what sort of good or bad day they have had, a youth leader is always happy to see them.

We might have a ‘Jamie’ in our youth group and what I mean by that isn’t that there are violent young men wrestling with their guilt or innocence. What I mean is teenage boys receiving a barrage of input all demanding them to respond and acknowledge. One voice says be strong yet vulnerable, another voice says you deserve this so take it, another says now is what matters and the consequences are irrelevant, and yet another says you are not enough. The violent act in Jamie’s story didn’t just happen, the decision to do what he did wasn’t made in a moment, even if it appeared like it was. It was the building up of a whole variety of voices, decisions, struggles and poisonous opinion. What I believe the problem stems from is not having real people in real life listening and taking time. The online world just force feeds young men lies, it doesn’t offer a space where they can enquire, question, challenge or just say I am confused. At a time where everything is up in the air, without appropriate guidance these young boys, and young girls, will simply lose their way. If the poisonous voices are darkness we just need to bring more light, we need to counteract the attack with our own offence. This won’t simply go away and our young men won’t ’just work it out’, we need intervention, we need effort, we need to pour energy into our young people and help them at no doubt the most challenging time of their lives.

As a guy.

My one regret from the story is that we didn’t get enough of a conversation from the perspective of the girls. I wanted to hear more about Katie and Jade’s friendship and their journey to the violent collision with Jamie. I wanted to hear more about the school environment they exist in and how that effects them. In the final episode we saw a bit more of the impact on Jamies sister, Lisa, but I also wanted to unpack her story more as it clearly has scarred her deeply. As a guy there is so much about the story I need to listen too more intently, there is so much more about ‘life as a teenage girl’ that I will never understand, but I need to. I may not have a daughter but I have a son and so empathy and awareness are needed as I walk through my sons teenage years with him. The role of woman and girls in the world has been something the church, politics, the work place and maybe the whole world has wrestled with for centuries. How does the world see these precious gifts, these talented and creative leaders and pioneers, mothers, daughters, aunties, friends and sisters, these guardians of emotions and ambassadors of empathy. I know my life is only as rich as it is because of the women that have spoken into my story. One of the roles which I need to take even more seriously is ensuring girls are not just protected and valued but I also need to speak into the lives of young men and educate them, model respect and equality, and inform them about the pricelessness and the gift that girls are to the world. It is like boys are looking at girls in one of the circus hall of mirrors – the true image is distorted but they have believed the image they see to be true. Social media, cruel male voices and the darkness of the internet have skewed how boys see girls, we need to help them to see girls in the right way, we need to break the mirrors that distort and help them see the true reflections.

As a Father.

For me, the fathers voice was the loudest. Maybe because I’m a father, maybe this is part of the power of the performance and the story, we all connect deeply somewhere in someway. The final few moments of the final episode hit like a freight train, the constant worry and yearning of every father to do the best they can. I know sometimes within my own story I am always trying to fix things, to make sure everyone is ok, to ensure things are as good as they can be. This has a certain nobility to it and I am sure there have been times my fixing mentality has been a blessing. But it is also unsustainable, as the story shows no matter how hard you try no matter how ‘good’ you try to be, sometimes the cacophony of chaos and noise in our world is just too loud and too seductive. There is a whole world of difference between the words ‘do your best’ and ‘I wish I had done better’. As a father I want to always ‘do better’ while at the same time I have to hold this yearning in tension with the brokenness and darkness out in the world, I sometimes just will not be able compete with the insidious chattering of the online world. In these situations I must rest in what I can do better and what I must prioritise; time with my boy, a regular embrace, opportunities to play and laugh, creating open and honest time to talk, as much as is possible to not judge but to offer, at the right time, wisdom, and finally to ensure our time together in the real world outweighs considerably their time alone in the online world. All 4 episodes of Adolescence taught me something new, as hard as it was to watch and imagine, I pray I am now a better youth worker, a better guy and a better father.

“From the deadly sword deliver me; rescue me from the hands of foreigners whose mouths are full of lies, whose right hands are deceitful. Then our sons in their youth will be like well-nurtured plants, and our daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace.”