As the final scene played, as the hallowed, beautiful tones of the music started, it finally broke me. The tears came so hard, filling my eyes so fast they swiftly hit my cheeks silently. “I would rather see this world through the eyes of a child”, the lyrics reverberate through my mind “through the eyes of a child”. Adolescence is nothing short of a cinematic masterpiece. That review is for another day. This isn’t about the beauty of watching it, it is about the raw pain and angry anxiety any parent watching it will feel. None more so than parents of boys though. I am one of those.

The line is always the same. ‘It is so hard raising girls these days’. The conversation never changes. ‘There is so much danger out there for our daughters’. The universally accepted truth, spoken loudly. ‘We must protect them’. But what about our sons? What about our sons?

Adolescence points a brave and unashamedly honest spot light on the dark corners of growing up as a boy in the modern world. Although none are shown as the cause of the crime in question, there are mentions of Andrew Tate, incels and the 80% of women 20% of men rule. It exposes male rage, online bullying and the knife crime epidemic that is sweeping through our lives creating the perfect storm for situations that haunt parents subconscious.

How did we get here? How did we arrive in a time where it is normal and common place for our young men to have access to this evil and wicked misinformation? It happens in the places we have in the past believed them safe, their bedroom, their school playground, their friends houses. It happens in those moments we can’t watch them because, we can’t watch them constantly, we shouldn’t. At a time in their lives when it is a right of passage to be slowly given more freedom, trust and responsibility they are seemingly confronted with ideology that they resonate with, not because it is true, but because adolescence is a time of heartbreak, growth, confusion and eventually understanding. Hard to hear or not, most 13 year old boys will be picked on or bullied in some form or another, almost all will be shot down by someone they are attracted to and majority will feel unexplainable rage, anger, disappointment, jealously or other big emotions they don’t understand as their hormones wreak havoc in their brains. What is not normal is that at the same time they are now being fed mistruths originating from demons like Andrew Tate who’s misogynistic ideals tell them they are better than that, that there is another way to raise yourself, a haven away from the bullying, online chat and taunting.

In the cold light of day we have to accept that for as long as we allow our teenage sons access to the internet and social media they will be sitting in a world online that we as parents are incapable of understanding unless we can bridge the gap between the worlds. Between the light and the dark. Allowing them to sit alone in their rooms, bored, with unsupervised access is quite possibly the most dangerous thing we can do as parents to lose them to this dark underbelly.

We have to do more to protect them. We have to push for school blackouts when it comes to phones and using them in school grounds. We have to push for laws so that these still fragile minds are not exposed to social media and the constant stream of garbage it pedals until they are older. We have to talk more openly about it in school, in a way that is relatable and not utterly cringeworthy. We have to encourage them to be in our company at home, a balance of allowing them time and privacy within the space of their bedrooms but also keeping them close and embraced within the family unit. We have to have open and frank conversations in non confrontational ways. In the car so you aren’t face to face, whilst doing an activity, busy hands busy mouths. We have to remind them at every turn that they are loved, that they are worthy and that they are safe to come to us no matter what. We have to talk to other parents and be honest about what our children are seeing and how we are all dealing with it. We have to agree with each other how to limit this with a united front so that it isn’t one child at school following these rules it is, in time, hopefully, the majority. We have to stop trying to be our children’s friends first and their parents second. We have to accept that gentle parenting is great but as they grow, test and push boundaries we have to also be better at holding strong to keep them safe. We have to shake off the shame and stigma that is still around the very normal acts of hormonal, horny teenage boys so that our sons can see the difference between healthy feelings and experiences and the ones that create monsters. I can see that this comes across as idealist and preachy but it happens so fast and with no warning. It is happening earlier than any of us want to accept or believe.

We forget of course, most of us were rascals as teens. We evaded our parents gaze at every opportunity. Not at 13 but as we stumbled into our older teens anyone else steal vodka and put it in a water bottle and pray your parents didn’t ask to sniff the bottle as you left the house? Anyone else go out wearing one thing and change into something very different in a phone box down the road? Anyone else go clubbing underage? It reads as quite the rap sheet but also there is an innocence to all those things compared to what our children hide from us now. The difference between then and now? The internet, social media, WhatsApp groups. A world encrypted with codes and emojis that hold a meaning different to what they seem. A world that lives inside their phones, iPads and computers. A world we cant see.

The final scene of Adolescence will stay with me for a very long time, if not forever. It needs to be a painful watch that isn’t in vain. As parents we have to be confronted with the nightmare and watch it play out in front of us. We have to feel all the emotions on a visceral level. It has to hurt. We have to cry the silent tears for the what ifs. We cannot bury our heads and fool ourselves into thinking it isn’t happening to our sons. We have to all sit up, wake up and finally accept we aren’t doing enough. We need to educate ourselves, we have to enter this world and learn its ways to see what they are up against, what we are up against and we have to turn the tides. We have to get our sons to see us as their allies, not their enemies. Banning tech, locking away phones isn’t the complete answer because this darkness sits like a virus inside so many people and places now. We must raise our sons to trust that we are the truth, that home is a safe space to be curious and confirm what is true so when they walk out the door or go to their rooms they are confident in what is right when faced with the lies and the obscene. We have to unite as parents and stand together to support ALL our sons collectively. I never want to have to accept that I could have done more. Their childhood cannot be the same as ours, the world is too different now. We can however, try to preserve their innocence, to show them the real world is a better place to be and that the world is not against them, it is just afraid of what they might become.

“I would rather see the world through the eyes of a child” I cannot believe that true today. There are the minority who still experience a true childhood free from dark and filled with naive expectation and hope. For most, the world has moved on too far, they are being co parented by their phones and the voice coming from the world inside their phones is the loudest. It is a harrowing truth we all have to accept if anything is to change. We are all to blame. From governments to parents, social media moguls, schools, big tech companies, other adult influences. We all have a part to play in correcting the course we are on. In the cold light of day, if we are all doing more to protect and educate our sons and young men, we probably wouldn’t need to be so unequally focused on protecting our daughters and young women.