why I haven't watched Adolescence

on feeling fear for my teenage son and why I want to step towards, not run away

Hi friends,
For those of you new here – you’re so welcome – I’m an Irish writer and tender to many things living at the foothills of the Wicklow mountains in south eastern Ireland. I’m interested in exploring how it feels to write, hold and (m)other on this beautiful, tattered planet right now. Curious? Head to my Welcome Page. To stay up to date with upcoming events, head to my Members Hub.

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Ok, let’s begin with this week’s post.xx


There were a few days recently when it seemed as though everyone was talking little other than the new Netflix drama series Adolescence. It quickly became the most watched streaming tv series in the U.K. in a single week, breaking all previous records.

Incase you’ve been living under a rock of late, the four part limited series follows the story of a normal thirteen year old boy accused of the murder of a girl in his school. It’s a drama that aims to ask really important questions about what is happening to our young men, what they are having to navigate in terms of pressure from peers, from the internet and from social media. How a young boy can be so easily radicalised in plain sight.

Or at least that’s what the articles I’ve read about the series tell me, I haven’t watched it yet …

Here’s why …

I have a thirteen year old son. I am watching him transform before my eyes, daily, over night, hour to hour, from my cuddly innocent sweet little boy into a young man who is beginning to step out into the world. It’s hard to know what’s going on in his head, I know less and less about his interior life, he is not a great talker. He is, still, (let it last, let it last!), a hugger.

But honestly, reading the media coverage around Adolescence last week and the really pertinent and important-to-face-head-on challenges our young men are facing, put the fear of god into me. I could feel the fear rising as I read more and more about Andrew Tate and toxic masculinity and what MMAS and AWALT and Simp and Soyboy and Normie mean¹. I could see myself behaving differently around my child, as he sat at the kitchen table on his laptop. Is he really researching 3D printing patterns? Is he really designing a school logo for the class magazine? What if he’s becoming a monster before my eyes and I’m missing it as I peel the potatoes for tea?

We have a monitoring programme installed on his laptop that limits internet use and shows me each search he does, every video he watches as well as automatically blocking any content the app predicts will be inappropriate. I rarely do more than scan the video links the app tracks. That afternoon I watched every single video he’d seen over a three day period, fear rising in me that I was going to find trends in his search history I’d missed, toxic messages in the videos he’d viewed.

We are pretty strict about computer use at home. Only downstairs in public areas, only for a certain amount of time each day. He doesn’t have a mobile phone yet, we don’t have a playstation or similar. And after he saw some content online he really shouldn’t have (googling out of curiosity after a sex ed class in school) we put in place a child safeguarding programme called Quostodio. This experience was in hindsight a good thing to have happened so young, as it meant our eyes were opened to how easy it is for kids to be drawn down rabbit holes online and also meant we had to have some very frank and open discussions with our son we wouldn’t have otherwise had.

All this to say, we aren’t turning a blind eye. But still, oh the sick sick fear I felt two weeks ago. How I longed to be able to cosset and protect and hide my son away from all of the toxicity. From the uncertainty our young men face, the challenges of how to find a place in the world, trying to work out how to fit in and how to grow up.

I chatted to my son about all this. I told him about the Netflix series, explained what it was about, asked him had he heard of Andrew Tate, did he know what an influencer was? Shared some of the reasons why they have such sway. Did he want to watch the series with me and his dad maybe, I asked? ‘No’ was the clear answer. He really didn’t. He didn’t say why, but I felt it was connected to a not wanting to know too much about the scary world ahead of him. And I get that.

So much of my feed, so much of the news, even our politicians were proclaiming that this programme is a vital and necessary watch. That it should be shown in schools (I think this idea is in train in the U.K.). And I don’t disagree. Ignoring the issues the programme raises is not an option.

But I was also really aware that everything felt like it was rooted in and coming from a place of fear. All of our children might be radicalised misogynists and we haven’t even noticed… If I had watched the series last week, it would have been an action taken from a place of anxiety and terror. It would also have been an action that I felt was going to lead me to start looking at my son in a distrustful, suspicious manner. And that didn’t sit right.

I’ve just finished reading two powerful, beautifully written books that both take young men as their central characters. Both books (Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo and Elaine Feeney’s How to Build a Boat) are, interestingly, written by women. Both present versions of masculinity that are so far from what Andrew Tate is promoting. Both describe neurodivergent boys who see the world in unique, intelligent, perspective shifting ways. Both describe young men who struggle with their version of masculinity in a world that offers and approves of only the most narrow version of that term. Both young men do not always have the easiest of times, but both ultimately change those around them for the better as a result of the way they are.

I think about the characters of Ivan (Intermezzo) and Jamie (How to Build a Boat) often. Both as representations of young men in 2025 and also because of the fact that it was two female writers who breathed life into these characters. I think also about a recurring element to a dream I had for about six months in the year leading up to my hysterectomy (bear with me here, I’ll get us back to me watching Adolescence, this will take us there, I promise!). Almost every dream I had during that time was populated with female characters to whom I was very attracted, sometimes in a sexual way, sometimes as a mother, sometimes as a friend. I was a little confused by the fact that in these dreams my son also always joined me. He said nothing, but would just stand quietly but powerfully on my left hand side.

I was working with a Jungian psychoanalyist at the time and she asked me what my son’s energy was like. ‘He’s kind and gentle and loving and smart’ I said. Her interpretation of these dreams was that my subconscious was exploring the new forms of both feminine and masculine energy I wanted to embody. My son represented a new form of masculinity that I wanted to invite into my life, both from the men around me and also within myself. That touched me deeply. The quiet power this form of masculine energy held. The majesty of it in my son. And the support I felt from it.

This is the same energy I felt from the characters of Ivan and Jamie in Rooney and Feeney’s novels. These young men’s formative years were often painful, but there was also tenderness and beauty and strength present, and a way of being as men that transformed the women they were involved with, be that a teacher for Jamie or a lover for Ivan. The women in these novels needed men like this in their lives as much as these young men needed and deserved to manifest themselves in these brave new ways.

Which takes me back (see!!) to why I haven’t yet watched Adolescence. I plan to watch it, I do see the value of it as a thought provoker, an eye opener and a conversation starter. But I want to watch it after having first spent a few weeks feeling more into the kind of masculinity I want for my son, the kind of masculinity I can see burgeoning in him and that I want to learn how to nurture². The kind of masculinity I can see my husband is also working to embrace more, and that I see now I fell in love with in him all those years ago.

I want to spend some more time imagining what I want to move towards, rather than submerging myself in what I want to avoid at all costs. When I watch Adolescence I want to watch it from a place of love and hope, not from a place of panic and fear.

I’d love to know what your thoughts are?
Have you watched the series?
Do you have teenage boys?
Or have you already been through that parenting baptism of fire?

Want to read more?

Here’s a piece I wrote a while back exploring this topic from another angle:

1. I found THIS guide on Addressing the Impact of Masculinity Influencers on Teenage boys from the Anti Bullying Centre at Dublin City University here in Ireland to be very helpful. I see there is also a Webinar available I’ll watch as well.

2.

Clover Stroud

’s latest post on the things she has learnt from parenting an adolescent boy is so so wise, it made my heart burst, I had a good cry reading it.