Attempting an answer to 'Adolescence'

I recently fielded an enquiry from my 8 year old –

?8yo: Dad, can I have a mobile phone?

Me: Absolutely not.

8yo: When can I have one?

Me: When you’re 25.

8yo: Oh, come on, don’t be ridiculous! What about 18?

Me: Deal.

?I’m not much a believer in offering other parents unsolicited advice but if your 8 year old has a smartphone I strongly suggest you find it and throw it immediately into the sea. If I had any kind of moral courage that is exactly what I would do with my own phone; the time may yet come when I will.

?In asserting that and as a criminal justice professional I suspect I was not part of the target audience for Netflix’s ‘Adolescence’, which has so vividly captured the media and public’s imagination. The fact that it has been so successful suggests it is telling a lot of people something they did not know or, if they knew it, they have sought to close their eyes to the poison that is unbridled access to smart phones.

?Little children are scared of imaginary monsters under the bed but it’s parents that should be frightened of the very real ones provoking and inciting their sons online, on devices hastily flung there hours after bedtime. Your son’s bedroom is not a safe space if he has unregulated access to the Internet, no room or place is in those circumstances.

?Modern parenting is often surrendering to a mania for your child’s safety but without a moment’s thought for whether others are safe from your child. The paradox is that one of the first justifications parents give for providing their offspring with smart phones is concern for their safety and knowledge of their whereabouts. But what use is knowing your kid’s whereabouts on a map if you have no idea of where on the planet their mind has been taken and by whom? That isn’t to say that every 13 year old boy is at risk of becoming a murderer but there are many things short of fatal violence that we have cause to fear.

?Another of the merciless lessons of ‘Adolescence’ is that if fathers are not present in their sons’ lives, not just as bodies that come and go to work, but emotionally, spiritually and intellectually then it should be no wonder that boys look elsewhere for their guidance, instruction and philosophy. And if they’re getting that from Andrew Tate and his ilk then healthy relationships with women and girls will be the first sacrifice.

?Because ‘Adolescence’ is primarily a cautionary tale it is perhaps unfair to criticise it for not offering solutions, still less hope. But I take the view that a hopeless narrative is a counsel of despair and, as a father of sons, I am determined never to submit to that. Even the most blinkered dolt can now diagnose the symptoms of the digital plague that has seized the imaginations of far too many young men. What is needed now is solutions. It goes without saying that accepting responsibility for developing and demonstrating right values in our boy children’s lives has to be part of it. But there is scope for more imaginative solutions than just that.

?It was a cruel irony that the Southport killings occurred in the setting of a Taylor Swift dance event. The goddess of girlhood and the bodily expression of the soul attacked by hateful rage and jealousy of innocent joy. Where is the Taylor Swift for boys? WHO is the Taylor Swift for boys? If the measurement is reach and impact upon impressionable minds then the dismal answer is Tate himself.

?It is very striking that there is no male singer with anything like Swift’s following. Who is the successor to Springsteen, the protégé of Prince, the bearer of Bowie’s flame? If young men want to look to the stars they shouldn’t have to look to the aged and the dead. The retreat of young men from culture is an alarming 21st century phenomenon but it’s in music, the most accessible art form of all, that we should be most concerned.

?40 years have passed since 'We Are The World' was released as the American riposte to Bob Geldof’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’. If you want to see an extraordinary account of some of the biggest talents in the World setting aside their ego to find a joint voice for a common purpose the watch the documentary ‘The Greatest Night in Pop’, the trailer is here. It is genuinely one of the most uplifting things I’ve ever watched. It strikes me that if 21st century musicians are looking for such a common purpose they couldn’t do better than collaborate on a single or even an album that gives young men something to rally around as a positive totem against the proliferation of misogynistic incitement.

?Something else I believe could be an extremely effective vaccine against Incel attitudes and identification taking root is more dancing. This may seem an absurd or naive suggestion but almost no children learn to dance and even fewer boys do. ‘Billy Elliot’ was such a remarkable film because, for so many, what it depicted was and remains so remarkable. ?Dance is an expression of joy and connection and the best possible weapon against digital detachment and isolation in the ‘manosphere’. I don’t have in mind the hideous awkwardness of school discos but partnered dancing. If you went to school in Scotland the chances are you were introduced to Ceilidhs at school, like this one at Dunbar Grammar School. It is much harder to ‘other’ girls as being no more than pieces of meat to use and abuse if you have spent every Friday afternoon learning to do-si-do with them. The dancing obviously doesn’t have to be Scottish but being partnered means there is actual, real human connection.

?Perhaps neither of these suggestions resonate with you but surely it’s time to start focussing on the solutions to not the symptoms of male rage and resentment?