To have this reaction to Netflix’s Adolescence

[Marigoldsold]

This show has really got me and I can’t stop thinking about it.

A show about a murder of a young girl by a young boy.

I have cried over it , I have a little boy myself - I have gone and cuddled him tight after it. The scene at the end , the very last one … I cried like a baby.

What shocked me is that those tears and sadness was for the boy. The murderer.

I don’t think that he didn’t do it , or that the victim deserved it ( obviously ! ) . I don’t think he shouldn’t be in prison etc .

I feel desperately sad that a little boy , who slept with a Teddy , liked drawing and had child’s wallpaper on his walls ended up doing that. That after he did it and his dad knew .. he still reached out to him for comfort. That he was a child .

I think it’s really opened my eyes . We always hear of horrible crimes and pray our child will never be that poor victim and do whatever we can to prevent that. But we never sit and think that actually it could be our child who does that and that is also something we could prevent and should be trying to .

i think it’s the fact the show focused on the murderer rather than the victim and that it wasn’t a child who had been abused and neglected , it wasn’t a child that had had a bad life , it wasn’t a child that was so called “ born evil , it wasn’t a child that had psychotic tendencies or was a ‘ psychopath ‘ .. he was a normal child.

I don’t think it says to anyone that men have no part to play… in fact I do struggle to understand how you made that reach. I do think social media is a cesspit but then this is social media too which we are using to discuss a problem… The term will still exist whether I use it in this thread or not and while it does exist with a common meaning….

Seriously? Am I going insane? ‘Asking ourselves what we can change about ourselves is more important’?

More important?! I could cry.

Of course we need to address our own behaviour as parents and within society but to think that that is more important than demanding changes from men who act this way and perpetuate this behaviour and legalise this behaviour is so sad I just can’t.

I can’t handle this thread any more, I’m out.

I agree with you. Anything we do will not be enough, men have to change.

Lots of degrading and incorrect terms used to be used regularly. Ones I would get banned for if I wrote them here. It didn’t make them okay then and it doesn’t make them okay now. The more you repeat something and make it more common place the more power you give to it. If you took the time to consider why it’s not okay and stopped used it then you might change those who have that way of thinking and get the conversation recentered to where it needs to be. I have said multiple times women are to blame, at no point have I not said that and I’ve not said what you’ve pointed out isn’t an issue, but that doesn’t mean that your attitude towards ‘boy mums’ and all that phrase encompasses is okay.

i’m out of this thread as it’s too depressing. We can agree to disagree.

Or you know I might have considered your view and disagree? Can we only discuss a topic if you agree with everything everyone says?

And again how are you extrapolating so much? I don’t think all women are too blame. I talked about a subset of mothers who favour sons unfairly…. Not all mothers? I thought we were on the same page so why use the term you abhor at all? You know what I mean?

Why are you misquoting me? I didn't say more important. I said important. But actually I really meant valid.

I understand why you're getting angry but let me explain my POV. I wrote that post in a hurry.

When the #metoo campaign happened I thought this is brilliant, finally a light is being shone on these issues. But then I felt the aftermath left us (as women) less empowered than ever, like people who needed to be looked after.

I think as part of the conversation if we include what we can also contribute it helps us feel less helpless in the whole mess.

I'm sorry my post upset you. But I didn't mean it at all in the way you interpreted it.

I don't know how she made that reach either. But that poster misquoted me so I think she is seeing what isn't there.

I think we can all see it's pretty damn obvious that men are primarily to blame. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that there's also a small part women play. I don't think that's shifting the blame. I think that's highlighting that women can mobilise change the other direction too.

Of course we have to take responsibility. But at the end of the day, stabbing a girl multiple times becuase she didn't want to go out with you and called you a name is just extreme to the point that it becomes about his individual personality and mental state, rather than about what he watched online and whether or not he spent time with his dad, or whether school had a part to play. There would have been multiple children at that school with similar life experiences but they didn't commit that crime, show a completr lack of remorse, only be worried about themselves, then act like a lunatic in the psych evaluation. I think poverty, parenting, school and society has a part to play in knife crime, but in this particular instace I think the boy was just unhinged.

What about all the other men that do terrible things? Men are more likely to hurt women (or children or other men)
are all those ones just unhinged too? And in that case why are SO many men unhinged compared to women?
Or is it that just as many women are but unhinged men are just more violent than unhinged women? Why might that be?

I think your comment is too simplistic

With all the kindness OP, if you have such a strong visceral response, I'd suggest you relate to some element of the drama on a very personal level and it triggered something for you. Which I imagine would be the case for a lot of viewers, especially those with a history of gender based violence.

I grew up in a very similar household, and I was frustrated to see the drama reinforcing the stereotypes it was trying to challenge in the last episode of the series.

As a retired teacher and mother of boys and girls, I found this series affected me a lot. I am probably a 'softie' - in fact I can sense and fell other people's emotions, sorrow and anger especially. It worries me that some posters are trying to minimise and/or deflect the issues. Saying 'don't worry about it - it's fiction' I think shows that person actually is very worried and defending herself by pushing it away. Similarly, the many people who believe that 'my' child wouldn't do that. There is a lack of informed thinking among many adults, which is adding to the problems of our society and this is amply demonstrated by posters on this forum.
I believe that the problem is we throw our young people into a world where damaged and misguided adults become their mentors. Often with a money-making motive. The sort of adults we wouldn't want them hanging about with in real life. We expect the children deal with bad things with a level of confidence which many adults don't have: witness the number of posters here who don't seem to be able to resist any peer pressure, so invitations to social events, just organising who pays for what on a date or within a family, who are 'devastated' when anyone, even someone they neither know or care about, expresses a negative opinion abut their clothing/hairstyle etc.
In the films, Jamie was obviously physically well-cared for. But for humans, especially children, their emotional needs have to be met as well!! The parents were portrayed as 'normal' and doing their best which I think many watchers will find comforting and feels lets them off the hook. But I think they were actually doing a very poor job and even they came to realise it in the end. The parents were very emotionally immature, especially the father who'd been physically abused as a child. The mother enabled him to stay in this state. They'd got together when they were very young, maybe clinging to each other to right wrongs they'd suffered. Neither of them seemed to have made any effort to find out how to be good parents. And the fact that the daughter seemed to be OK just shows that different kids need different treatment. The mother was passive in the face of her husband's poor behaviour. How many times do we read about that on here?
As for Jamie - he'd been faced with emotional choices which he had no capacity and not enough maturity to deal with. When children spend their time 'with' dysfunctional adults on the internet, they copy the sexualised and cruel behaviour but they can't deal with the consequences. Jamie wanted love and approval and he didn't get that from his family, so he wanted it from his peers - his male friends to see him as a worthy male and the girls to spend time with him and make him feel loved. Girls mature physically and emotionally faster than boys and these days many girls are encouraged and assisted to look like the women they see on the internet: highly made-up, sophisticated, polished. But they are also still children! The boys feel at a disadvantage and when the more worldly-wise girls ignore them or laugh at them, the boys are hurt. Couple this with people on the internet telling them that males are downtrodden and boys need to 'control' and 'punish' girls, then you have a recipe for disaster.
The other problem caused by the father was that he couldn't accept that Jamie wasn't like him/what he wanted to be. Our children are individuals in their own right and will have their own preferences. Many kids are pushed into careers or even pastimes which are really what the parent wanted to do. This is a major mistake.
It wasn't a perfect set of films but that shouldn't stop us from asking questions about the issues raised and more importantly, thinking about what we should be doing about it.

There's an interesting book written by the Mother of one of the Columbine killers.

I think Eddie was written as a victim of childhood abuse by his own father, who made sure he never hit his own son. And that his own temper (which can come out of all that physical abuse) could have had a genetic impact on his own son.

He wasn't written as a good man per se, but the point was they were a relatively ordinary family. Ordinary families still have flaws

I'm struggling to understand - anger having genetic impact on his son? Anger expression is not a biological trait, it is fully learned and culture bound. What about daughter - is she impacted genetically too?

This is a brilliant synopsis.

All good points and I have too many thoughts in this and not qualified enough to really give a full opinion.
But in the context of this particular show, and this particular character, yes I think he was destined to be violent and was unhinged. The show I thought didnt go deep enough info whether and how outside influences effected him and if they were contributors to the cause.
It touched in that he was staying in his room alot, it didnt say whether he was playing pokemon or watching hardcore porn. It sidnt reference any violence at home and actually portraid the relationship between his dad and mum to be traditional but not abusive. His sister seemed well balanced and normal and he had not been violent to his mum or sister. He had no history or violence or any indication that he was troubled he was bullied but so were his friends and the victim.
The pshyc evaluation wasnt very deep.
I could only conclude that he was an unhinged psychopath.

Sorry but there is a boy mum thing. I have friends who are intelligent feminist thoughtful
women but when it comes to their sons - forget it. Blind spot. They melt - the sons can do no wrong they would do anything for them. It’s really weird. Never seen the same with mums and teen girls. You can be PC and deny it but I’ve seen it too many times.

Remember when I did criminal law a senior barrister said there was no chance of a rape conviction with majority middle aged women jurors. Middle aged men were more likely to convict. Shook me at the time.

He definitely wasn’t a ‘normal’ child.
The episode with the criminal psychologist showed how controlling he was and what a terrible temper he had. Also showed he thought the victim should have been grateful for him not sexually abusing her.
His misogyny and anger issues were in plain sight and definitely NOT normal.

It must be your peer group. It’s nothing to do with being ‘PC’. In my circle we complain about our sons as much as our daughters..!

Nah. It’s widespread. The mother / son thing is wild. Yes they moan about them but my god they idolise them.

I didn't feel for the murdering little twat at all. I felt for the victim. And I don't think he was from a normal family. He was from a family that let him stay up until 1am on schools nights on his computer. Parents need to do better. Why was anyone surprised that kids with access to the world wide web, and all its misogyny, end up violent?

So all children with access to the internet will grow up to be violent?

It was a surprise because all children have access to the internet and only a tiny percentage go on to commit violent crimes. Jamie's home life, despite the best intentions of his parents, reinforced what he found online. He was young enough that he didn't have the life experience to see things differently. That's a tragedy in itself.

I mean more learned behaviour.

Of course not all kids with access to the internet end up violent. But those ones with unregulated access are more likely to.