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.

But it's still a surprise, surely? Because it's still very rare. Do you really think that if Jamie had been told to get off the internet at 9:30 he'd not have ended up as he did? I doubt it.

Personally I find the mix of factors involved fascinating and terrifying. But then I'm not so certain about everything, and like to hear other perspectives. I've loved the mostly healthy conversation on here between people who are seeking to understand the intricacies of it all.

Personally I find the mix of factors involved fascinating and terrifying. But then I'm not so certain about everything, and like to hear other perspectives. I've loved the mostly healthy conversation on here between people who are seeking to understand the intricacies of it all.

Yes, it’s really interesting that the series raised a range of factors but never definitively pinned it down to one thing, and viewers/commentators have honed in on the particular element which interested or concerned them the most. Was it unrestricted access to toxic online influencers? Was it family dysfunction and the dad’s anger issues? Was it peer pressure in the unruly school environment? Was Jamie just a psycho? We’ve also had “boy mums” raised here, even though Jamie’s relationship with his mum was barely explored beyond her cooking.

It makes it more frightening, because it doesn’t present a single solution or change that parents can make to guard against it.

Totally agree. The parents were negligent and the kid was an arsehole angry sook who didn’t get his way.

At risk of sounding like a twat, I’m honestly surprised at the impact this series has had on people and how many have apparently been drifting through life / parenthood in thoughtless ignorance.

I often think of the perpetrator and their family. Most people aren’t 100% bad / evil. Sometimes they are victims of circumstance and upbringing. Not seen it yet though, but want to.

And this phenomena is generations old and crosses class and racial lines.
In Jamaica the phenomena is referred to as "raise the girl, spoil the boy".
And on this same site, a few years ago when the general intelligence level seemed to be higher (I make no apologies for that observation), most of the mothers of sons said that they would never hand or dob in their son if he raped or murdered.

The worst thread was one where a concerned husband had written in as he had discovered that his teen son had been stealing his mother's underwear.
All, but one woman told the man that the trust between him and the creepy violating son was far more important than the mother knowing what was going on.
Same with the thread where the mother discovered her son wearing his sister's underwear.
His creepiness was completely ignored and the advice was not to shame him and not to tell his sister.

I refuse to think that a too large minority of girls are not in potential danger just for having a brother and a mother should a mother put the potential good behaviour future of a badly behaved son before the right to dignity and safety of her daughter in the present.

I've long been picky about the women I roll with, coming from a generally overtly unreconstructed misogynistic culture where too many women are very and openly male identified....or quick to anger or side at those of us who aren't.

Just because something hits home, it doesn't mean that people are drifting through life in thoughtless ignorance. Why can people not appreciate nuance any more? There's a middle ground where people see something that spurs them to look again at how they're doing things. That's good parenting.

The programme resonated with parents who are afraid of being complacent. Not all have been shit, or ignorant. It's hard hitting because it's designed to be.

It's those 100% confident that they're nailing everything who are the ones most likely to miss things. I am absolutely grateful that this show has been a vehicle for a lot of discussion, actual healthy debate about the raft of issues raised by the show. I can't imagine ever assuming I know all I need to about parenthood, and I'm happy to learn from anyone willing to discuss it.

I work day in and day out with adults who do the same, and deprivation, neglect and abuse in childhood is absolutely the main link between the vast, vast majority of them.

Sure there are outliers but still the childhood experience of many people who commit serious crimes are heartbreaking. I'm talking born into drug withdrawal, drug use commencing ages 7-10 years old, every type of abuse you can think of and many that you can't.

I knew one. He went to prison 10 years ago. He was 16 when he murdered his girlfriend. Preplanned. ‘Normal’ family, nice area. It was awful.

I agree.

the dad was an aggressive bully, using his mood swings to control the household. The mum was an absolute wimp, more concerned with pandering to her husbands breakfast whims than what her children were doing. The way they all immediately jumped into the car to buy paint was ridiculous, they’re scared of saying no to him & he just assumes the good little women will comply.

The daughter was still on her phone all the time even in the final episode, they learned nothing.

letting Jamie stay up online until 1am, not even talking to him when he turned the lights off! Ridiculous. I tuck my 12yo into bed with his book everynight & chat about his day if he likes.

shit family, shit parents, the daughter is destined to choose an aggressive moody husband just like her dad and repeat the whole cycle again.

I think what got me , what a lot miss about it , is that he isn’t the victim in this situation - Katie is.

But he is a victim.

He was a little boy who ended up growing up - still as a little boy - who didn’t feel loved completely . Even if he didn’t realise that. He had a low opinion of himself, he thought he was ugly. He was bullied but I don’t think he really even saw it as that , I don’t think he saw himself as a victim of bullying - he played that down. He was spat on and tripped up and he explained that as “ only that” like it wasn’t anything . He didn’t feel good enough for his dad - not sporty or strong. He was desperate to be liked. But due to the family dynamics , the society influence etc this came out as him desperate to get some kind of power to feel important. He tried to be in charge and control the situation with the therapist because deep down he felt like that is what ‘men’ do . He felt he was ok because he didn’t “ touch” her. His dad - now I think more about it - was quite abusive towards his mum just in terms of how she tiptoed around him … but , from what we see , he didn’t hit her so a similar thing , hes not that bad because some men would hit .

He was shaped when he was growing up . That’s the failure . With that and the influences of the incel movement etc . It didn’t have to end this way.

I don’t think the murder was premeditated . I think he wanted the power of scaring her , to feel strong . Then I think when she pushed him it was humiliating , somewhere deep down it bought back the spitting , the tripping up , the feeling of being ugly , the feeling of not being enough for his dad … and that rage came out.

Katie did not deserve it. She wasn’t innocent , she bullied him. But she did not deserve to die for it.

I think this should also be a lesson about how we treat boys.

Boys do not have to be strong , they do not have to be sporty , they are allowed to cry and I think we do have a real issue in society of Dads with that attitude that “ boys don’t cry” . It creates an immense pressure on them to be something they’re not. It leaves them scared to speak up if they’re being bullied , it leaves them feeling as though they have to sort their problems themselves without showing weakness and I genuinely think this contributes to a lot of knife crime . This whole thing of boys sorting it out with their fists , having a fight to settle things .

Sorry but my boy mum theory is in evidence on the threads on this programme ! Read one even starting with a boy mum saying how sorry she felt for the boy she could see her son in him and many chiming in to agree. A little murdering misogynist and that was her response. I rest my case.

It's a very human reaction to think about how this could effect your own life/that of your child.

What i took from the series though was the temperament of his father. Ok so he may of been heavily influenced online and by his peers on the incel movement but his own fathers emotional state and how the mother was "on Eggshells" on his bday and trying to placate him. Also the sexual advances he made to his wife in that episode and she laughed them off...if that is the example his male role model is showing. That is very telling.

Also note the behavior change from seeing him charged in the beginning. Very childlike. Innocent. Then that scene towards the end where he let his guard drop and tried to intimidate the phsycoligist. That was his true, misogynistic personality shining through which was really chilling.

Wow what a rude and generalising post. I have 3 boys and none of your judgy comments apply to me
Checked your own intelligence level lately?

Check your own intelligence levels first. No one is saying all mothers of boys are like this but I have been surprised at how many are. And not the women I thought would be either.

Gosh do you really have so little power of nuance to grasp what people mean when they say they see their own child reflected in a child of like gender, age and class 🥲

I work with people accused of (many who have committed) horrible crimes daily. Some remind me of people I know, not because the people I know have also been accused of specific crimes but because people are people, and we are capable of empathy.

You are wrong. ‘They’ don’t.

You are running with a little theory you invented and are looking for ‘evidence’ through a biased lens. It’s like the awful phrase ‘smog’ for smug mum of girls. Reductive nonsense.

People’s attitudes to their kids depends on their personality. The most ‘idolising’ mum I know has two girls. It’s just a trait of ‘her’.

I have sons and daughters. Have friends with every combination and don’t see the silly stereotype you are peddling.

I didn’t ’see my son’ in this character. But if a mum does see characteristics that remind them of their young boy, I don’t think it then means they are going to defend them if they commit murder..

Are you a ‘girl mum’? Do you wish you had a son? I am wondering where your chip originates?

I agree, he wasn’t some poor little 13 year old who was being bullied and just happened to stab someone.

he went after a young girl in her weakest moment hoping she would fancy him. He thought she should be grateful he didn’t ’do more to her’ because other boys might have done. She wrote on his insta that he was an incel (which he was). He then got a knife from his friend and committed pre mediated murder. He was controlling and manipulative with the psychologist. If it were real, he would be someone who would need to be inside for a very long time as a danger to women.

not a normal young boy by any stretch.

Oh I’m a boy mum. So I don’t fit your theory.

Totally, and there was so many parallels with my own slightly younger son it made it all quite disconcerting

You would enjoy listening to this year’s Reith Lectures, which were given by Dr Gwen Adshead. She’s a forensic psychiatrist and the evidence base around violent crime is exactly what she talks about. She discusses topics including - is there such thing as evil, what causes one sibling to be violent when another is not, and the role of childhood trauma.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9/episodes/player

The first episode is ‘Is violence normal?’

I’m confused by people saying ‘boy mums’ don’t exist
it’s an established thing on social media. There are studies that show mums favourite children are typically their boys. There is thread after thread of MILs justifying their little Prince and vilifying their DIL
and in fact thousands of threads of women justifying or minimising their DH and vilifying SIL/MIL/OW
there was a thread just the other day of a woman saying she won’t get much for Mother’s Day because she has sons so her expectations have never been high.
as a society we expect a lot less from men, we forgive them more, we don’t see them or judge them how we judge women.

it’s an established thing on social media
Lol. Some of us live our lives away from SM and have real life experiences of the world.

I agree that many women excuse their partners’ behaviour. That does not equate to all mothers of boys idolising them. This kind of stereotyping is lazy.

There are all sorts of people in the world. Thankfully we don’t all fit in neat boxes.

Hm I gave a lot of other examples, and just because you haven’t seen it on social media doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And I don’t think I said we all fit in neat boxes, or that some people won’t apply to what I’m saying, I said society in general.

I don’t think it’s lazy stereotyping to say society in general expects less of men, and so I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude mothers aren’t exempt from that. Perhaps we’re tripping up on the word ‘idolise.’ But the description was about boys being forgiven, bad behaviour ignored etc which I think stands with my point.