The Parent’s Lot: how Adolescence offers us hope to the challenge of a lifetime.

Parents will never be enough. And we will always have children whose parents have deluded their children, abused their children, forgotten their children or simply never been up to the standards we wished for ourselves when we were children. Thew new Netflix series, Adolescence, throws a stark light on to these realities and amongst much else, it reminds that the parents lot – to expect, to be expected of and yet to fall and find it impossible to meet those expectations -is not a happy one.

We want so much for our own parents and yet they fall short; we want so much of ourselves when we become parents but learn too quickly that hypocrisy, double dealing and shape shifting come too easily and too quickly for our liking. We are seduced by the flattery that a child is simply and solely the biological and cultural product of two parents: so that if your child takes a path which horrifies you (like Jamie did in the TV series), then somehow we parents are completely at fault. There was something wrong in our DNA, or in our upbringing which has caused that outcome. It is somehow all our fault.

But that flattery is delusional. No child is simply the product of two adults who have combined their DNA. They are a product of their peers, their environment, of the world they live in – and of their own free will. Perhaps the most uplifting moment in Adolescence is when Jamie tells his family that he is going to plead guilty for the crime he committed and in doing so, takes responsibility for his actions, acknowledging he has agency, and is not just the result of other people’s pressures or two other people’s DNA profiles.

No one, no thing can be a parent alone: it requires partnership, a veritable village of influencers who can fill gaps and step up when needed, be quiet when required and to speak out when it’s essential. No two parents can do everything that’s required, especially in these pre-war days when the nation is gearing itself up for existential questions about who we all actually are and what we stand for. But one thing is crystal clear: we all need love, attention and support, all of the time. All of us.

Author: drnicko

Awarded an MBE for services to arts-based businesses, I am passionate about generating inspiring, socially engaging, creative practice within educational contexts both nationally and internationally. View all posts by drnicko