Early in the first episode of the four-part Netflix series “Adolescence,” a father and son sit in a room at a police station because the son has been accused of murder. The boy, Jamie, who’s 13, has been surrounded by officers, lawyers and medical workers he barely understands. Alone with his father, he weeps.
Throughout the scene, Eddie, the father, repeatedly leans forward or begins to lift his arm as if he is going to hug or comfort his son, but he never touches Jamie. Instead, Eddie tells Jamie, “Eat your cornflakes.” Practical matters — that is how Eddie shows love.
During that long first day in the police station, Eddie makes very little physical contact with his son. They do not embrace until the episode’s final scene, after both have reviewed the video evidence that establishes the son’s guilt. Their eventual embrace, initially sought by Jamie and rejected by Eddie, is not one of comfort but one of shared devastation.
That gap is echoed in the distant relationship between the investigator, Luke, and his own son. Both dads struggle to get the love inside them into the hearts of their boys.
My relationship with my teenage son is different and, I think, quite warm. Still, I know that struggle. As my eldest son exited early childhood, his shoulders broadening to match mine and his voice shifting a register, I wondered what to do with this emerging adult that now inhabited my house. As someone who grew up without a dad around, I lacked a healthy model to imitate. I didn’t know how to tear down that wall of silence and mystery that creeps up between parents and their teens. But I knew that such barrier destruction is an essential task for parents. Watching the show reminded me that I wasn’t alone.
In a past generation, researchers who studied the impact of fathers on their sons often focused on their physical absence from the home. Boys raised without their fathers around, the research showed, were at greater risk for all sorts of negative outcomes related to social development and criminality.
We know now that it’s not enough for men just to be living in the home, like both fathers in the show. Physical affection has powerful implications for male emotional and mental development.
The love (verbal and physical) that fathers display toward their sons is a key predictor of whether teen boys will experience problems managing aggression and violence during their teenage years. In “Adolescence,” Jamie is an extreme manifestation of a common problem. Too many of our boys are adrift without healthy paternal guidance.
As fathers, we serve as our sons’ introduction to masculinity. Too often we take that to mean that they don’t need the kind of physical affection we gave them when they were little. Or that sarcasm ought to fully replace affirmation as a means of relating to them.
Our physical affection shows them that it is OK to be strong and weak, to love and be loved. It’s one way we can give kids permission to be different. In the absence of healthy models, some boys will try to define their manhood through aggression and sexual conquest. In “Adolescence,” we see Jamie try to prove his masculinity through sexual activity and, later, deadly violence.
With my kids, I came up with a game I called “seven minutes with Dad.” I would sit each of my four kids down and start a timer. We faced each other, and my child could tell me whatever he or she wanted, but I didn’t ask questions. He or she took the lead. My elementary-school-age children would often quickly begin a rambling discourse about what they did during P.E. or the multiplication tables they were learning. They could be surprisingly open about the kid who bullied people at lunch or pushed their friend on the playground.
My teens (one girl and one boy) were often more hesitant, but when they finally began to talk, it often lasted more than seven minutes. Other times, still hoping to reach him, I would call my teen son over to the couch or into my office and ask to him tell me something that was true — not a superficial anecdote but anything about his life or day that might help me know him.
When he was younger, the hugs came naturally, as normal conclusions to the end of a day or as a welcome home from work. Some days I still have to be intentional about getting past that emotional or physical wall.
I’ve found that as parents, we must learn the rhythm of each child’s heart and play the songs that can reach him or her. All great music has a mix of structure and feel, homage and innovation that allows for true beauty to be created. Every home is different, but there are common elements that make for a flourishing childhood.
I felt the lack of it, and a number of studies suggest that other young men are feeling it, too. That lack of a secure emotional foundation has them turning to internet influencers, as the character Jamie did, who do not love them and want only to pass their emotional and sexual dysfunction to a confused young male populace.
In “Adolescence,” the relationship between Luke and his son, Adam, functions as an alternative ending to the sad story of Jamie. After making a break in the case, Luke finally stops to process all that he has experienced. He sees his son in the distance and invites him to go grab some chips and a soda. The boy initially refuses, saying, “You’ve got your case.” Adam assumes the career comes before their relationship. Luke replies: “I’ve got some free time. I want to spend it with you because I love you.” The difference between Luke and Eddie is that Luke still has time to repair the relationship.
“Adolescence” is a work of fiction in which cause and effect are simplified. But it does awaken us to a reality that is clear to anyone paying attention: Many of our boys are not all right, and it is up to those of us who love them to do something about it.