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Murderous Teenagers or Culpable Fathers: What’s ‘Adolescence’ Really About?
What could Eddie have done to protect his son?
Adolescence raises some disturbing questions. What sort of society are we living in where a young boy kills a young girl, by repeatedly stabbing her with a knife? Who or what is responsible? Is social media the single largest factor behind the unhinging of young people? Are there bigger issues at play? What can parents do under such circumstances?
The last episode of Adolescence focuses solely on Jamie’s (Owen Cooper) family: The father Eddie (Stephen Graham), the mother Manda (Christine Tremarco) and the sister Lisa (Amelie Pease). The father delivers the heart-rending closing words:
I’m sorry son. I should’ve done better.
The question then is, what could he have done better?
Sometime earlier while grieving and reflecting, this very question had come up. Eddie had asked, “Should we have done more though?” to which Manda had replied:
I think it’d be good if we accepted that maybe we should’ve done. I think it would be okay for us to think that.
Acceptance of responsibility as parents is part of their coping mechanism and perhaps also a necessary first step towards some sort of…
