Needless to say, this post contains spoilers for the show Adolescence.

A month or so ago, my husband and I watched Adolescence, which as you probably know is a highly critically-acclaimed British limited series, released earlier this year, available on Netflix. Which, btw, I just saw that that young actor just became the youngest boy ever to win an Emmy; well deserved, he acted the heck out of that role, damn. And I guess it was nominated for a ton of other Emmys as well, so I needn’t waste any time talking about what a good show it is. Personally I love the limited series format, and I wish that more shows would limit themselves to just one season; all too often, the creators keep on dragging things along long after the story’s died and rotted, just because there’s money to be had, and it’s disgusting.

But so anyway, as you know if you read this blog, I am a really stupid person and not any kind of critic or anything, so I can’t contribute anything of value to the existing discussions of this show. I don’t pay any attention to the whole “redpill” thing or to whoever Andrew Tate is, so I can’t comment on any of that, although it did seem painfully obvious to me that whoever wrote this show has like intense personal beef with this Andrew Tate. I haven’t been inside of a high school in seventeen years (thanks be to God), so I can’t comment much on the state of public education, either, although from what I’ve heard this show depicted it very accurately, which, yikes.

No, as is the case on this entire blog, I have no expertise, so the only thing I can really put out there is my personal reaction, in case anyone out there, like me, just wants to talk about it. And for me, the big takeaway, the thing that I was left thinking about for days and weeks afterwards, was: do we have any control, then, over who we are, and how our kids turn out?

As a mom of little kids, I worry about this a lot. Maybe it’s a “millennial mom” thing, but it gives me a lot of anxiety, trying not to mess up my kids. I always overthink about every single thing I say to them, and worry that I’m psychologically damaging them no matter what I do. At the end of the day: “I was too mean and strict, they’re going to be traumatized and go no-contact with me as soon as they’re grown up, and rightfully so!” Or: “I was too lenient, I’m spoiling them, what would my priest say?!, they’re not going to have any sense of respect or discipline, I am one of ‘those’ modern parents, I am part of what’s wrong with society!” It seems that no matter what I say, I always look back on it at the end of the day and think that I should have said the opposite. No matter what I do, I am damaging them somehow, and setting them up for a future full of misery and expensive psychotherapy. But, how much control do I actually have over my kids’ outcome?

In the last episode of Adolescence, it seemed like the show was simultaneously blaming Jamie’s parents, and excusing them from culpability for his actions. Yes, it was their fault, because Dad had unresolved anger issues and was at work all the time, and Mom didn’t pay attention to the warning signs, like the way that Jamie was just in his room on the computer all the time. But, also, Dad couldn’t really help it, could he, because his own dad was violent with him, and Jamie’s dad was just doing the best he could, trying to contain his rage and not take it out on his kids (but instead on things like sheds and vans). And I guess the idea was that Mom wasn’t really at fault because she lives in a world where teenagers sitting on their computers all day is normalized. Both parents were, in their ways, just products of their own upbringing and environment.

Aren’t we all? How much control do I even have over myself and my own choices? I’m not going to talk about whether or not free will exists. That question is too mind-bendy for me. As a Catholic, I know that it is somehow both true that free will exists and that God has the ultimate power as well as foreknowledge of how everything will end up – that I simultaneously have control over my actions and have no control whatsoever, which is confusing, but it makes sense as long as you don’t think about it too hard, because it certainly appears true that we have free will, and it feels weird to think otherwise. As you can tell I’m far from equipped to talk about such lofty subjects as free will.

So I guess the question here is, can anyone ever not be just a product of their own upbringing and environment? Can anyone ever not doom their children to be just products of their upbringing and environment? Is it really all just one big hopeless vicious cycle of disorder and trauma?

I admittedly stress about this a lot, and that stress definitely swelled up again, for a while, after watching Adolescence. But fortunately for me, I am, as I already mentioned, Catholic, and in the Catholic Church, we are shown the way to freedom – to breaking that hopeless cycle.

Sure, as long as you’re just being yourself, living according to your own human limitations, seeking no more than as much human satisfaction as you can get, you’re going to be stuck in the cycle. You’re probably doomed to misery. I do not know this firsthand, as I am definitely not a saint, but I know from reading the lives of the saints, that the only way to escape that cycle – to breach the surface of these whirling murky waters of human pain and struggle, and finally take a breath of air – is to become a saint. I’m pretty sure that’s the only way to be actually free. A saint is the only kind of person who’s entirely free from the world and all its emotional/psychic/material anguish. A saint lives entirely in the truth.

Hm, so, does that mean that, if I’m not a literal saint, I’m doomed to be a shitty parent, and my kids are doomed to generational trauma?

Well, first of all, I think there’s a common misconception about saints that they never do a single thing wrong. That’s not what a saint is. The saints are not the same as Christ or the Blessed Mother. On earth, they weren’t perfect. They sometimes get things wrong. But the thing that made them saints was that they loved God very much and were entirely devoted to doing His will, not their own. They are already living in eternity; they have their priorities straight. But they’re still people, i.e. imperfect. So, I don’t think it’s necessarily true that one must never ever make a single mistake in order to be a good parent, to raise mentally-healthy kids.

What, then, is the secret? – No, really, can somebody tell me? Lol. I try to do my best, but my oldest is still only five, so despite having four kids, I’m still quite new at this.

I figure probably one of the most important things one can do, when it comes to raising kids who are free from the vicious cycle that is the human condition – i.e., kids who have the best chance at true happiness – is to pass on the Faith to them. That is the most important thing that we can give them. But of course, we should also practice what we preach. It’s not going to help our kids much if we teach certain habits and virtues but behave completely differently in our own everyday lives. That will just lead to confusion and fallen-away souls. The responsibility of being a Catholic parent is incredibly daunting. Which is why stories like Adolescence make me so anxious. Am I doing enough to save my kids? Am I doing enough, am I doing enough, am I doing enough?? If you’re a mom, even a secular mom, you get it!

I’m never doing enough, it seems – but, at least my children will know their Blessed Mother, who is perfect, and who will never fail them like I inevitably will to some degree.

It’s always interesting to me when secular stories like this accidentally profess the truth of God and His infinite love. Yes, every person is indeed doomed to a cycle of hopelessness and ruin, evil and pain, if they try to live without God. I guess all good art tells us something about God, really, and that’s why it is good.