'As a mum of teen boys, Adolescence was a sobering watch.'

This post contains spoilers.

Watching the awkward mannerisms of 13-year-old Jamie Miller in the new British crime drama, Adolescence, was like watching either of my own teen boys, or one of their friends, on any given day. 

The range of dialogue, from barely audible grunts to enthusiastic, almost-childlike babble, the hand-fiddling, the switch in persona from little boy to young adult – Jamie could be any of our boys. 

Lead actor, Owen Cooper's performance as Jamie is phenomenal. Disconcertingly so. Because Jamie, an ordinary boy from an ordinary family, has been arrested for murdering a female classmate. 

Watch: Adolescence trailer. Article continues after the video.

The four-part series follows Jamie's father, Eddie—played masterfully by Stephen Graham—as he grapples with the horrifying truth: the little boy he loves so dearly has committed an unspeakable crime. 

We watch with seat-shuffling discomfort as Stephen and his devastated wife, Manda (played by Christine Tremarco) ask themselves where they went wrong, if they went wrong. 

How did their son, who wet his pants in fear as the police tore through the family home, end up stabbing a young girl to death?

We watch, with even greater discomfort, as the little boy who so often resembles our own sons, transforms from a nervous and confused teenager, to a rage-fuelled mini-man, standing over the psychologist who is there to assess him. It's a frightening switch. This is the boy we don't recognise.

We move from sympathy as Jamie talks about being ugly, about being rejected by girls and publicly bullied, to abject horror as he seeks to intimidate a grown woman in an attempt to maintain control. 

And we wonder, perhaps not if our sons are capable of murder, but if they too are experiencing any of the feelings this boy has described — the frustration, the rejection, the anger. And if they are, what are they doing with those feelings? 

Raising boys, or children in general, has never been easy. But while once parents were a child's primary influence, today we compete with myriad outside forces when it comes to shaping our boys' minds, and raising them to be good men. 

Adolescence lays this reality bare in a way that's both gripping and deeply unsettling. It also poses the question: how did Jamie get here? 

The show refuses to offer easy answers, but it does shine a light on these external forces —forces that every parent, teacher, and mentor must pay attention to. 

Because while most teenage boys won't commit murder, or even become violent, many of them are struggling, lost in a world of mixed messages, online radicalisation, and conflicting ideas of masculinity. 

Listen to The Quicky discuss Netflix's Adolescence here. Post continues below. 

As the mother of two teenage boys, one of my greatest priorities is to counteract the Andrew Tate's, the Conor McGregor's, and the Ben Cousins of the world — and a society that celebrates them. A society that teaches boys to dehumanise women by glorifying known abusers, while simultaneously forgetting that boys are not yet men — their perspectives are still being formed. 

This is what Adolescence gets so right—it doesn't point fingers at parents for failing their kids. Eddie is a good father. Manda is a good mother. Together, they've done their best to model good behaviours and to demonstrate a respectful relationship to both their son and their daughter.

What the show makes painfully clear is that any of us can be blindsided by what's happening behind closed doors, on private servers, and in group chats. Even the lead police investigator, (a brilliant performance by Ashley Walters), is shocked when his own son shares with him the impact and prominence of anti-women influencers, the incel community and other concepts that clearly come as a shock to him.

One of the most haunting messages of Adolescence is that intervention often comes too late. Eddie Miller only starts questioning what his son has been exposed to after the worst has already happened. In real life, we do have an opportunity to reach boys before they spiral, or to at least try — but something has to change.

Of course, spiralling may not mean murder or even violence, but it might mean sexist attitudes, it might mean coercive or controlling behaviours. Or it might mean that the boys flying under the radar, quietly taking in society's messaging, grow up to be the men women need to fear. 

The fact is, every man who perpetrates violence against women was a boy once. They were someone's teenage son, once. 

But the solution doesn't lie with parents alone, we need society at large to get on board, to create alternative narratives for boys to turn towards, while also being taught the skills to apply critical thinking when confronted by rigid ideas of what it means to be a man.

Now, more than ever, we need men to speak up and speak loudly, in private and in public, against violence against women, against misogyny, against coercive control. We need men to speak out against known abusers and sexist behaviour and the gender pay gap and objectification.

We need enough men to call these things out, so that they are not drowned out by the men who seek to radicalise young boys; the men who society so actively and willingly rewards.

We need fathers, step-fathers and male role models to speak to their boys when they hear or see them engage in negative behaviours. But we need them to do so without belittlement or violence of their own, that only serves to make teen boys even angrier. 

As the primary carer of my children, I do my best to encourage completely open dialogue, regardless of any perceived or potential discomfort. No topics are off limits.

Girls, sex, pornography, drugs, violence, self-esteem, mental health, sexuality, bullying – if my boys (or, of course, my daughter) want to talk about it, I allow them to do so with complete freedom, and without fear of judgement.

I'll often find opportunities to raise such subjects myself in a way that feels authentic. We speak about domestic and family violence, and feminism, and inequality and dissect and dismantle surrounding issues or people that the boys are exposed to via the news media or, more commonly, social media.

This, I hope, gives me the opportunity to gauge their perspectives, and course-correct any ideas that may be misguided. 

But, is that enough? Adolescence shows us that it might not be.

I am proud of my sons, but like all parents of teenagers, I too, am at the mercy of external forces that I fight hard to repel, as I do my best to nurture them into adulthood.

Which is why, while not all men perpetrate violence against women, we need all men to speak out against it.

We owe this to our boys. And we owe it to the girls who must live in a world alongside them.

Adolescence is currently screening on Netflix.

Feature image: Netflix.