Adolescence: Ruwaida Abela Northen On The Netflix Series Confronting Parents

The coming of rage – Bazaar Arabia columnist Ruwaida Abela Northen tackles the uncomfortable viewing experienced by many parents while watching the new hit TV series starring Stephen Graham

Netflix’s latest show, expecting the usual teenage drama—eye rolls, love triangles, maybe a scandal or two. What I didn’t expect was to be spiralling into full-blown anxiety by episode two. A gut punch of a show that left me staring at the screen long after the credits rolled, whispering to myself, What happened to childhood?

I’m a mother of four. I’ve handled diaper blowouts at airports, toddler meltdowns in the middle of Spinneys, and the emotional rollercoaster of tween attitude. I thought I was ready for anything. But nothing prepared me for Adolescence. Nothing prepared me for how closely it mirrors the world our kids are growing up in now. And how different—how heartbreakingly different—that world is from the one we knew.

Gone are the days of prank-calling crushes from the landline or burning CDs for your best friend. These kids are growing up online, in group chats and disappearing messages, chasing likes, TikTok trends and filtered validation, learning to perform before they even know who they are. And the show doesn’t shy away from any of it. It’s brutal in its honesty. Awkward, unpolished, and so close to real life it made me feel sick.

As I watched, I kept thinking of my own kids. My ten-year-old son still sleeps with a stuffed animal. But last year, I caught him Googling how to make a fake ID so he could bypass age restrictions on an online game he learned about in school and all his friends were playing. He also casually mentioned that he was thinking about creating a girl’s profile because he noticed people are more likely to play with you if they think you’re a girl. That hit me like a truck.

I managed to get the school to ban that game—it was all anyone talked about and did at break time, and the kids were begging for top-up cards like they were sweets. I have every parental control setting known to man turned on. I monitor, I talk, I restrict. But still… it doesn’t feel like enough.

The truth is, I used to worry about screen time. Now, I worry about screen life. The secret messages. The games that aren’t really games. The way they’re building versions of themselves I don’t even recognise. And how fast they’re losing the wide-eyed, silly, wonderful innocence they’re meant to have at this age.

Adolescence doesn’t sugarcoat anything. It doesn’t let you breathe. It shows the messy, in-between bits of growing up—when you don’t know who you are, and you’re trying to figure it out in front of everyone, all the time. And it’s terrifying, because it doesn’t feel like fiction. It feels like what’s happening.

It made me feel like I’m parenting in the dark. Like I’m fumbling with a tiny torch in a space I don’t understand. But it also reminded me that the only way through is to talk. To talk, and to keep talking. To make sure our kids know they can come to us, with anything, even the things that make us uncomfortable.

There’s a moment in the series that stayed with me long after the screen went dark—Jamie’s father, consumed by shame, silently realising how much he missed. The signs. The pain. The slow unraveling happening under his own roof while he was busy being “a good parent.” It was haunting because it was familiar. Because we all like to believe we’re present. Attentive. In control. But sometimes, shame creeps in like a fog, reminding us of all the things we didn’t see. All the conversations we never had. The show doesn’t let him off the hook—and it doesn’t let us off either.

I’m not a perfect mum. I don’t have all the answers. Most days, I’m just trying to raise decent, self-aware humans who know that their value isn’t tied to how many people clicked a heart on their photo. But after watching Adolescence, I’m even more sure of this: we can’t protect our children by shutting the world out. We have to walk them through it, even when it’s scary, even when it’s ugly, even when we have no idea what we’re doing.

And then there’s me, turning to my husband, eyes wide, heart racing, and saying: “We’re never leaving Dubai.” I know people roll their eyes and say we live in a bubble here—and maybe we do. But if a bubble means safety, if it means I get to shield my kids from the noise just a little bit longer, then hand me the soap and make it a bubble bath. I don’t need them growing up faster than they already are. There’s nothing shameful about wanting to protect your children for as long as the world will let you.

So, I’m holding them closer. And their phones? A little further. And we’re talking, really talking. About everything. Even the stuff that makes me want to cringe, or panic, or cry. Because silence isn’t safe. It’s a slow, deadly surrender.