Yet Untitled 140 - Let's do the work
So we can SEE young people and not miss them by a mile
Dearest Yet Untitler,
I hope you are well.
I was remembering my father this week after watching ‘Adolescence’ - that Netflix show that everyone’s talking about. The show makes a strong case in pointing out the vast gap of understanding between the young people of today and their adults. This series is amazing TV - people are calling it a masterclass in filmmaking; but more than the form, I feel what it’s saying is the thing of most real and urgent import.
Like I said, I remembered my father after I watched a few episodes and wondered whether he really knew me. I know he loved me, but did he ever have moments when he felt completely flummoxed about what went on in my head? I never saw such moments, but then again, maybe I’ll never know.
Sometimes, I tried to test my parents. I let them read things I had written that let on more about my inner world than what might have met their eyes from the outside. I wondered what it would take to alarm them, but no matter what I served up, I never saw as much as a flinch. Maybe they unburdened themselves to each other outside my presence. Maybe I simply wasn’t as controversial as I made myself out to be😅.
All said and done, from my perspective - they were pretty cool cats, my folks. I once asked my dad - “what would you do if I started living in with my girlfriend?” His answer was - “it’s none of my damn business!” (sic) I often think about this reply of his. While this was him keeping a respectful distance from my life, it was also a solid position from which he indicated that he recognised the autonomy I possessed, even through I may not have fully grasped it yet.
In comparison, I find I’m not so cool. When my 11-year-olds test me in similar ways - via utterances, observations or proclamations about their unique and often exasperating worlds - flinch I do.
The other day, Ananya asked me about suicide. She’s 11. Her peers seem to talk about things like suicide in ways I remember peers my youth speaking about body piercing. It worries me. Perhaps stories about young people doing extreme and tragic things for seemingly unfathomable reasons have made me paranoid.
Adolescence is an Explosion
Remember the Islands of Personality crumbling in Pixar’s ‘Inside Out’? Growing up, as dramatised in this amazing animation from the inside, was mayhem. From all I have lived, observed, read and watched: adolescence is an explosion - if we define an explosion is an extreme change in an entity’s mode of being.
Even if the explosions I subjected my parents to were of the quieter kind, they somehow managed to contain them in a secure place - in the space that existed between the two of them. The same applied to the louder explosions of my elder brother’s adolescence. They contained that mushroom cloud also, somehow.
But, are we in a time now when family cannot provide such protection anymore?
I think what understandably worries folks when they watch ‘Adolescence’ is its stark rendition of a how even a loving family isn’t able to protect their children from the dangers of online bullying and toxic online narratives - dangers they cannot see / seem to have no control over / do not understand; constantly influencing their children via the devices that are their essential and indispensable tools.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from having co-written a coming-of-age drama series about a group of Gen-Z girls…
…it’s that there’s a lot to learn.
I received an education in the process of making this show that perhaps most of my peers do not receive unless they specifically go seeking it out. I can’t say I ‘get’ the world of my kids now, but I do know more now than I ever would have had ‘Ziddi Girls’ not happened.
It took some doing to learn what I did. A lot of long conversations with young people.
Continuing to love someone is an education. They change. You change. It takes work to keep up. Clearly, parents of my generation have to work harder than ever before. But it’s not all bad. As I said in the last instalment, the world of young people is also fascinating. Not only is it totally worth educating ourselves about those who will occupy the world after we’re gone, it’s an enterprise that filled me with inspiration and hope!
Coming back to dad
Did my dad go out of his way to understand my world in order to understand me? Was that the basis to his composure when I challenged him with aspects of myself that I felt he may not understand?
I still don’t know. But whether he got me or not, he handled me with assurance and composure. Even if he was winging it, it made an impression on me. There was consistency and stability in how he responded to me growing up.
When Ananya or Aahana reveal some aspect of their inner worlds to me that I find difficult to fathom, I try to emulate my father in his composure, to give them my thoughts from a solid place: a place where the world isn’t falling apart, where one wakes up looking forward to a cuppa, goes out to buy vegetables, considers politeness to be of import.
Perhaps this is me wanting to expose them to something consistent and stable, relaying to them in some indirect (hence acceptable) way the possibility that one can emerge out of childhood and adolescence in one piece!
If you’ve seen Ziddi Girls…
…you’ll remember that there are two lovely dads in the show - ones who really see their daughters.
One of them has to work harder than the other in order to really see his daughter for who she is. But his arc is about how he works this out. He has to traverse a very dark night of the soul to get there. But he does.
That’s what counts.
We both had to work for it, but I think both he and I managed to see each other for who we were before he left us. This fact is immensely precious to me.
There is a lot that’s precarious for the young ones in our world today. Terrible things can happen to them. Terrible things happen inside their minds. Every time the world wins, it robs them of their hope - the biggest tragedy of all.
We’ve got to keep them close, do the work and see them.
It’s worth it. They’re worth it.
They’re all we’ve got. We’re all they’ve got.
As always, thanks for listening.
Lots of love,
V
PS. What flummoxes you most about young people today? How do you bridge that gap?
Tell me. I want to know.
Also,
See you next week!
Loved this, Vasant!
You know I love your writing and how committed you are to live mindfully, both as a human and as a parent. But most of all I love when (and how) you write about your father! The kids are (and going to be) alright!