Parenting in the Digital Age

My daughter will be 12 in a couple of weeks, a year younger than the boy in the hit Netflix drama Adolescence.

For her birthday, she wants a laser tag party, and she’s sent me a list of presents she’d like: Posca pens, hair accessories, lip balm, ‘cute clothes’, Nike trainers.

Like lots of other girls in her year, she likes Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, and she has started putting her hair in heat-free curlers that she bought from Primark with her pocket money.

But on Tuesday night I stood by her bedroom door and listened as she tucked in her ‘gang’ – the six or seven cuddly toys she has accumulated since early childhood, and who still (thank God) accompany her to bed.

She is still a child, still my baby actually, no matter how much she’d like me to believe otherwise.

The Dark Side of the Internet

In Adolescence, Jamie, the 13-year-old boy at the heart of the show, can no longer tuck in his teddy bear because he is in prison, having murdered a girl at his school after becoming caught up in the online ‘manosphere’.

His father, Eddie, played to heartbreaking perfection by Stephen Graham, is left to do it for him… and to torture himself for not doing more to stop his son’s slide into unspeakable violence.

With 24.3million views in its first four days, Adolescence is the sort of blockbuster TV that networks used to aim for in the 1980s, but which was long ago lost in the relentless march of the internet.

The critically-acclaimed Netflix series Adolescence, created by and starring Stephen Graham centres on 13-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper), who is accused of murdering a schoolgirl

There is a sort of hysteria about this programme, and for good reason: it shows how we’ve been sleepwalking into a nightmare world where it’s perfectly possible for children to be raised by social media, instead of their own parents.

The Warning Signs

But I suppose the thing that surprises me most about Adolescence is that anybody finds it surprising at all.

Who knew about online misogyny, Andrew Tate and that giving your child unfettered access to the internet might be quite bad for them? Quite a lot of us, actually.

Amazing campaigners such as Laura Bates have been screaming it from the rooftops for some time now (see her book, Men Who Hate Women), while grassroots groups like Smartphone Free Childhood have been picking up support in the last year.

It says something about the deeply weird nature of society that it takes a fictionalised drama produced by Brad Pitt for everyone to finally wake up to it.

Real-Life Consequences

On any given day, at any given time, you can find real-life examples of Adolescence in the news.

This week, a court heard about the horrific crimes of Nicholas Prosper, a ‘geeky’ teen from Luton who killed his mother and two siblings last September (he had plotted to murder many more, at his local primary school). Before he was jailed for 49 years on Wednesday, a court heard how the 19-year-old had spent hours online researching terrible crimes.

This was also the week that Tim Berners-Lee called for tighter regulation on social media. ‘There is harm being done to our young people and to the online public square where humanity gathers,’ he said. When even the inventor of the internet is asking for change, you know it is badly needed.

Prosper pictured in Luton Crown Court on Tuesday in an artist’s impression for the first of his two-day sentencing hearing

Parental Responsibility

Yet, despite all this dire evidence, I’ve often felt like I’m fighting a losing battle when it comes to not allowing my daughter any access to social media.

A year ago, as we prepared for her transition from primary to secondary school, I was adamant she wouldn’t be getting a smartphone (we were already considered a bit old-fashioned for not letting her have one in Years Five and Six).

Then I realised society is so dependent on these things that it was actually easier if I caved and got her an old iPhone, where I could engage parental controls.

There are caveats: no phone in the bedroom, regular checks at random, and – most importantly – no social media, not until she is old enough to be able to use it responsibly. (I don’t know when this will be, given that I, as a 44-year-old, cannot be relied upon to use it sensibly).

Other Observations

Gwynnie’s like a fine wine – she gets better with age

Paltrow landed another cover of Vanity Fair

With her bonkers advice to insert expensive jade eggs into our vaginas, and pretentious chat of ‘conscious uncoupling’, Gwyneth Paltrow hasn’t always been my cup of tea.

But I find myself warming to the actress as she opens up to Vanity Fair about what it was like to go out with Brad Pitt (a little like dating Prince William, according to the ever-relatable Gwynnie).

She’s just so unapologetically herself, despite all the stick she gets. Indeed, like a fine wine, Paltrow, 52, is improving with age – you just better make sure it’s an organic, sustainably-sourced biodynamic fine wine, served in a very pricey Goop glass.

Who needs TopShop? We have M&S

As a woman who came of age in the Nineties and Noughties, I got momentarily excited when I saw the news that Topshop is returning. Then I remembered that I am 44, and I have a new version of Topshop – it’s called Marks & Spencer, and, like all my friends, I was up at the crack of dawn yesterday to refresh my app and get my hands on the new collection. Sorry Topshop, you’ve been firmly replaced in millennial hearts by a new (actually quite old) high street staple.

Sliders belong by the pool

Every year, the Office for National Statistics creates a shopping basket to measure inflation and show us what the nation is – and isn’t – buying. This year, virtual reality headsets are in, as are yoga mats and mangos. Most curiously, men’s sliders made