Skins - it gets under your skin, literally

Posting after so long and it’s again about a teen drama. You must have guessed by now that I am completely into teen dramas - both with a tinge of nostalgia and some adult perspective. From gossip girl, that 70s show, and most teen films, I finally discovered Skins which has its own fan following and generation influence in Britain and around. Set in 2007 onwards it tells story of three generations of teens coming of age discovering sex, drugs, porn and independence while defining new terms of friendship and relationship. 

As a teenager once I do feel the hormonal surge and complicated emotions at this age makes you do crazy things. Whether you are popular or the hidden one, there are things which you do or happen to you which redefined your personality and makes you toughen up for the big bad world. The flood of choices and influences is liberating as well as confusing. Seemingly life long friendships crumble under emotional hang ups and poor communications. You fight any kind of control or authority figure and rebellion becomes the flavour of the times. You want to do big things but get hung up on petty stuff. The firsts for many - kiss, relationship, intercourse, break ups, crushes, night outs and many more just goes by in a flash and we are left with the scars or as we call them experiences coming out as true adults. 

But as an adult and now as a mother, I fear the damage that goes on in this series. The lack of parental guidance or dysfunctional families clearly reflects in the poor choices where these children search and compete for attention, popularity, sexual escapades, adrenaline raising adventures, true love while finding recluse in meaningless sex, mind games, loud techno music, and the hazy smoke of intoxicants and marathon alcohol sessions. There are characters who are real and seemingly unreal with complexities so deep - Cassie with her self loathing, Tony with his megalomania, Cook with mad anger, Frankie with her abandonment issues, Mini with her Daddy issues, Effi with her depression and others with many more. You can identify to some parts of them but the seriously glaring part is lack of any good role models or adult figures. 

As a mother I fear this is how the teens behave nowadays then how can you protect your child. Even the ones coming from reasonable families and with best convent education struggle with peer pressure and dealing with privileges of money and opportunity. There are those who fight the system and those who screw the system but get screwed anyways. 

There are characters who confuse me with their inability to take right decisions blinded by emotions and past hang ups. There are parents who try to control them but only end up pushing them deeper in the mess they created in the first place. With new definitions of sexual identity, rapists, paedophile, drug dealers, gangsters, sociopaths on loose the generation seems to be doomed. Do we let them jump in deep waters hoping they will come up or hold them back and for how long? We have gone thru our teens but the times have changed, social media, easy access to money and internet and plethora of information has created different kind of demons. We fought mostly internal now the fight is out in the open and there is no where to run but face it. 

I relish the drama but I fear the reality in all this. I don’t wish a life such as this for any of the next generations kids I know or don’t even know, but I wish to help as the adults have a responsibility to pass on their wisdom to the next generation although with times the teaching methods have to change, communication modes need to change and adult child equations need to change. 

And irony is that the song which comes to me mind is the one from 70s by Cat Stevens - Oh baby baby it's a wild world 

I'll always remember you like a child, girl…