Caitlin Moran: One stop advice shop for understanding and helping teenage boys
Obviously I don’t want to spoiler it for anyone waiting for their partner to come home and finish the series - HURRY UP SIMON! THE DEAL IN A MARRIAGE IS WE DON’T GO OUT UNTIL WE FINISH THE BOX-SET, SO WHY HAVE YOU ARRANGE TO SEE BOB IN THE MIDDLE OF A MASSIVE DRAMATIC ARC? - but: wow. Adolescence. Everyone’s talking about Adolescence, and it’s not hard to see why. Stand out performances from Princess Anne in The Crown, and Asher D from So Solid Crew. Newcomer Owen Cooper - only 16-years-old - nailing an astonishing turn: from “scared little boy in something too big too handle” to “rage-eyed murderer, terrorising a room.” And National Treasure Stephen Graham - who co-wrote it, along with This Is England writer Jack Thorne - turning in his usual, heart-stopping presence.
Coming in the same month as Gareth Southgate’s much-publicised Richard Dimbleby Talk (“Too many young men are isolated - many don’t have mentors”) and viral interviews with pop-star Sam Fender (“Young men are made to feel like they are a problem … and are driven into the arms of Andrew Tate”), and Dragons Den inventor Stephen Bartlett (“We’re losing a generation of boys”), it feels like we’ve now reached a tipping-point. When it comes to the loneliness, and radicalisation, of 21st century teenage boys, it feels like Adolescence might be its Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
Because it’s when we see it in a story - rather than just headlines, and interviews - it resonates, right in our guts. These are the houses, and these are the schools, and these are the phones, in the pockets of boys - buzzing with another update from Andrew Tate’s War Room. The Centre for Social Justice’s “Lost Boys” report contained what might be the most depressing sentence of 2025: that more teenage boys had smartphones, than fathers at home. To many boys, Tate is their main male role-model.
We already know that every school in the country has had to hold an assembly, or give staff training, to deal with Tate’s influence on pupils.
That his fans disrupt lessons by quoting him - or flatly refuse to be educated by female teachers.
And now we’ve seen his “Red Pill” theories quoted in Adolescence, and seen what happens when very young boys are told an utter madness - that The Matrix is real, and that they live in a distorted reality which only Tate can guide them through, and - we’re scared. Every parenting WhatsApp group and online forum is filled with worried parents going, “What do we do? How do we help our boys?”
Since writing What About Men? - with its chapters on Tate, and the Manosphere, and online pornography, and the notable fury and loneliness in so many Gen Z and A boys - I’ve been asked this question often.
And the good news there is something we can do. Lots we can do. And the main thing is: giving your son the ability to rebel against Tate. Feminism has given so many girls the ability to rebel against cliches they are told, by older, sourer people, about being a woman: that they must be pretty, they must be thin, that they must be pliant, that they must not complain.
At the moment, however, boys seem more … stoic about accepting these things. They have not yet learned to question bullshit. There is, as yet, no sense of them rebelling against the cliches of being a man. And Tate’s worldview is a series of old, stale cliches. They’re so limited, it doesn’t take long to disassemble them.
His main advice is: get pumped at the gym; become rich using his cryptocurrency schemes, and blame everything on “The Matrix”, “wokeness”, and mouthy women.
But of course, being rich and hench does not give a boy a remotely comprehensive tool-box to deal with his life. How will it help you if your mum gets cancer? If your friend becomes depressed? If you worry you don’t have any real friends? It won’t teach you how to find love, or raise your own children, or self-soothe.
And if you are lead to believe that “mouthy” women are wrong - that they should be subservient to you, and you should only hang out with the young, pretty ones - then how are you going to talk to you mum? Your gran? Your sisters? And, eventually, your daughters? You will have been robbed of good, loving, nurturing relationships with 52% of the planet. And that is a very lonely place to be.
It’s this loneliness - this hard, unhuggable world - that is, ultimately, Tate’s biggest weakness. There is no joy in Tate, and the Manosphere - the nearest it gets is a mutant half-cousin: an ugly triumphalism, whilst sitting on the bonnet of a Ferrari. What, I wonder, does Andrew Tate do on Christmas Day? Or when it snows? Has he ever built a den, or had a competition to see how many Maltesers he can fit in his mouth, or snuggled with a dog whilst watching The Incredibles? There’s nothing wrong with going to the gym, or getting rich, but - that’s a very small life. You can’t do that all the time.
And so the ultimate weapon parents have against Tate, and his teachings, is that: we can give them the whole world. We can give them all their feelings. They don’t need to fear not getting rich, or failing to be “hench”, because - we will love them anyway. Whatever they are.
If Adolescence scared you - over it’s four, hour-long episodes - make sure you spend the same amount of time, this week, with your son. That’s what the show wants you to do, in the end. That’s what you want. And that’s what your son wants. Spend more time with them than Andrew Tate - with his constant, buzzing updates - and give them what he can’t: the whole world. You. Teach him to rebel.
Caitlin Mo xxx
Useful resources
Caitlin Moran talks mental health on the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show
Sign up to the Caitlin Moran newsletter
By signing up, I confirm that I'm over 16. To find out what personal data we collect and how we use it, including for our recommendations, please visit our Privacy Policy.
