For the past week or so I’ve been trying to watch Friday Night Lights with my elder son. I’ve been trying to find a way for us to spend time regular time together that doesn’t involve me cooking food he inhales before I can sit down at the table or driving him to football while he stares at drill rap videos on his phone. So far it’s been a life-affirming experience that’s brought us closer together than ever before. JK! It was meant to be one episode a night and one week in and we’ve managed one and a half— an argument-to-viewing-ratio of approximately three-to-one. On the upside, he’s been doing his math homework on time.
Of course he doesn’t want to watch a series with me. Bonding between parents and adolescents is the teen-world equivalent of the married person’s date night, except without the promise of a £19 cocktail and ho-hum sex. Enforced intimacy. Eeesh, just mentioning intimacy and sex in the same paragraph as my kid makes me want to scratch off all my skin.
The point is, when it comes to enticing this particular boy to spend time with me, all my enticing carrots are transformed into thorny sticks. The only reason I’ve been able to force issue thus far is that he’s currently grounded and without a phone (punishment for undisclosed shenanigans). I’d hoped the boredom of screenlessness would drive him out of his room onto the sitting room sofa where we could reunite regularly for the first time since Cbeebies In the Night Garden, but turns out he views the open invitation as more ‘consequence’ than ‘privilege.’
This much has become clear: He needs to hate Friday Night Lights in order to prove his agency in the world just as much as I need him to watch it in order prove to myself I’m a loving and responsible mother. If he can’t succeed in hating it, a part of him dies and I win. The reverse is also true but I’ll lose. I introduced the game but he set the rules. Normally by this stage I wouldn’t have a fighting chance, but I’ve got a secret weapon (or I thought I did), which is the show itself.
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