Holding My Boy: A Reflection on Adolescence and the Soul of Our Young Men

The opening scene… indeed, the whole first episode of Adolescence… left me breathless. I didn’t realise at first what was happening in my body, but I found myself holding on… quite literally. My left arm had wrapped itself around me… a small, unconscious act of comfort. But deeper still, I realised I was holding onto my boy. He was upstairs, fast asleep after a day filled with church, exploring the forest, and playing Minecraft… a game I’ve also found myself quietly getting hooked on.

But down here, I was holding him in spirit… shielding him in some way, as I watched a powerful piece of television unfold before me. Adolescence struck me as more than just drama... it was a historic piece of storytelling, laying bare what so many young men are facing in today’s world. I haven’t yet watched the rest… though Donna, my wife, is urging me to… and I will, knowing now that it is a masterclass in showing us what has been growing, festering, and tightening its grip on the souls of our sons: toxic masculinity, magnified and fuelled by the world of social media.

This morning, I found myself reflecting deeply. And I felt grateful… grateful that our Sunday School offers a different way. It’s a space where children are encouraged to explore their feelings, reflect on culture, and ask questions about the world and their place in it. They do this through art, music, drama, debate… all in a space held by creative, compassionate souls. There, our children are not shaped by algorithms, but by care. Not by noise, but by meaning.

I write this with tears in my eyes… for the souls lost. For the victims. And yes, for the adolescents who take lives, often because no one taught them how to feel, how to cry, how to be vulnerable without shame. We cannot keep losing our young men to anger, to suppression, to a culture that teaches them that strength means silence, and dominance is power.

The soul, while still forming in our young people… especially our boys… needs to be nurtured, cherished, honoured. Not in the echo chambers of toxic influencers, but in sacred spaces where they can be real. Where they can feel deeply and grow gently. We must be the ones who offer that alternative… not just in our churches, but in our homes, our schools, our communities.

Let us hold our boys… in body, in spirit, in love.

Revolutions and Revelations 

Since writing my piece on Adolescence, I’ve found myself thinking about the bigger picture…. about how social shifts throughout history have exposed and intensified hidden wounds in our culture.

Take the Industrial Revolution. It changed the world. It brought progress in countless ways… better infrastructure, medicine, education, and eventually workers’ rights. But it also highlighted and magnified the suffering that was already present. The medieval world of England… often remembered with a kind of nostalgic glow… wasn’t a “merry old land.” It was a world of poverty, of struggle, of deep inequity. Industrialisation didn’t invent hardship… but it revealed it more starkly, brought it into the daylight, and in many cases, made it worse.

And now, I wonder: Is the Digital Revolution doing the same?

Social media didn’t create toxic masculinity. It didn’t invent the loneliness of boys taught not to cry, or the generational habits of emotional suppression, or the cultural worship of dominance. But like the smoke and clatter of Victorian factories, the algorithms and echo chambers of the digital world have exposed these old patterns with brutal clarity. And in some cases, have made them sharper, more contagious, more harmful.

What we’re seeing, I believe, is not something new… but an old wound, long buried, now laid bare under the glare of a digital spotlight. We’re being invited… forced, even… to confront what we’ve too long ignored.

And here’s the strange hope in that: what is brought into the light, can be healed. What is revealed, can be transformed. But only if we choose not to look away.

In our homes, our schools, our communities… and yes, in our churches… we must be the ones who notice. Who care. Who create spaces where the soul is not only protected from harm, but nurtured into wholeness.

May we not simply be mourners of what is wrong, but midwives of what could be made right.

Philanthropy of the Soul

It also brings to mind something else… something perhaps more uncomfortable.

In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, philanthropy stepped forward. Visionaries and reformers responded to the suffering they saw by creating real, tangible change. I think especially of the Unitarian contribution… a legacy I know well and hold close to heart.

We established Domestic Missions in Liverpool, Manchester, London… reaching into the lives of those on the margins. We helped create the Red Brick Universities, and in Liverpool, the first Girls' College, Blackburne House. We built recreational parks, libraries, public water fountains… not just for health and education, but for dignity, rest, beauty. These were acts of deep social compassion… expressions of our spiritual belief that the flourishing of every person matters.

And yet… here’s the question that haunts me: Where are the philanthropists of the soul today?

Who is stepping forward… with vision, resource, and compassion…to nourish the inner lives of our young men? To create spaces where boys can feel, speak, cry, create, wonder, fall apart and begin again… without shame? Where is the public investment in emotional wholeness, in spiritual formation, in the complex and beautiful work of soul-making?

It’s as though we’ve left this work to chance… or worse, to social media influencers who prey on pain, offering counterfeit strength in place of healing.

But we… especially we as people of faith… know better. We know the soul matters. And we have a legacy, a radical legacy, of stepping forward not just to critique society, but to build something better.

Perhaps now is the time for a new kind of philanthropy… not of brick and mortar, but of listening and presence. Of mentors and musicians. Of artists and elders. Of sacred spaces where the inner life is taken seriously, and the soul is not just protected but nurtured toward wholeness.

May we become the quiet philanthropists of the soul... those who offer not gold or stone, but presence, gentleness, and the sacred art of seeing one another whole.