Connection Point

I watched both seasons of You because J referred it to me. Meeting your kid where they are mentally gets harder as they grow older - that's been my experience. Mothers I know who have much older kids tell me that the tide turns and some point it becomes easier once again but the effort to stay connected is on-going and cannot be eased up just because it got harder. A lot of us have raised kids who are vastly different from us as people and the points of intersection don't always lend to deep, meaningful conversation. We may have some common pet peeves, appreciate each other's sense of humor and take interest in the news of the day. That makes for a good chat over coffee but if you want more you need to try harder. In my case, it was watching this show.

There is much to think about in terms of what makes a story like this tick with the audience, what makes it binge-worthy, what fears are exaggerated to the point they turn macabre and attention grabbing. Fundamentally, to me this show (so far) is about the collective relationship phobias young people have blown up to the level of crazy and absurd so they start to feel safe - this is beyond the realm and cannot happen to them. That is the point of inflection, which draws the viewer in and makes them stick with it to the end. J and I had some interesting conversations about the show and I am sure there will be points of reference we can both use to talk about things unrelated to the show itself. To that extent it was time well spent for me.