The need to share, the need to confide. The need for open discussion, the need for privacy. It’s the great dilemma of the early 2020s largely driven by social media. 

The confidentiality discussion with my partner Jane began in an Italian restaurant, in my current home city of Brisbane, Australia. 

The evening began as all our evenings began, with lots of conversation and laughter. She’s easy company, intelligent and compassionate.

The conversation turned to the latest issue that had been plaguing me since the toxic fallout of my marriage four years before.

My sixteen year old son, Henry, struggling with his workload at school, had recently taken a part time job at a well know burger joint. We had been encouraging him to get work through the holidays, but now we were back in the school term – he’d taken on multiple shifts during the week, which would mean finishing at 11pm, me picking him up at 11.20/11.30pm and that would mean he wouldn’t be getting to bed before midnight.

I had been clear before the term started, that he could work at the weekends, and maybe take one shift on during the week as long as it finished by 10pm.

But the week before he was to due come to me (I share the boys with my ex-wife – they are with me for one week, then with their her for one week) he emailed me details of the shifts he had accepted for the following week.

He’d agreed on four shifts on nights before school the next day, with three of them finishing past 11pm.

What then followed was a too-ing and fro-ing of text messages over the next few days, and a stubborn refusal on his part to change the shifts. 

I reached out to his mother by text. We were not on speaking terms. 

“I am having issues with Henry at the moment and McDonalds.

He has four late night shifts planned for next week, on nights before school, on my week, after I told him he could do one weekday shift as long as he his home by 10pm – and whatever he wants Friday to Sunday 5pm. I think this generous. I have been very clear about what he can and can’t do and he is defying that.

Three of these shifts would mean he’s not asleep til gone Midnight which is what has happened previously. 

I have told him he can’t do them, he’s refusing to budge. If he does that I may have to call McDonalds.

These are crucial years at school, he is tired, struggling with schoolwork and his interpersonal relationships, he’s getting into school late – his priority must be school not McDonalds.

What is your position please? No doubt he will have discussed this with you.”

As was often the case, I didn’t hear back.

I told Henry I would ring the branch if he didn’t comply, which I ended up doing (albeit simply to establish how he could go about changing those shifts) and still he refused.

I was to later learn that his mother supported him working those shifts, despite the fact that, when he was with her, he was often late to school as evidenced by numerous messages from the school, and the fact that, according to the school, he was struggling and would have to change his subjects or risk outright failure.

He was in the two final years of school – and he was going in late, tired, angry and was doing everything he practically could do to avoid doing any homework. He would complain when I pressed him about his homework – saying it is easier at his mother’s house as, “She is never there. Leaves early, comes back late.”

Something had to give. And he didn’t have long term plans to work at McDonalds, so surely school had to be the priority, right?

As always, I picked the boys up on the Sunday. He got in the car. He looked angry. The conversation quickly turned to McDonalds.

“No, I haven’t cancelled the shifts. In fact I have one tonight” he said indignantly.

A spirited conversation followed, and after we arrived back at my house, I left him there, as I wanted to avoid any further conflict. 

I would wait until he had left for the shift before I returned back to the house, to spend some time with my other son Zac.

With Henry at work, I reflected on the conversation. I also reflected on the fact that I still had his confiscated iPhone (he had broken it for the third or forth time, and I was insisting on it’s repair) and thus had no means of contacting him.

I got ready for bed, and tried to reassure myself that he’d be back and all would be well. I ruminated on my own youth and part time jobs at his age, and how I would get around at night without the luxury of a mobile phone – and we were OK, and he’d be OK on this one occasion too.

The clock turned midnight. Henry was not back. I checked the bus schedules. The last bus had finished for the night. 

No Henry in sight.

I put my clothes back on, and I ventured out into the night. I drove down the road from our house, which is a nine kilometre drive away from the centre of the city. I looked along the pathways to see if he had walked home. Nothing.

I get down into the city. Whilst Brisbane is a relatively safe city, it is still not without its social problems. As with anywhere these days, drink and drugs are an issue. I drive all over the city. I can’t find him anywhere. 

I am petrified. My heart is pounding. What have I done? Where is my boy? The boy I loved so dearly. The boy, who we had almost lost, at the age of one.

You got wires, goin’ … Continue reading

I’ve nothing much to offer
There’s nothing much to take
I’m an absolute beginner
But I’m absolutely sane
As long as we’re together
The rest can go to hell
I absolutely love you
But we’re absolute beginners
With eyes completely open
But nervous all the same

Absolute Beginners, David Bowie, 1986

I’m not sure where my need for privacy stems from, but it has clearly been a part of my personality for as long as I can remember.

As a child and teenager, I exuded varying levels of sometimes misplaced confidence. Misplaced as I had had a challenging upbringing. I should have been an unassuming and muted student, but instead I became a disruptive, loud and annoying child and teenager, eager to be heard, with scant regard for who I irritated. It was attention-seeking behaviour, and I have now come to realise it was also a counteraction to a sometimes challenging upbringing at home and being bullied at school.

Had social media been a part of my life back then, I often wonder if my need for privacy would have ever taken hold of me. I can easily imagine an alternative me pouring out my soul onto social media. Friending all and sundry. A far cry from how I manage my social media accounts today. Which is to largely avoid it.

In some ways, I am glad I didn’t have the stress of social media and the constant validation that teenagers seek from it, to contend with back then. It would have been all-consuming I am sure, and I can imagine I wouldn’t have benefited massively from it.

As I exited my teenage years, I set about changing myself. I knew I was broken. I knew I had to rebuild.

I grew up in several towns in-between London and Brighton – and although formative years were spent bouncing from one town to the next every four years or so, from about the age of eleven we settled in an affluent commuter belt town about thirty miles outside of London.

As one of two children from middle class, self-made parents, educated privately at school, on the surface I had little to complain about. I’m very grateful for the opportunities that my parents provided for, but rudderless and clueless, I scuppered my chances, and ultimately this was a deeply unhappy period in my life.

Leaving that school and moving on to college, life changed rapidly for the better. And with a modicum of maturity and a little increased self-awareness, I started to discover the person I could be.

Bizarrely, the first change was when I took myself off to my first haircut. I was sixteen. I wanted shot of my much ridiculed mop of hair. One might call it a bowl haircut. I had the lot lopped off, and I replaced it with effectively a crew cut, and a striking new look.

It was a turning point for me. So much so that I became obsessed with my hair. That something as simple as a haircut could affect my life in such a positive way seems almost too ridiculous to believe, but it was true.

With the new haircut, I needed new clothes. I took myself off to the shopping centre, purchased a couple of new tops of my own choosing. This was living!

It was the mid-eighties. Frankie was asking us to Relax, Lionel wanted to say Hello, and George was carelessly whispering for our aural pleasure. It was a golden time for pop, and Grandmaster Flash was making waves and that emerging hip hop scene was about to explode.

College nights down at the local disco , complete with a slow dance at the end, to try and get a snog in. With my new haircut, getting that snog wasn’t as elusive as it had been, and this is where I met my first proper girlfriend, and the six-month relationship (hey – at that age, that’s long term!) marked the beginning of my journey from adolescence into adulthood.

Through this period, I met my closest male friend, Patrick. Highly intelligent, fiercely loyal, wickedly funny and delightfully mischievous, we became as thick as thieves. He knows me better than almost anyone. He is my sounding board, my confidante, my devil’s advocate, and I’d be lost without him. His childhood was equally complex as mine, and without a doubt this bonded us together.