On this episode of parents are villains: Sex Education.
Contrary to what we may have been taught to think, unnecessary and unchosen suffering wounds us but need not scar us for life. It does mark us. What we allow the mark of our suffering to become is in our own hands. – bell hooks, all about love.
Not so long ago, I started playing a game called “on this episode of parents are villains” on my WhatsApp statuses with a group of friends. The game consisted of me posting different scenes from some of our favourite shows and then unpacking all of our favourite character’s traits in romantic relationships and connecting them to the relationships they had with their parents. I enjoyed doing this so much so I decided to bring this game to my blog to discuss one of my favourite characters in the final season of Sex Education. Beyond the show having ushered us through sex, different identities and sexual dynamics; for me Sex Education opened my heart up to the loss that comes with being a self raising child in a world where parents cannot seem to figure out how to raise you. I am truly in awe of how the writers explored the different parent-child dynamics so carefully and compassionately throughout the seasons while the main theme of the show seemed to be sex.
My interest in parent-child relationships was established in the second year of my degree in one of my electives, Social Development, when I had learned about Erik Erikson’s Stages Of Psychosocial Development. Briefly, the theory states that a person’s personality develops in a predetermined order through eight stages of psychosocial development, from infancy to adulthood. During each stage, the person experiences a psychosocial crisis that could positively or negatively affect personality development (Saul Mcleod,2023). So the idea here is that in order to be the healthiest version of your self all eight psychosocial stages need to be completed successfully. Any failure in completing a stage could negatively impact the completion of further stages and can result in an unhealthy personality and self. Luckily these stages can be resolved successfully at a later time, in therapy! (Saul Mcleod,2023).
In my own opinion the most important stages in this theory are the first three which are; infancy (0–1 year), early childhood (1–3 years) and play age (3–6 years) as this is when the human child is at their most vulnerable state in life (Saul Mcleod,2023). The basic conflict in these stages are trust vs mistrust with the virtue being hope, autonomy vs shame and doubt with the virtue being will and lastly initiative vs purpose with the virtue being purpose. In essence this is when a child begins to trust that they are loved, they matter and they will be taken care of in this life (Saul Mcleod,2023). Their development comes from the trust that their basic needs (nourishment and affection) will be met, that they will develop some form of independence and be trusted with certain tasks and that they’ll be given space to take initiative in tasks & given space to deal with their guilt when they fail (Saul Mcleod,2023). The main guidance of all these themes mainly comes from parents and the adults in the child’s life hence their ability to connect with the child as an individual matters the most during these stages.
In her book ‘all about love’, there’s a chapter where bell hooks speaks about child love lessons. In this chapter, Two JUSTICE: CHILDHOOD LOVE LESSONS, she explores her own relationship with her parents and how it shaped the way she grew to define love. She speaks about the dynamics parents have with their children and how they model the kind of adults we grow up to become. The healthier the parent-child relationship is 🫱🏽🫲🏾 the healthier and assertive the adult is. Her recollections in this chapter are mainly from first three stages of the psychosocial stages and how those failures and successes in parenting in fact shaped the kind of friend, sibling and lover that she became in her later years. So though we grow up to become our own selves the amount of identity crises we experience is directly linked to our relationship with our parents or lack thereof. She perfectly explains the impact of our identities being denied in our childhood and how they affect the kind of community we become a part of in adulthood.
In Sex Education the obvious character who experiences parental neglect in the way most of us with physically present parents experience it, is Aimee Gibbs. Aimee is one of the well off characters who despite having abundant resources that signal the presence of a present, she has no experience of affection from the said parent. Where with every other character we are able to see the dynamic at play with Aimee we mostly hear about it from her recollection of her mother. The severity of the neglect is reflected after the episode where she experiences sexual assault in the bus. The very first people who show her the care and support that a child would need in that situation are her friends, especially Maeve. The only support from her parent being her receiving a car after a while of ducking and diving the bus. This neglect leads to her making a pact with Maeve toward the end of the third season that they’ll mother each other as they don’t have any real maternal guidance. Though in my opinion it is only Aimee who holds up the end of the pact.
Throughout the show Aimee is her own person and the only character who explores her identity and sexuality in a very paced and safe space. In the final season Isaac calls her a maverick, a title that I find very fitting for her, which she assumes means stupid as that is what she has been deemed as for most of her life. Though being very loving, intelligent with a wonderful sense of style Aimee seems to be a misfit. She is the most emotionally neglected and mistreated character in the show. Her character show cases a lot of signs of neglect throughout, at no point does anyone ever really know what is going on with her as she is very self sufficient and casually speaks about very traumatic experiences. This makes her a very low maintenance person in everyone’s life while opening her up to more neglect. At the beginning of the show she was the spare of the friend group with no real connection to anyone. She moves from a relationship with Adam where there was no real emotional connections to a second one where she is smothered to a point where she realises she has no real sense of self. In her friendship with Maeve she carries most of the emotional load while she receives subpar care. In the final season she’s paired with Isaac, whom in my opinion is the first person on the show who actively gets her to open up about herself outside of any role that she has to play in everyone’s life. Throughout the seasons she explores her baking skills, takes on an emotional support goat, starts painting and explores photography. As she struggles to find her own voice in her art, she is forced to confront her own fears about herself which leads to redemption and her coming home to herself. In my opinion she has the best character development throughout the show and was definitely deserving of the ending she received.
