Is It OK For 12-14 Year Olds To Watch The Boys? A Parent’s Real Experience
The crumbs of a half-eaten cheese puff bag scattered across our kitchen counter, my 13-year-old son leaned against the fridge, soccer cleats still muddy by the door, and dropped the question I’d been dreading ever since his middle school started talking about streaming shows after weekend games. “All the guys on the team are obsessed with The Boys. Can I watch it here? Jake’s 16-year-old brother lets him watch it at his house, and everyone’s quoting it at lunch. Please?”
I’d seen enough clips online to know The Boys is famous for extreme gore, explicit sex, and unflinching stories about powerful people getting away with terrible things. My first thought was absolutely not. No way. He’s 13, he still sleeps with a stuffed bear he’s had since he was 5. But then I paused. I remembered when I was 12, I snuck into my cousin’s living room to watch Scream, which was way too violent for me back then, and my mom would have had a heart attack if she knew. If I just said no, he’d watch it at Jake’s house anyway, with no adult there to talk about any of the weird or upsetting parts. So I said, “Tell you what. I’ll watch the first episode with you tonight. If we both think it’s too much, we stop. If it’s okay, we figure out a plan from there.” He was shocked I didn’t immediately say no, agreed, and ran to set up the couch.
I won’t lie, the opening scene where that superhero explodes a guy in mid-air made me jump. My son made a gagging noise, then cackled and said “That is so messed up.” When the first explicit sex scene came on, I didn’t hit pause, I didn’t turn bright red and launch into an awkward lecture. I just kept my eyes on the screen, and when it cut away, I casually said “That’s pretty blunt, right?” He just shrugged and said “Yeah, but it’s just a show.” We kept going.
After the episode, we talked while we cleaned up the popcorn bowls. I asked him what he thought of the whole premise—superheroes are actually corrupt, terrible people who get away with everything because they’re famous and loved by the public. He said it made total sense. “That’s like how the popular 8th graders can skip detention and bully kids and no one does anything, right? Everyone’s scared of them so they just let them do whatever.” I didn’t expect that connection, honestly. That’s when I realized this wasn’t just him wanting to watch a cool grown-up show to be edgy. He was already seeing that kind of dynamic in his own life, and the show was putting words to it.
A lot of parents I know automatically ban any show that’s rated TV-MA for 12-14 year olds, and I get that. It’s easy to default to no, because that means you don’t have to deal with the awkward parts, or the worry that you’re exposing them to something they’re not ready for. But what I’ve learned over the last few months is that banning it doesn’t make it go away. My son sees far more random, unfiltered stuff on TikTok just scrolling for 10 minutes than anything we’ve watched in The Boys. Most of the time, that stuff doesn’t come with any context, and no one’s there to talk about it with him.
What I’ve done that works, that I’ve told my friends about, is really simple. First, when they ask, don’t say yes or no right away. Ask them what they’ve already heard, why they want to watch it. Nine times out of ten, it’s just FOMO—everyone at school is talking about it, and they don’t want to be left out of the conversation. There’s no hidden agenda to watch gore or explicit content. Second, watch the first two episodes with them before you let them watch any alone. You’ll get a feel for what they’re okay with, and they get to see that you trust them enough to meet them halfway. Third, set clear boundaries that are easy to stick to. We have a rule: we only watch one episode a week, together, and either of us can say we want to skip a scene or stop the episode at any time, no questions asked. When there was a really graphic sexual assault scene early in season 1, I just said “This is really upsetting, I’m not cool with watching this. Let’s skip three minutes ahead” and he didn’t argue. He just nodded and grabbed the remote.
I still get side-eyed by some of my mom friends when I tell them this. One of them said I’m normalizing bad content for my kid. But here’s what I’ve seen: my son will bring up things that happen at school now, out of the blue. Last month, he told me about a coach that yelled at a smaller kid for no reason and no one did anything, and he said “That’s just Homelander, isn’t it? Everyone’s too scared to say anything.” We got to talk about what you do when that happens, how to stand up for the kid, who to go to if it keeps happening. That conversation never would have happened if I’d just banned the show and sent him to his room.
It’s not a perfect system. Some weeks we forget to watch, some episodes I leave the room for parts I’m not comfortable with. I don’t know if I’d do the same for a 12-year-old who’s more sensitive to gore, or less mature about heavy themes. Every kid is different. But for us, meeting my son halfway instead of slamming the door on the conversation worked better than any blanket ban ever could. Right now, he’s still my kid who forgets to take the trash out, spends too much time playing Minecraft, and teases his little sister for liking Barbie. The show didn’t break him, and it gave us a way to talk about the messy, unfair parts of growing up that he’s already starting to see, even at 13. I’ll take that over pretending those parts don’t exist any day.
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