Peter F. Borges
“I am very, very alone.” “Mummy, Papa, sorry.”
These are not just words. These are last conversations that children never got to have. These are sentences that should force every parent to stop mid-breath. Because children do not die leaving apologies behind unless they believe—somewhere deep inside—that they were a burden, a disappointment, or a problem that needed to be removed.
“I am very, very alone” is not a comment on technology. “Mummy, Papa, sorry” is not some teenage drama. Together, they expose a terrifying truth: children are internalising pain, blame, and loneliness in silence, often inside homes that believe they are doing everything right.
This incident is being conveniently reduced to phones, games, apps, or online culture. That narrative is comforting. It keeps parents safe from introspection. If the phone is the villain, then adults remain innocent. But when a child writes “I am very, very alone,” the question is not ‘what app were they using?’ The question is ‘why did they feel this way in their own home?’
As someone who has spent years going from school to school conducting cyber safety and digital wellbeing sessions, I hear the same anxious refrain from parents everywhere: “My child is addicted to the phone.” “They don’t talk to us anymore.” “We took the phone away and things spiraled.” Very few parents ask the question that truly matters: ‘What did my child find on that phone that they were not finding with me?’
Phones do not create loneliness. They temporarily anesthetise it. When a child clings to a screen, it is often because the screen listens without judging, accepts without correcting, and distracts without interrogating. When the phone is taken away without understanding, what disappears is not just a device; it is the child’s last coping space.
This should force parents to confront an uncomfortable reality: many children live in emotionally busy homes but emotionally empty relationships. They are spoken to constantly, yet rarely heard. Corrected often, but seldom understood. Watched closely, but not emotionally held.
“Mummy, Papa, sorry” also tells us something else: children often believe their suffering is their fault. They absorb parental stress, expectations, and disappointment silently. They apologise for being sad. They apologise for needing help. They apologise for existing too loudly. These instances should shatter every myth parents hold about authority and discipline. Children do not apologise before dying unless they believe they have failed their parents. Somewhere along the way, they learned that their pain was inconvenient, their emotions excessive, and their struggles becoming disruption to family peace.
Control has quietly replaced connection in many households. Silence has become discipline. Obedience has been mistaken for wellbeing. When children withdraw, parents assume they are being difficult, secretive, or rebellious, rarely distressed.
Loneliness today does not always look like isolation. It often looks like endless scrolling, gaming late into the night, or emotional numbness masked as independence. Digital lives are real. Online friendships are real. Emotional validation received through screens is real. Dismissing this reality does not protect children; it alienates them further. Taking away a phone without conversation is often described as responsible parenting. But when a child’s emotional regulation, friendships, or identity are tied to their digital world, abrupt removal without support feels like abandonment. The message received is not “we care,” but “your inner world is unacceptable.” That message deepens isolation.
“I am very, very alone” is also a consequence of how little we invest in emotional literacy. Most children do not know how to name what they feel. Most parents were never taught how to listen without fixing, reacting, or minimising. Homes are full of instructions, warnings, and comparisons, but starved of safe conversations.
Mental health support is shockingly absent. Many schools have no trained counsellors. Parents are left to manage emotional crises without guidance. There are few safe spaces for children to speak freely without fear of punishment or panic. Early warning signs are missed, dismissed, or explained away; until it is too late.
“I am very, very alone” should remind parents that boundaries without relationships are walls. Limits are necessary, but they must be wrapped in empathy, dialogue, and trust. Otherwise, rules feel like rejection. Homes turn into battlegrounds. Children stop sharing not because they have nothing to say, but because they have learned that speaking only creates trouble.
What we need is not panic-driven bans but adult maturity. We need trained counsellors in schools, not after tragedies but before them. We need mental health systems that function, digital literacy that teaches balance rather than fear, and parent guidance that prioritises listening over lecturing. We need early warning mechanisms that recognise distress before a child feels compelled to apologise for their existence.
Most of all, parents need to re-learn presence. Sit with your child without distractions. Ask questions you are willing to hear answers to. Listen without interrupting. Create homes where emotions are not punished, mocked, or ignored. Children do not need perfect parents. They need parents who show up emotionally.
“I am very, very alone.”“Mummy, Papa, sorry.” These words should never again be written by a child. If parents read this incident and walk away blaming phones, nothing will change. If they read it and feel shaken enough to change how they listen, respond, and connect, then perhaps this loss will not be entirely meaningless.
Loneliness is real. Digital lives are real. Children’s pain is real. And parents must finally be brave enough to hear it.
Perhaps, in their final moments, the thoughts running through the minds of those three children were not dramatic or rebellious. Perhaps they were heartbreakingly simple. Will Mummy finally understand now? Will Papa realise I was not being difficult, only hurting? Will they remember the times I tried to speak but didn’t have the words? Perhaps they wondered if their silence would finally be loud enough to be heard. And before letting go, maybe they felt the need to apologise; for being sad, for being confusing, for being “too much.” Sorry for not coping better. Sorry for needing help. Sorry for failing to be the child they thought they should be.
If that thought does not stop parents in their tracks, nothing will. Because no child should leave this world believing that their pain was an inconvenience, that their loneliness was a burden, or that their parents’ love was conditional on strength, obedience, or silence. No parent should ever have to live with the knowledge that the last thing their child felt was alone; even at home.
(The writer is an assistant professor of Social Work, Goa University; founder of Human Touch Foundation and former chairperson of the Goa State Commission for Protection of Child Rights)
