We’re still a few weeks away from the release of Sarah Rees Brennan’s Fence: Striking Distance novel (9/29), but fear not King’s Row fans, the fourth volume of the manga – Fence: Rivals – is waiting to meet your eye holes.

In this book (from Boom!/Boom! Box, with words by C.S. Pacat and art by Johanna the Mad), each of our boys confronts something holding them back, fighting the good fight not only for themselves but also for the team. That’s not an easy task for anyone, especially people who have been taught their whole lives that success and individual victory are synonymous and that loss equals a persistent, soul-deep, black mark of failure.

At first glance, Fence seems like a light book about high school relationships and rivalries, but the deeper we go in the story, and the more we learn about the characters, and the more we realize there’s deeper stuff happening.

Sure, it’s the Western version of a sports manga, but at its heart, Fence is a coming-of-age story and not all the lessons therein are simple or easy. Not all the threads are neatly knotted and bound off by the end of a given issue, arc, or collected volume. Like life, Nicholas, Seiji, Harvard, Aiden, and the rest might wear pristine fencing uniforms, but that doesn’t save them from ending up spattered with mud and wandering around in the underbrush.

How does one learn to differentiate drive from pride? Has Seiji tanked his future by stepping away from the place and people who made him a star because he wanted to be better – or because he wanted to do it all on his own?

Will Harvard realize that he makes exceptions for Aiden not because Aiden is his best friend but because he’s in love with him? And if he does, will Harvard do so before it damages him and the team? Is there any way it works out? Eighteen years is a long time to be friends, and it’s a lot of friendship to risk on a maybe.

What will happen if people find out that Nicholas is famous fencer Robert Coste’s son and Jesse Coste’s brother, which readers discovered way back in volume 1? What will happen if Seiji finds out? Will it damage the boys’ extremely fragile friendship that we see might possibly be heading into “something more” territory in the last few panels of the book?

When you’re a teenager, everything seems big, but that doesn’t mean teenagers don’t actually deal with difficult, painful stuff. I think, often, we as adults have a tendency to minimize it all rather than sifting through and helping kids figure out how to sort and prioritize.

If you’ve read your Erikson, you know the ability to prioritize isn’t something we’re born with; it’s something we need to be taught. That’s even more true when the discussion shifts to prioritizing the needs of the many over the needs of the “me” – or the needs of others over our own desires. If this COVID situation has taught me anything, it’s that Americans as a larger cultural group are exceptionally terrible of conceptualizing the mere idea of “collective good” let alone altering our behavior to ensure it.

Which is why the boys are so lucky to have Coach.

Per Erikson’s theory, even adults who reach the last stage of moral development – those who do the right thing simply because it is the right thing  to do – are rare. Those who can communicate the idea, teach it, pass it on without preaching, and be authoritative without being authoritarian are rarer still.

Someone who can read individuals and individual teenagers and individual teenage boys and provide the support and communication style each needs individually and within a group is, essentially, a unicorn.

Beyond all that, Coach gives each member of her team exactly as much guidance and freedom as he needs to achieve his potential and grow into a self-reliant grown-up who wears a mask because it’s for the collective good… even if it means he doesn’t get to go to that Memorial Day beach party.

American culture has an entitlement problem that doesn’t have anything to do with money or social class. As a collective, we’ve held individuality in such high esteem that we’ve started to confuse rights with privileges. Being asked to wear masks during a public health crisis isn’t tyranny. It’s common decency. It’s social responsibility. Refusing to do so isn’t exercising your rights; it’s petty. Refusing to help a health department with contact tracing isn’t ensuring your freedom; it’s selfish. People are going to die because someone’s entitlement is more important to them than a life.

What the hell kind of society is that?

Who’s responsible for this mess? The president? Absolutely. Entitlement-in-Chief right there. His kids? For sure. Role models they are not. And so on and so forth down through the ranks of government, but when you get down to it, who’s really responsible?

We are. As parents. As trusted adults.

Like Coach, it’s our job to teach our individuals how to function not only as “selves” but also as a unit and as part of a team. It’s our job to figure out the best way to do that for each and every member of our collectives. Once we all have our own picture, we come together and figure out what that means for each of us, for our family, and how we can help keep everyone else safe. My kids are 8 and 10, and they already understand that better than most adults.

Our kids deserve a better world. They won’t get it unless we teach them how to make it. So be their Coach.

And catch up on Fence if you need some help.