An exercise in exasperation that can’t be given up
Being a parent today feels like stepping into a job no one prepared you for, with rules that change every day and expectations that are sky-high yet hard to pin down. Ask any parent raising a GenZ or GenAlpha child, and they will tell you the same thing—it has never been more complicated. Not because children are bad. Not because parents do not care. But because the world around them has changed so much and so quickly that old approaches no longer work and the new ones are dicey.
What once came instinctively to parents is now viewed through a lens of scrutiny by today’s children. Setting a boundary feels like issuing a threat. Saying ‘no’ comes with a pit in the stomach. Raising your voice—out of worry, frustration, even love—can suddenly feel like a dangerous overstep. Somewhere between the rise of emotional vocabulary and the decline of language vocabulary, the inculcation of discipline is now confused with inducing stress.
Also Read: Learning curve: Gen Z has taught us the joy of silent communication
This is not about going back to an era of authoritarian parenting. No one is asking to revive fear as a parenting tool—something many from GenX and older generations grew up with. What we need to reflect on, though, is how today’s environment makes it harder than ever to hold the line.
Children are not just growing up faster, they are growing up in the public sphere, thanks to social media. Their emotions are shaped by online peers, influencers and algorithms that offer constant validation and instant escape paths.
Screens have become digital nannies. They pacify tantrums, fill silences and fulfil curiosity with curated content. As a result, precious space for real conversation and emotional connection has shrunk. It is becoming harder to truly know what a child is thinking, feeling or in need of. And when that gap widens, when parents finally try to step in with a rule or corrective measure, they often feel like strangers in their own homes—disconnected from the very children they have raised.
Also Read: Should parents pay for the crimes of their kids?
Parenting has always required strength. But today, you have to hold firm without being labelled harsh, express concern without being called a control freak, and offer correction while still being seen as loving. All of this, while competing with a digital world that never sleeps, never doubts itself and always seems more appealing than the human voice asking for a phone to be put down for a talk.
Even in schools, where once the teacher’s word was final, today’s authority figures often hesitate. Teachers too are navigating the fine line between correcting pupils and offending them, between guiding and overstepping. The result is a generation growing up in environments whose structure is soft, with every correction up for debate.
It does not help that parenting itself has become a performance. Every decision—from what school your child attends to how much screen time they get and what snacks you pack—is up for review among online peers. WhatsApp chat groups judge, Instagram feeds compare and peer pressure creeps in not just for children, but even for parents. It is not unusual to feel as if you are always falling short, and in that guilt, many parents end up overcompensating with indulgence. But love without limits rarely inculcates what we hope to.
Also Read: Netflix’s ‘Adolescence’ and the cost of profits: Why kids online are not okay
Add to this the relentless economic pressure that parents face, the ever-rising cost of living and the emotional exhaustion of modern life, and it becomes painfully clear that parents are overwhelmed.
They are trying to raise emotionally healthy children while carrying the silent weight of their own unprocessed stress. They are trying to stay patient when time is short, present when work will not let go and soft when the world feels hard. It is no wonder that so many end their day wondering if they have done or been around enough.
And yet, even in the midst of all this, there is something enduring about parenthood that has not changed. The ache of being misunderstood. The quiet courage it takes to set and hold a boundary. The love and silent parental concerns that hide behind the rules, the curfews and the nos. What the child hears as rejection is often a deeper yes—a yes to who they can become and the values that will one day hold them up when the world feels uncertain.
Also Read: Young India: Fuelled by agency but failed by structure
It is easy to say that children today are more sensitive, more expressive and more tuned in to their inner lives. All of that is true, and in many ways, it is a good thing. But sensitivity without resilience makes for a fragile foundation. Parenting must build both. And the stakes are not just personal. How we parent today will shape the kind of colleagues, citizens and leaders we live and work with tomorrow. If you worry that your strength as a parent is being mistaken for severity, and if you sometimes weep in the dark because your children do not see your love the way you hoped they would, you are not failing.
That’s because in a world full of noise, speed and sugar-coated truths, the consistent determination of a parent who still chooses to guide instead of please might be the only true act of love there is.
The author is a corporate advisor and author of ‘Family and Dhanda’
Post Comment