Childhood Isn’t Supposed to Be This Easy. And That Should Scare Us
Unpopular opinion: our kids aren’t sinking because they can’t handle life. They’re sinking because life no longer asks them to swim.
We’ve stripped away every bit of friction that once made childhood feel real. Every delay. Every pause. Every unanswered question. And we did it for all the right reasons: to keep them safe, to make things fair, to make sure they never feel the ache we once did.
But here we are. Anxious kids. Burned-out parents. A culture sprinting toward ease and somehow feeling more exhausted than ever.
Something has gone very wrong.
The Ache Beneath the Ease
We don’t talk about it out loud, but we all feel it.
That low hum of worry when our kids fall apart over small things. That pang of guilt when they can’t sit still without a screen. That quiet, private panic that maybe, despite everything we’re giving, we’re raising kids who don’t quite know how to be.
We tell ourselves the world is harder now.
But maybe it’s not harder.
Maybe it’s louder.
No silence.
No waiting.
No friction.
And friction is what used to make us whole.
It was in the waiting that we learned patience.
In the boredom that we found imagination.
In the uncertainty that we learned how to self-soothe.
Now we’re raising kids who rarely get to feel those edges, the little tremors of frustration and triumph that used to shape resilience. We’ve taken all that out of childhood, and what’s left is flat. Fast. Fragile.
The Cultural Truth No One Wants to Admit
We think we’re saving them. But mostly, we’re saving ourselves from their discomfort, and from our own.
Because watching our kids struggle is unbearable.
We weren’t taught how to sit with distress, not theirs, not ours.
So we fix.
We soothe.
We scroll.
We fill the silence before it can ask something of us.
And we wonder why everyone feels like they’re falling apart.
This isn’t just about parenting. It’s about being human in a world that no longer allows for slowness, struggle, or repair.
Our kids are the canaries in the coal mine. They’re showing us what happens when a culture removes all the natural tension that builds self-trust, and replaces it with constant stimulation.
We’re All Drowning in Ease
And let’s please be brutally honest…we’re not standing above our kids, teaching them how to handle the world. We’re standing beside them, trying to survive the same one.
We reach for our phones too. We rush to fix, to fill, to escape the quiet. We’ve forgotten how to tolerate our own friction, our boredom, our unease, our feelings.
And our kids are watching. They’re learning from us that stillness is uncomfortable, that discomfort is danger, that speed equals safety.
But the brain doesn’t grow in safety, it grows in stretch.
Neuroscience shows that when kids face small, manageable stress, what researchers call “tolerable stress”, their brains release just enough cortisol to activate learning and adaptation. That’s how the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that governs focus, regulation, and resilience, gets stronger.
Take away all that friction, and we’re not protecting the brain, we’re undertraining it.
Friction Is the Missing Nutrient
Our kids aren’t starving for comfort. They’re starving for friction.
Not danger. Not chaos. Just the normal, developmentally necessary resistance that builds emotional muscle, the small frictions that remind them they’re capable.
I see it every day in their thirst for independence, the way they push my hand away when I try to help tie a shoe, the way they insist “I’ve got it” even when they don’t. That’s not defiance. It’s wiring. It’s growth. It’s their spirit reaching toward itself.
Those tiny struggles are the nervous system’s version of push-ups. They build regulation. They train patience. They teach the body that stress doesn’t equal threat, that tension can be safe.
When we take all of that away, they don’t just lose focus.
They lose trust in themselves, in their capacity, in the process of trying, failing, and finding their way through.
The Hardest Kind of Love
Letting our kids struggle is brutal. It goes against every instinct we have as parents.
But love that always rescues eventually erodes resilience.
And love that holds steady, that lets them wobble, that waits while they find their footing, builds something much deeper.
It teaches: You can do hard things. And I’ll be right here while you do.
That’s the kind of safety that actually lasts. Not the kind that prevents friction, the kind that helps them withstand it.
The Wake-Up Call
Childhood isn’t supposed to be this easy. And maybe that’s what’s been keeping us all up at night, not just the noise of modern life, but the quiet sense that something vital has gone missing.
So maybe the work isn’t to give our kids more.
It’s to give them back what the world took:
The pause. The effort. The waiting. The wonder.
Because that’s where confidence grows.
That’s where self-trust is born.
That’s where childhood becomes real again.
The Truth Beneath It All
This isn’t just about attention. It’s about attachment to ourselves, to our children, to the present moment.
Attention sounds cognitive. But when you understand what’s at stake, it’s deeply emotional.
Because this isn’t about how long they can focus, it’s about how they can feel. It’s about whether they can stay inside a moment long enough to be shaped by it.
And that’s what friction gives us back:
The reminder that we’re human.
That we can handle the hard parts.
And that love isn’t supposed to remove the ache, it’s supposed to hold us through it.
“Childhood was never meant to be effortless, it was meant to be alive.” - Dr Zelana Montminy
Finding Focus is here. And it’s for you. Order your book today!
With you in this.
Love,
Zelana