Not because they’re lazy.
Not because they’re entitled.
Because they never had to wait.

Food delivery? Nope. You walked or called… and waited.
Music? Saved up pocket money, went to the shop, prayed they had the cassette/CD.
Messaging someone? Wrote a bloody letter and waited days for a reply.

Today?
Instant streaming. Uber Eats. Spotify. Whatscrapp.
They don’t queue. Same day delivery. They click.

And that worries me… not because I want kids to suffer like we did, but because somewhere between buffering and boredom, we learned how to sit still. How to daydream. How to be okay without stimulation.

And I’m not sure what kind of adults that makes.

• A generation that never learns to wait is a generation that can’t tolerate discomfort.
• A generation that doomscrolls instead of daydreams ends up with zero attention span.
• A generation fed on dopamine hits from TikTok isn’t exactly built for nuance, conflict resolution, or long-term thinking.

You see where this is going, right?

More frustration. More rage.
More impoliteness. More incivility.
More road rage. More keyboard warriors. Maybe even more actual war.

I’m raising a 10-year-old. I’m trying to teach her patience… but here’s the unfair part:

I don’t actually know how.
I never learned patience. I endured it.
There’s a difference. I had no choice. She does.

And now she reads a lot of books, which is a good thing right? Reading is proven to increase cognitive abilities, creativity, language skills etc… But it also mean that she’s never bored…

And that’s the whole challenge, isn’t it?

If you’ve felt this too, as a parent, teacher, or simply someone watching society twitch itself into an attention deficit, I’d love to hear how you’re managing.

Or share this post if you remember rewinding cassettes with a pencil. 🤣