This generation will know how to code before they know how to cook. They will recite 3D shapes before they master eye contact. They will speak English before they learn the language of love.

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And no, it’s not entirely their fault. It’s ours.

We the parents, the guardians, the adults are present but absent. Providers but not nurturers. We’re raising children in homes where love is implied, not expressed. In atmospheres so sterile, emotions suffocate. In routines so packed, there’s no space left for bonding.

We dress them in matching outfits, throw curated birthday parties, and pose for Instagram. But when was the last time we looked our children in the eye and truly listened not while replying to emails or scrolling through our phones, but listened with our whole attention?

In the age of gadgets, career hustle, and curated lives on social media, something vital is slipping through our fingers our children.

The crisis isn’t loud. It doesn’t announce itself with broken windows or sirens. It is silent. Insidious. It hums beneath the surface of school drop-offs, behind every “I’m busy,” and inside every lonely dinner eaten with eyes glued to a screen.

And the casualties? They’re dressed in designer clothes, fluent in emoji, and deeply disconnected from the very essence of love and family.

Family, once the bedrock of a child’s emotional development, has quietly receded behind glowing screens, packed schedules, and transactional relationships. We like to think we’re doing our best providing, planning, protecting but are we really present? In our attempt to give them everything, we may have given them everything except what matters most. We are failing them not with intent, but with neglect disguised as provision. In a world obsessed with offering “the best,” we’ve lost sight of what they actually need.

They crave attention. Chaos in the kitchen. Being yelled at for staying up too late. A parent who remembers the name of their imaginary friend. They want the noise, the imperfection, the mess that only real, invested family life can give.

Children today know their favorite YouTubers more intimately than they know their grandparents. They can recite TikTok trends but struggle to articulate their emotions. They grow surrounded by voices, yet remain unheard.

Too many children are growing up with a fractured sense of family. At ages as young as eight or nine before they’ve even figured out who they are they’re packed off to boarding schools. At home, it’s the nanny’s face they see more than Mom’s. Dad is a blurred figure between business trips. Connection has been outsourced. Love has been scheduled.

Our kids are forming attachments to influencers, not aunties and uncles. Their concept of family and love is shaped by a world that is scripted, edited, and designed for public consumption.

How do you teach commitment to a generation taught to detach?

They learn early on not to get too close. This is how the art of one-night stands and transient relationships begins long before they’re ready for real love. By the time they reach adulthood, we wonder why they can’t build stable relationships. But how could they? They’ve been conditioned to disconnect before things get too real.

The emotional building of a child is laid brick by messy brick,spilled milk, laughter at the dinner table, the comfort of a parent’s tired hug, and the discipline of shared chores.

We’ve outsourced parenting to gadgets. Screen time has replaced story time. Cocomelon has replaced conversation. We hand them devices and say, “Be good.”

Many of us working mothers and overextended fathers like to think we’re giving them what we never had. The truth is, a child would choose your undivided attention over a first-class ticket any day. They’ll remember the nights you read them stories not the hotel suite in Dubai. They need less of our money and more of our minds.

They should grow up with the wisdom of uncles, the camaraderie of cousins, and the inevitable conflicts that come with it. These conflicts teach them how to resolve differences, how to compromise, and most importantly, how to forgive.

They should grow up getting dirty outdoors, wrestling with cousins, fighting over toys, and cleaning up afterwards. These experiences ground them. They learn that people are not perfect and that’s okay. You can always replace a broken toy, but never a broken bond.

Children need the friction of family. They need the noise of morning routines, the discipline of chores, the warmth of hugs, and even the irritation of being told to wash dishes they didn’t dirty. In those very moments conflict, reconciliation, responsibility they learn the contours of humanity.

And yet, in many homes today, pets are rare, siblings grow up like roommates, and even human interaction is often transactional, distracted, or interrupted by notification pings.

And so, when they grow up unable to form lasting bonds we blame it on them.

Revolving doors of caregivers nannies who come and go teach a child that nothing sticks. That love is fleeting. That goodbye is inevitable. So they learn not to attach. And when they grow up, struggling to form stable relationships.

T question is, What did we not give them?

How do we expect them to build when we never gave them the blueprints? Love becomes performative. Relationships become seasonal. Even therapy becomes a trend. Influencers like Andrew Tate replace fathers. Instagram Reels replace conversations. TikTok trends define their love language.

This isn’t to downplay mental health struggles those are real, urgent, and deserving of support. But too many children today are raised in emotional solitude. Depression has become both an illness and a badge. Introversion is celebrated, not understood. Some are truly battling darkness. Others mimic it believing that sadness equals depth and disconnection equals strength.

We are raising kids who can code at 12 but can’t apologize at 20. Who ace exams but cannot hold conversations without glancing at their phones. Who know how to swipe left but not how to stay. And beneath the gloss of confidence and independence, there’s often a deep fear of intimacy, of permanence, of being seen.

Children need to grow up in tribes, not silos. They need chores they hate and responsibilities they didn’t ask for. They need to be grounded not just as punishment but as human beings, rooted in reality, humility, and love.

They need to know that cereal bowls left in the sink are not relationship-breakers. That people are not disposable. That forgiveness is the glue that holds families and futures together.

The truth is, a child can grow up in thrifted clothes and still become royalty in character. But a child who grows up without emotional anchoring will struggle, no matter how fancy the toys, how expensive the vacations, or how elite the school.

We are in a silent crisis,a crisis not of broken toys, but of broken bonds.

We must unlearn the dangerous myth that productivity is parenting. That wealth is love. That exposure is better than enclosure. Children don’t just need a village they need their village. Family isn’t obsolete. It’s oxygen.

There’s still time. Time to unplug. To return to the dinner table. To let them get dirty outdoors, to cry without being shushed, to fail and be held anyway. The present can still be salvaged.

We must fight for our children’s right to a childhood rooted in reality not algorithms.

Because if we don’t, we won’t just raise emotionally displaced children we will raise adults unable to carry the weight of love, of loyalty, of life. And then it will be too late not because they won’t love us, but because they won’t know how.

Family is not about aesthetics. It is  about love. It is about grace. It is about presence.

Vanguard News