“Back in our day, we didn’t have food delivery apps.” “We have seen struggle.” “We studied under a single lamp.” “We walked miles to school.”
Chances are, you’ve heard at least one of those from your parents.
For many Indian parents, these aren’t just stories from the past; they are proof of the lives they have lived, the struggles they have endured, and the paths they have taken to be where they are today.
So, when a post questioning this struggle went viral on X (formerly Twitter), it triggered a debate between parents and people of the younger generation. Within a very short span, this debate grew into a much larger discussion about whether struggle is really necessary for success or if we have just been romanticizing the wrong cause.
What Really Happened?
A post by user Prem Soni went viral on X (formerly Twitter), where he asked questions that made people from two entirely different generations ponder. The post read, “The entire Indian parenting model is built on optimizing for struggle: ‘We sacrificed our whole lives so you could have a comfortable future.'”
Indian parents are facing a massive existential crisis because Gen Z refuses to suffer for no logical reason.
It is deeply offensive to our culture that a 24 year old will order groceries on Blinkit instead of spending 45 minutes inhaling road dust and fighting a vendor to save…
— Prem Soni (@ValueWithPrem) June 28, 2026
His argument was simple: If the previous generations worked so hard to build a better life for the generations that followed, why should younger generations be expected to recreate the same hardships?
Why is choosing convenience in the form of food delivery or taking a cab considered laziness rather than proof of progress?
Concluding his post, Soni wrote, “Parents, you won. You upgraded the country so your kids wouldn’t have to fight for basic daily survival. Stop romanticizing poverty-level struggles and let them live in the economy you built for them.”
Read More: 10 Things Gen Z Needs To Grow Up About
Audience’s Reaction To The Viral Post
The post quickly gained traction online. While some users supported Soni, others argued that struggle is actually what shapes an individual for a better life.
Commenting on the post, one user wrote, “The most retarded belief is that choosing the harder way makes you a better person. Struggle only matters if it creates a better outcome. If tech saves time, the harder path isn’t discipline, it’s retarded. Progress exists to kill low-value problems, not preserve them for nostalgia.”
Another user argued, “Problems exist and always will. You must learn to be resilient and improve them simultaneously. Life cannot stop merely because of problems. There’s nothing wrong with ordering Blinkit or using comfortable transport, as long as it is your money.”
Parents, too, jumped into the conversation, sharing their own stories. One user wrote, “Hahaha, so true. I tried guilt-tripping my kids but received a brutal answer: ‘Don’t impose your romanticized poverty.'”
He further added, “They have their own struggles, like uncertain careers. They don’t need to grind in the hot sun like I did. I built the comfort of a car, foreign travel, and their own room. Let them build their own life.”
Yet another user suggested, “Why don’t we have a hybrid model? Take the discipline from millennials and the liberalism of Gen Z. That would make a perfect parenting model.”
These comments show a plethora of opinions. While some agree that struggle is an unavoidable part of life that shapes us, others argue that not utilizing the benefits of progress left for us by previous generations would mean not keeping pace with the times.
However, these are still opinions that divide two generations based on the lives they have led. But the actual question remains: Is struggle really needed for us to grow?
Is Struggle Really Necessary?
According to experts, parents don’t just pass down traditions and values, but also their beliefs about success and hardship. Especially for Indian parents, this isn’t surprising at all. Most people from older generations grew up during periods of financial strain and hardship. For them, struggle wasn’t an obstacle; it was proof that they were working hard.
That’s the exact value many of them tend to pass down to their children. However, not every child or situation calls for a solution that worked for someone else several years ago. While parents tend to romanticize struggle and hardship because it was the way they navigated through life, the current generation might not completely relate to it because their problems are very different from those of their parents.
According to Dr. Pavitra Shankar, Associate Consultant, Psychiatry at Aakash Healthcare, “Strict parenting is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Its impact depends heavily on a child’s temperament, developmental stage, and emotional environment.”
Her point highlights that success and discipline aren’t built through hardship alone. They also depend on the kind of support a child receives and the decisions they make to move past the turmoils of life.
Similarly, Indian-American clinical psychologist and author of The Parenting Map, Dr. Shefali Tsabary, believes that parents often place unnecessary expectations on their children in a quest for external validation. She explains, “It is the fact that we are all ordinary. And I think the human plague right now is the refusal to accept that we are ordinary. We are all searching to be significant. We are all screaming, ‘See me, see me.'”
She further adds, “Guess what? We are all ordinary. If we accept that, then we can let go of the desire to control our children or ourselves to get external validation. We can learn to settle into our own inner world and be okay in the enough-ness of who we are.”
Perhaps that’s where the debate really lies. Parents often see struggle as proof of success because that is what shaped their lives. Gen Z, on the other hand, questions whether these patterns need to be repeated simply because they existed before.
While this might be a debate based solely on the opinions of two separate generations, it brings up a concern that may have been ignored for too long.
Images: Google Images
Sources: The Economic Times, Moneycontrol, Business Today
Find the blogger: @shubhangichoudhary_29
This post is tagged under: Indian parents, Gen Z, Indian parenting, Parenting, Struggle, Success, Resilience, Prem Soni, X, Twitter, Viral post, Viral debate, Psychology, Mental health, Parenting styles, Hard work, Discipline, Intergenerational differences, Youth culture, Social media, Emotional resilience, Strict parenting, Parenting trends, Indian families, Gen Z in India, Expert opinion
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