By 
The playground near my house is practically deserted most afternoons.
When I was a kid, you couldn’t find a free swing if you tried.
Now, watching my baby daughter grow, I can’t shake this nagging question of what had happened to all those kids who used to run wild until the streetlights came on.
Here’s the thing that keeps me up at night (besides the obvious new-parent reasons): My generation had it pretty good.
We rode bikes without helmets, played in the street, and our parents had no idea where we were half the time yet, somehow, we’ve become the helicopter parents we swore we’d never be.
The irony is almost painful.
We’re the generation that survived “dangerous” playgrounds with metal slides that could fry an egg in summer, yet we’re bubble-wrapping our own kids like they’re made of glass.
The freedom we lost somewhere along the way
Remember building forts in the woods? Or walking to school alone?
Those were rites of passage that taught us independence, problem-solving, and resilience but, somewhere between then and now, something shifted.
We traded tree climbing for scheduled playdates and neighborhood adventures for supervised activities.
The world didn’t necessarily become more dangerous as crime rates have actually dropped since the 80s and 90s in most developed countries.
However, our perception of danger has skyrocketed and I see it in myself already.
My daughter is still tiny, but I’m already overthinking every decision: Will this toy help her development? Am I reading to her enough? Should I be worried that she’s not hitting that milestone exactly when the book says?
This hypervigilance is exhausting, and she’s not even walking yet.
When parenting became a competitive sport
Growing up as one of three brothers in Melbourne, competition was just about who could climb higher or run faster.
Now? Parenting feels like an Olympic event where everyone’s keeping score.
Social media doesn’t help; every parent seems to be curating their highlight reel while the rest of us are struggling through the blooper footage.
We see perfectly styled nurseries, organic homemade baby food, and developmental milestones being crushed left and right.
Stearns, a psychologist who’s studied modern parenting extensively, puts it bluntly: “Parenting has in some measurable ways become less enjoyable than it used to be.”
No kidding, when did raising kids become less about love and guidance and more about optimization and performance metrics?
The pressure isn’t just external. We’ve internalized this idea that if we’re not constantly enriching, educating, and engaging our children, we’re failing them.
My parents’ generation believed boredom bred creativity. We believe boredom breeds screen time.
The mental load we never saw coming
Research from the Journal of Asian Economics found that parents’ mental health significantly impacts their children’s social-emotional development, with effects that ripple across generations.
Think about that for a second: Our anxiety about being perfect parents might actually be undermining the very thing we’re trying to achieve.
I’ve noticed this in my own experience. The days when I’m most stressed about “doing parenting right” are the days I’m least present with my daughter.
She doesn’t need a perfect parent; she needs a present one.
This is where Eastern philosophy has helped me tremendously: Buddhism teaches us about the middle way, or avoiding extremes, yet modern parenting seems to swing between total neglect and suffocating oversight with no middle ground.
In my book, Hidden Secrets of Buddhism: How To Live With Maximum Impact and Minimum Ego, I explore how attachment to outcomes creates suffering.
Apply this to parenting, and you see how our attachment to raising “successful” kids might be causing more harm than good.
Why we can’t let go
Part of me wonders if we’re overcompensating.
Maybe we remember the sting of skinned knees and hurt feelings, and we’re desperately trying to shield our kids from any discomfort, or maybe it’s deeper than that.
We came of age during massive technological and social changes. We’ve seen how quickly the world can shift, and we’re terrified our kids won’t be prepared for whatever comes next.
However, here’s what keeps me grounded: My daughter is teaching me more about presence than any meditation retreat ever could.
Babies don’t care about your five-year plan. They exist purely in the now, demanding your attention to this moment, this need, this smile.
Building a bicultural family that bridges Australian and Vietnamese traditions has shown me there’s no one “right” way to parent.
What works in one culture might seem bizarre in another, yet kids thrive everywhere.
Finding our way back to balance
So, how do we break this cycle? How do we give our kids the freedom we had without the fear that’s infected modern parenting?
First, we need to acknowledge that our parents were reasonable. They understood that kids need space to fail, to figure things out, to develop their own sense of judgment.
Second, we need to resist the urge to compare. Your neighbor’s kid might be doing calculus at age five, but that doesn’t mean your kid is behind because they’re still eating dirt in the backyard.
Third, and this is crucial, we need to model the behavior we want to see.
If we’re constantly anxious and stressed about parenting, what are we teaching our kids about life?
I’m trying to approach parenting like a mindfulness practice.
Some days I nail it, other days I’m a mess, but that’s okay.
Perfect parents don’t raise resilient kids; real ones do.
The truth is, we might be overthinking this whole thing. Our parents didn’t have parenting blogs, milestone apps, or expert opinions at their fingertips.
They had instincts, common sense, and the radical belief that kids were tougher than they looked.
Final words
Becoming a father has forced me to confront this uncomfortable truth: We’ve complicated something that used to be simple.
My generation needs to reckon with why we’re so afraid to give our kids the freedom we cherished.
Maybe it’s time to put down the parenting books, delete a few apps, and trust that kids are still as capable of handling independence as we were.
The playground near my house doesn’t have to stay empty. We just need to remember that skinned knees heal, broken hearts mend, and kids who are given the chance to be kids usually turn out just fine.
After all, we did.