As the generations get shorter, the parenting generations get shorter. I feel like every parenting generation is a backlash against the previous one. Like "When I was a kid my parents always said 'because I said so' and that's such bullshit, I'm NEVER going to do that with my kids". So every parent goes into parenthood with this long checklist of bullshit they saw their parents (or older cousins or whatever) doing and not doing it.

But they go too far or don't think through it well enough or don't anticipate how the world will have changed, so they end up making their own mistakes through the backlash.

Like Gen X and old Millennial parents are infamous for giving their Gen Z kids iPads, probably because THEIR parents had been all anti-video game when they were kids and they were like "but there's so much potential with artwork in games and so much to explore online and blah blah" so they give their kids iPads. And then everyone sees this "iPad generation" growing up and says "this is all bullshit. I'm NEVER going to give MY kid an iPad when I'm a parent" and a new wave of backlash begins.

I'm a parent of young ones and you can see so much variation in the parents according to what generation they're forming their backlash against. Some are still in the anti-iPad backlash and saying their kids are never going to give their kids iPads or smartphones. Some are anti-anti-iPad backlash and are seeing that taking technology away from their kids is putting them out of touch. And then there's the anti-anti-anti-iPad backlash already starting that sees that maybe the anti-anti-iPadders WERE right at the time, but with AI and TikTok now, it's all bullshit and actually the original anti-iPadders were onto something.

And so it goes with every parenting issue.

Except the pendulum swings are all overlapping with one another now. By the time a new backlash starts, the previously backlash has hardly even hit the mainstream yet.

Anyway, yeah, some Gen Z (and especially Gen Alpha, I think) will get wildly varying touch-grass-ivity depending on who in particularly their parents want to be rebelling against.