STOP WAITING · PLAIN SPEAKING
A personal commentary by Kurt Gassner · 1 November 2026
We wanted our children to have a better life. Did we forget to prepare them for it?
A tiger sits in a lavishly padded pushchair. Behind it, we parents and grandparents are pushing. Ahead stands a wall: reality. The tiger roars. We look surprised. Yet we are the ones who pushed it there.
This image comes to mind when I think about entitlement, generations and the recent protests in Germany. Have we raised tigers of entitlement? Before anyone points approvingly at “young people today”, the first finger points at us. I explicitly include myself.
The windows are broken. That does not settle the explanation.
On 31 October, many young people demonstrated peacefully in Germany. Later, serious unrest and looting broke out in Frankfurt. According to hessenschau’s reporting, most of those involved in the later rioting had not taken part in the march; organisers distanced themselves from the violence. Turning these events into a verdict on an entire generation is too easy.
Anxiety about the future does not excuse smashing shop windows. Equally, pictures of riots cannot reveal the perpetrators’ shared upbringing. These events prompt my question. They do not prove my answer.
What concerns me is an attitude that extends beyond them: the conviction that we are owed a good life, and that, if it fails to arrive, other people must be chiefly responsible.
We meant well. Did we take too much off their hands?
“Our children should have it better than we did.” How many of us have thought that? Better education, more opportunities, fewer hardships. It is an understandable and generous wish.
But did we gradually confuse “better” with “easier”? Did we remove obstacles before our children could learn to overcome them? Cushion disappointments before they could practise dealing with them? Fulfil wishes without talking about the work that made their fulfilment possible?
I ask as a father and grandfather. It would be convenient to complain about entitlement today while overlooking the possible contribution of our care, our impatience and sometimes our guilt.
When the wish to give children opportunities becomes the promise of a life without unwelcome demands, we are preparing a disappointment. The world has not signed that promise.
Perhaps we showed them too often how to get what they wanted, and too rarely trusted them to carry on after hearing “no”.
Prosperity has a history
I was born in 1950, a child of the post-war years. My generation knows rebuilding, work and uncertainty. Later, we also benefited from the economic boom and from opportunities that came our way. Both belong in the account. So do the crises, including the 1973 oil crisis, which reminded us how quickly things we take for granted can become uncertain.
Looking at the possessions of someone in their seventies reveals a present condition. It does not automatically reveal the decades behind it: work, saving, decisions, risks and setbacks. Nor does it automatically reveal good fortune, inheritance or favourable circumstances. An honest comparison between generations must consider both.
The same applies to young people. A childhood rich in opportunities does not guarantee an affordable home or a straightforward career. And many did not have a sheltered childhood at all. Asking for fair access to education and an affordable life is not, by itself, spoiled entitlement.
A tiger of entitlement is an attitude, not a birth date
I am equally unconvinced by the sweeping claim that young people are unwilling to work. In the 2024 Shell Youth Study, two thirds of respondents said they were willing to work hard if it meant earning more. That hardly supports the accusation that an entire generation only wants to collect.
By “tiger of entitlement” I mean the attitude that turns every wish into a demand and every limit into a personal insult. It can develop in a child’s bedroom. It can also occupy the boss’s chair or persist into retirement.
That is why this article addresses two groups.
To us older people: did we encourage independence or make dependence comfortable? Did we demonstrate concern for others? Can we acknowledge our own advantages without dismissing what we have achieved?
To the young: you did not choose your upbringing. As adults, however, you have a say in what you do with it. Look at the whole picture. Your difficulties belong in it. So do your opportunities. Volume is no substitute for an argument or for your own contribution.
STOP WAITING also means not postponing responsibility
No one has to accept bad conditions. We can protest, organise and demand change. At the same time, a question remains: what can I begin, learn or contribute myself?
For me, that belongs at the heart of STOP WAITING. We surrender room to act when we make it entirely dependent on other people delivering first.
Eventually, the tiger in the pushchair has to get out. And we, who have been pushing it, have to learn to trust it to do so.
We must ask what we promised them. They must ask how much of it the world actually owes them.
Send me your thoughts · Receive more STOP WAITING thoughts
What is your experience? Have we taken too many difficulties off our children’s hands, or do we underestimate the obstacles they face today? I welcome personal experiences and thoughtful disagreement.
Opinion. News checked on 1 November 2026. Cover: AI-generated satirical illustration; original German artwork.
