Somewhere between a missed Mother’s Day call and a dropping anchor
We were sitting in a café, the kind with exposed brick and Wi-Fi faster than our first ship’s engine. A group of kids (late teens) at the next table were deep in conversation. Phones out. Laughter loud. The topic? Their parents. Specifically, how “dramatic” mothers get about birthdays, anniversaries, and Mother’s Day.
“Honestly, it’s just a day. I’ll text her. Why does she need a call?”
We bit into our biscuit and said nothing. But the salt was already forming on our skin.
This reflection is about taking parents for granted. About expectations. About the unspoken contract between generations. About the quiet shift from effort to efficiency, and the parents left wondering when affection became something scheduled between notifications.
Is it an Asian thing? A Western import? Or just the tide of a new world pulling everyone into its own current?
🧭 Part I: The Navigation Error – When “I’m Busy” Becomes a Bulkhead
Let’s start with a confession. We’re from the generation that still remembers long-distance calls being expensive. When a missed birthday meant a handwritten letter arriving three weeks late with half the ink smudged by rain.
We learned gratitude slowly. Not from motivational reels, but from watching our parents sacrifice quietly while pretending it was normal.
The new generation grew up differently. Instant messaging. Same-day delivery. Emotional expression compressed into emojis, reactions, and blue ticks.
We’re not saying they don’t love their parents. We’re saying many have been conditioned to believe efficiency can replace effort.
A young colleague once told us:
“I don’t get why my mom gets emotional when I forget to call on her birthday. She knows I love her. I’m just busy.”
We asked him:
“When was the last time you actually told her?”
He paused.
“I mean… I showed up for Diwali.”
That’s not cruelty. That’s a navigation error.
The compass shifted somewhere along the journey, and many don’t even realise it.
🌏 Part II: East, West, or Just the New Coast?
Traditionally, Asian families built entire cultures around duty and gratitude. Sometimes beautifully. Sometimes suffocatingly.
But the tide changed.
The West’s language of individualism — your space, your boundaries, your life — sailed East and found very comfortable waters.
Families shrank. Homes became quieter. Grandparents moved out of living rooms and into scheduled visits. Shared meals became calendar events.
And with distance came something subtle: out of sight, out of gratitude.
That subtle drift is exactly how we begin taking parents for granted — not with cruelty, but with convenience.
A young woman once told us:
“I love my parents, but I have my own life. I can’t drop everything for Mother’s Day. It’s a commercial gimmick anyway.”
She’s not wrong about the commercial gimmick.
But that’s not the point.
The point is the pause.
The moment you stop scrolling, stop optimising, stop hustling long enough to say:
“I see you. Thank you.”
That’s not Eastern or Western.
That’s human.
Its the generational drift at sea
🧠 Part III: The Practical Generation – Less Emotional or Just Differently Wired?
People say the younger generation is cold.
We don’t think that’s true.
We’ve watched them cry at films, mourn fictional characters, support strangers online, and stay awake all night for friends going through heartbreak.
They feel deeply.
Just not always in ways older generations recognise.
Part of that is structural. School rewarded performance. Social media rewarded visibility. Hustle culture rewarded productivity.
Nobody really taught gratitude as a daily practice anymore.
So when Mother’s Day arrives, it can feel less like reflection and more like another obligation squeezed between deadlines and dopamine.
One parent told us:
“My son sent me a WhatsApp sticker for Mother’s Day. A cat holding a heart. I cried. Not because I was touched — because I realised that was the full extent of the effort.”
We didn’t know what to say.
The sea doesn’t send stickers.
The sea sends waves.
Sometimes gentle. Sometimes devastating. But always real.
⚓ Part IV: Taking Parents for Granted – The Silent Anchor
Parents are anchors.
The steady weight beneath the surface that keeps the ship from drifting too far into chaos.
But anchors are easy to forget because they sit below the waterline, doing their work silently.
The younger generation often sees the surface: the reminders, the questions, the guilt trips, the “drama.”
They don’t always see the unpaid bills quietly handled. The postponed dreams. The holidays sacrificed so tuition could be covered. The sleepless nights disguised as normal parenting.
And perhaps many simply haven’t yet lived long enough to recognise sacrifice when it appears quietly in someone else’s life.
We don’t blame them entirely.
We blame the water they’re swimming in.
A sea of convenience, where everything arrives on demand — including attention, entertainment, validation, even affection.
But love isn’t a subscription service.
It’s a reef knot.
It takes time to tie, and it only holds if both sides keep pulling.
🌊 Reflections from the Shore – The Tide of Gratitude
So we sit here again, the water cold around our ankles, thinking about Mother’s Day.
About the missed calls. The rushed messages. The sticker with the cat holding the heart.
And we think about our own mothers.
The ones who packed sweets into steel containers. Who fixed things without announcing it. Who waited quietly instead of complaining loudly. Who never once said, “You forgot to call.”
They just waited.
For Wednesday. For the next visit. For the moment we would finally understand.
And one day, perhaps the younger generation will understand too — that taking parents for granted is the quietest kind of loss, because nobody announces it, and neither does the anchor.
When they become parents themselves. When they send a message and get a sticker back. When they sit in a café and overhear someone say: “It’s just a day.”
That’s the tide.
The endless cycle of loving, forgetting, sacrificing, misunderstanding, and eventually remembering.
So here’s to the parents who anchored us quietly while we chased storms. Here’s to the children doing their best in a world moving faster than emotion can keep up with. And here’s to the awkward Mother’s Day phone call — the one that lasts longer than a sticker.
Happy Mother’s Day from all of us at The Sarcastic Mariner(s).
And here’s to the sea, which never once sent a cat emoji instead of a wave.
