Today, I sat down with someone who represents a voice many parents struggle to understand: Molik Jain, a 20 year young content creator who moved out of his parents’ home to chase his dreams. With 45.1K followers on Instagram (@hellomolik), Molik creates content around storytelling, music, and lifestyle. But more importantly, he’s living the reality that thousands of Gen Z kids are navigating right now the clash between traditional Indian parenting and modern aspirations.

Our conversation was eye-opening, sometimes uncomfortable, but absolutely necessary. As a child psychologist and parenting expert with over 10 years of experience, I’ve worked with countless families. But hearing directly from a Gen Z perspective made me realize: we’re not just dealing with a generation gap anymore. We’re dealing with a communication chasm.

Why Parenting Feels Outdated to Gen Z

“Be a doctor, be an engineer, be a CA, be a lawyer,” Molik told me. “I mean, the career paths they have seen in their life, they just want us to see the same paths. And if we don’t see it, we are ruined. That’s exactly how their mind works.”

His parents are successful, his father is a lawyer who owns a business, and his mother is a CA. By traditional standards, they’ve done everything right. They’ve worked hard, built careers, and now want to pass on that blueprint to their son.

But here’s what they’re missing: the world Molik is growing up in is fundamentally different from the one his parents navigated.

When Molik showed them his income from content creation, when he presented successful examples of creators making careers online, their response was: “This is not how life works. This money is temporary. You have to do what we’re saying. Life works as a corporate job, or you open a business.”

This is where traditional parenting hits a wall with Gen Z. Our generation was raised to believe in one path: study hard, get a stable job, climb the corporate ladder, retire. It worked for us because that’s how the economy functioned. But Gen Z is witnessing people build empires on YouTube, earn more than doctors through content creation, and find fulfillment in non-traditional careers.

And when we dismiss their reality because it doesn’t match our experience, we’re essentially telling them: “What you see happening in the world doesn’t matter. Only what I believe is valid.”

That’s not guidance. That’s control.

Why Indian Parents Trust Outsiders More Than Their Kids

One of the most painful things Molik shared was this: “It’s so common in parents that they always listen to the third person. If I’m doing something and some random relative comes to my house, they’ll listen to him. They won’t listen to what I’m doing. They’ll be listening to him.”

I see this pattern in 54% of Indian families I work with. Parents will ignore their child’s career aspirations for months, but the moment a neighbor, relative, or family friend validates the same idea, suddenly it becomes worth considering.

Why does this happen?

Because we’ve been conditioned to seek external validation. We care more about “what will those four people say” than what our own children are experiencing. We trust the judgment of people who spend an hour with our kids over the children who are living their own lives 24/7.

Think about it: Your child comes to you excited about a career path. You dismiss it. A month later, your brother’s friend mentions that the same field is booming. Suddenly you’re interested. What message does that send to your child?

It tells them: “Your voice doesn’t matter in this house. Your opinions have no value. I trust strangers more than I trust you.”

And then we wonder why they stop talking to us.

Why Gen Z Trusts Friends Over Family

“When you have no one to listen to, when you’re not feeling comfortable, when you’re not getting the things you want, when you don’t have anyone to listen to, that’s when friends enter your life,” Molik explained. “Even if they taunt you, they’ll eventually agree. They’ll eventually support you in your dream.”

This broke my heart because it’s true.

I asked Molik why Gen Z depends so heavily on friends. His answer was simple: “You need moral support. No matter how hard you try, you cannot do it alone. At the very end, you need someone.”

When parents don’t provide that emotional support system, children find it elsewhere. And here’s the uncomfortable truth: sometimes friends provide better emotional support than family not because they’re wiser or more experienced, but because they listen without judgment.

Molik shared an example about his female friend whose parents forced her to learn cooking with the message: “This is how a girl’s life works. She has to marry and cook.” When young Molik questioned the aunt about this, he fought with her for 45 minutes about why she was pushing this narrative.

“If cooking for themselves is a topic to be interested in, why would cooking for in-laws be interesting?” he asked me.

Exactly. The way we frame things matters.

If we teach cooking as a survival skill “Learn this so you can take care of yourself, eat healthy, and be independent” that’s empowering. But when we teach it as servitude “Learn this to keep your husband and in-laws happy” we’re setting up resentment.

The same applies to career choices. When we say “become an engineer because that’s what successful people do,” we’re pushing an agenda. When we say “explore your interests, understand your strengths, and I’ll support your informed decision,” we’re building trust.

Why Gen Z Wants to Live Alone

When Molik told me he moved out at 20, my first reaction as both a psychologist and a mother was: “But why? You could have privacy at home too. They could give you your own space. They can provide you with everything.”

His answer was illuminating: “The last sentence you said is the thing you said you are providing everything. He tried to split because he wants to provide for himself. That is the only factor. I want to live alone because I want to provide for myself and live independently.”

This isn’t rebellion. This is maturity.

Gen Z doesn’t just want independence handed to them, they want to earn it. They want to prove they can survive, thrive, and build their own lives. But here’s the challenge: our parenting style often doesn’t leave room for that autonomy.

“Parents don’t know the concept of privacy in life,” Molik said. “They check on you every time. Whenever you try to close your door, they’re like, ‘Why are you closing your door? What are you doing inside?’ That’s what irritates me a lot.”

As parents, we think we’re being protective. We think monitoring equals caring. But for Gen Z, it feels like suffocation.

Now, I’m not saying we should give teenagers unlimited freedom with zero accountability. But there’s a difference between healthy boundaries and invasive control. There’s a difference between being involved in your child’s life and micromanaging every moment.

When every closed door is suspicious, when every private conversation is interrogated, when every choice is questioned children don’t feel protected. They feel imprisoned.

Why Traditional Parenting Fails Gen Z

Molik shared something deeply personal: “I was always treated as a disgrace to our family because I’m different. In my joint family of 16-17 members, the in-laws and relatives would say, ‘He cannot go to the temple, he’s a disgrace, he is white.’ Same at school, kids thought if they touched me, they’d get the disease and become white too.”

He was dealing with albinism, weak eyesight, and constant bullying. And what did his parents do? They called teachers constantly, insisted he sit in the front bench, and drew unwanted attention to his differences.

“I used to hide my disabilities, but my parents were like ‘first bench,’ calling teachers all the time. That’s the reason every teacher started to target me. I hated that the most. I committed some really bad steps to myself because of that in high school three or four times.”

Did you catch that? This young man attempted self-harm multiple times because the very people meant to protect him were inadvertently making his life worse.

Their intentions were good. They wanted him to succeed academically despite his challenges. But their method of constant intervention, drawing attention, forcing visibility had the opposite effect.

Traditional parenting operates on a one-size-fits-all model: work hard, follow rules, achieve success. But it doesn’t account for neurodiversity, different learning styles, mental health struggles, or individual aspirations that don’t fit the mold.

Gen Z isn’t failing traditional parenting. Traditional parenting is failing Gen Z.

3 Things You Should Change In Yourself as a Parent of a Gen Z

I asked Molik directly: “What three things do you want from your parents as a Gen Z?”

His answers should be printed and put on every refrigerator in India:

1. Learn How to Listen

“Whenever I try to speak, they’re like ‘No, you are the wrong one here.’ They just know their POV. They just don’t know what the other person is saying. I just want parents to start listening to what their kids have to say.”

Listening doesn’t mean agreeing. It means hearing without immediately correcting, dismissing, or lecturing. It means asking, “Tell me more about that” instead of “That’s wrong because…”

When was the last time you listened to your child speak for five minutes without interrupting?

2. Let Children Make Their Own Decisions (And Fail)

“They should let their kids decide their life. Yeah, they should definitely guide them this is right, this is wrong. But it’s not like ‘what we are saying is the correct one.'”

Guide, don’t dictate. Show options, don’t force choices. Explain consequences, don’t control outcomes.

And here’s the hardest part: let them fail. Let them choose the “wrong” college and realize it themselves. Let them pick a career and discover it’s not for them. Because the only way humans learn resilience is by experiencing setbacks and recovering from them.

When we make every decision for our children, we’re not protecting them, we’re crippling them.

3. Build a Healthy Family Environment

“They should build a healthy family environment so that their kids can just come to them and ask about everything. For example, if something is going on in my relationship and probably I’m doing something wrong, I can just go to my mom and explain the whole situation.”

This is the heart of everything. If your child can’t come to you when they’re struggling, confused, or making mistakes, you haven’t built a safe space, you’ve built a courtroom where they’re always the defendant.

Molik told me he couldn’t discuss his relationship with his parents because he knew their response would be: “This is not the age to do what you’re doing. She is not from our caste. This is wrong.”

So instead of guiding him through relationship challenges, teaching him about healthy boundaries, or helping him understand emotions his parents shut down the conversation before it started.

And then we wonder why they don’t talk to us.

Gen Z vs. Old-School Parenting: The Big Clash

The fundamental clash isn’t about phones, careers, or living arrangements. It’s about philosophy.

Old-school parenting says: “I know what’s best for you because I have experience.”

Gen Z responds: “You have experience in a world that no longer exists and we also want to experience the things on our own”.

Both are partially right.

Yes, parents have wisdom from lived experience. Yes, we’ve seen pitfalls and want to protect our children from pain. But our experience was shaped by different economic realities, different social structures, and different opportunities.

The world of stable government jobs, guaranteed pensions, and linear career paths is gone. Gen Z is navigating gig economies, digital careers, global competition, and rapid technological change. The rules we followed don’t apply anymore.

But here’s what hasn’t changed: the need for connection, validation, and unconditional love.

When Molik talked about wanting his parents at his hypothetical concert someday, when he described trying to convince his mother on her anniversary, when he admitted he still needs his parents despite everything I heard the same longing every generation has felt: the desire to make our parents proud while staying true to ourselves.

The clash isn’t inevitable. It’s a result of rigid thinking on both sides.

Indian Parents: It’s Okay to Learn Parenting

Here’s something radical I want every parent to hear: you don’t have to have all the answers.

Our generation was raised to believe that parents are infallible, that admitting uncertainty is weakness, that asking for help means failure. But that mindset is destroying our relationships with our children.

I suggested to Molik that family counseling might help. His response? “My parents will probably agree because they listen to third persons more than me. If a counselor says something, they’ll listen.”

This is both sad and hopeful. Sad because it confirms that parents trust professionals more than their own children. Hopeful because it means they’re willing to learn they just need the right messenger.

“When all doors are closed, professionals can help you,” I told Molik. “If you have contradictions between you and your parents, it’s important to intervene with a third person who can see both perspectives and give you an unbiased view.”

But here’s my challenge to parents: why wait until all doors are closed? Why wait until your child moves out, stops talking, or hits a crisis before seeking help?

Modern parenting isn’t intuitive because the world our children inhabit is unlike anything we experienced. 

Gen Z is growing up with:

• Social media shaping their identity
• Global career opportunities we never imagined
• Mental health awareness we were never taught
• Different relationship models
• Different definitions of success

And we expect to navigate this using parenting techniques from the 1990s?

Learning parenting isn’t admitting failure. It’s admitting love.

When you attend a workshop, read a book, see a counselor, or even have honest conversations with your Gen Z child about what they need you’re not being weak. You’re being wise.

The Way Forward: Building Bridges Instead of Walls

Molik said something that gave me hope: “We Gen Zs are going to be the best parental generation because we see what’s going on in our parental generation and we know we should not repeat this to our future generation.”

Every generation says this. And every generation makes new mistakes while fixing old ones. But that’s okay. That’s growth.

Here’s what I want both parents and Gen Z to understand:

To Parents:

Your child isn’t rejecting you when they choose a different path. They’re honoring themselves. The greatest gift you can give them isn’t a predetermined life plan, it’s the tools to build their own.

Stop waiting for them to fail so you can say “I told you so.” Start asking, “How can I support you in this?” even when you don’t fully understand or agree.

Your relationship with your child matters more than being right. Twenty years from now, they won’t remember that you forced them into engineering. But they’ll remember that you didn’t listen when they were struggling.

To Gen Z:

Your parents aren’t the enemy. They’re imperfect humans doing their best with limited tools. The way they parent you is how they were parented—and they survived, which makes them believe it works.

Have patience. Initiate conversations. Keep trying even when it feels pointless. They may listen to the third person more easily, but that doesn’t mean your voice has no value.

And yes, sometimes you’ll need to set boundaries, live independently, and chart your own course. But don’t close the door on connection. Keep inviting them into your world, even when they don’t seem interested.

A Final Thought

At the end of our conversation, Molik shared his biggest frustration: “I just want to prove them wrong someday. I’ll invite them to my own concert and show them that my paychecks are higher than yours and they are permanent.”

I understand that desire. When you’ve been dismissed for years, vindication feels like the ultimate goal.

But here’s what I’ve learned in 10+ years of working with families: proving your parents wrong doesn’t heal the relationship. Building a bridge does.

The goal isn’t to win the argument about whose life choices are valid. The goal is to create a family where both generations feel heard, respected, and loved even when they disagree.

Parents, your children are not mini versions of you meant to fulfill dreams you couldn’t achieve. They are separate souls with their own purposes, paths, and possibilities.

Gen Z, your parents’ inability to see your world doesn’t mean they don’t love you. It means they’re scared of uncertainty, scared you’ll fail, scared of losing the connection they don’t know how to maintain.

Communication is the string that holds all relationships together. When we stop talking, we fall apart. It could be father and son, mother and daughter, husband and wife doesn’t matter. If you’re not communicating, you’re disconnecting.

So start talking. Start listening. Start building bridges instead of walls.

Because at the end of the day, we’re all just humans craving the same thing: to be seen, heard, and loved for who we are.