The screen of the iPhone glowed under the dinner table, casting a ghostly blue light on my grandson’s face. He was ten years old, and his thumbs were moving in a blur, tapping and swiping with a surgeon’s precision. On his plate, the mashed potatoes I’d spent an hour peeling, boiling, and whipping by hand were growing cold. The steam had long since vanished.

“Leo,” I said, my voice calm but firm, the way you speak when you’re not making a request. “Phone off. Now.”

My daughter, his mother, shot me a look from across the table. It was the look I’d been getting for years, the one that said, “Mom, don’t start.”

But I had to start. Because I’m seventy-two years old, my name is Sharon, and in my family, I’m known as “the drill sergeant grandma.” I’ve earned the title, and frankly, I wear it like a badge of honor. In a world that’s gone soft, someone has to hold the line.

I’ve seen toddlers navigate a tablet menu before they could form a complete sentence. I’ve watched six-year-olds order things off Amazon and nine-year-olds produce TikTok videos with edits and music that would’ve required a professional studio back in my day. Their minds are sharp, their reflexes are fast, and their ability to absorb digital information is astounding.

So you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t buy the excuse that they’re “just kids” who are “too young” to take out the garbage without being asked three times.

If you have the dexterity to win a virtual battle in Fortnite, you have the dexterity to scrub a toilet.

When I was Leo’s age, growing up in the 1960s in Ohio, life was different. We weren’t poorer or richer than anyone else, but we all understood a basic principle: a family operates like a team. My mother, a woman who could stretch a dollar until it screamed for mercy, had a simple household rule. “You live under my roof, you lift a finger under my roof.” There was no negotiating. There was no allowance chart. There was just the work that needed doing.

At eight, I was on a stool at the kitchen sink, my hands deep in soapy water, wrestling with the heavy cast-iron skillet my mom used for everything. At twelve, I was trusted to iron my father’s work shirts, the smell of hot cotton and starch filling the laundry room. Did I love it? Of course not. But it taught me something my grandson, with all his technological genius, is struggling to learn: the world doesn’t just entertain you. You have a role to play in it. Your contribution matters.

Today, I see a different kind of parenting. My own daughter, bless her heart, is a prime example. She’s what they call a “helicopter parent.” She hovers, she swoops in to solve every problem. She once drove thirty minutes back to Leo’s school because he forgot his homework on the kitchen table. She wanted to spare him the discomfort of telling his teacher he’d been irresponsible.

She meant well. They all mean well. But in their quest to shield their children from every hardship, they are stealing their strength. They are raising a generation with incredibly strong thumbs but very weak spines.

A child who never has to pack his own lunch won’t magically know how to budget for groceries when he’s twenty. A child who never has to help fold a pile of laundry won’t understand the relentless cycle of household management that awaits him in adulthood. We’re so focused on getting them into the right colleges and the right careers that we’re forgetting to teach them how to run the business of their own lives.

The problem isn’t a lack of ability. It’s a lack of expectation.

When I tell Leo, “Come on, let’s go pull some weeds in the garden before it gets dark,” he looks at me like I’ve asked him to build a rocket ship out of spare parts.

“But Grandma,” he’ll whine, “it’s boring.”

“Life is sometimes boring, honey,” I tell him with a smile. “That’s why they invented work. It gives you something to do between the fun parts.”

He rolls his eyes. His mother sighs. But I don’t back down. Because I’m not just trying to get the weeds pulled. I’m trying to plant something in him: resilience. Grit. The understanding that satisfaction doesn’t just come from leveling up in a game; it comes from looking at a job well done, even if your back is a little sore.

We live in a culture of convenience, of instant gratification. We also live in a country that was built on the opposite: hard work, delayed gratification, and personal responsibility. We talk about the American Dream, but we forget that it was never just about the destination; it was about the tough, character-building journey. That journey didn’t start in a boardroom; it started with sweeping a floor and learning that your effort had value.

I know some people think I’m old-fashioned. A dinosaur from a bygone era. Maybe I am. But I’ve lived long enough to see the results of both worlds. I see the anxiety in young adults who are terrified of failure because they’ve never been allowed to fail. I see the helplessness in teenagers who can code a website but can’t cook a simple meal for themselves.

So, yes, I’m the drill sergeant grandma. I’ll keep insisting that phones go in a basket during dinner. I’ll keep assigning chores. I’ll keep repeating my mantra: “If a kid can master a complex video game controller, they can master a vacuum cleaner.”

Because my love for my grandson is bigger than my need for him to like me every second of the day. It’s a fierce, protective love. The kind that doesn’t just give you a hug, but also hands you a shovel and says, “Let’s get to work.” The kind that prepares you not for a world of comfort, but for the real world, the one that doesn’t give out participation trophies.

One day, Leo will have his own home. He’ll have his own responsibilities, his own challenges, his own cold mashed potatoes on the table while his own child is staring at a screen.

And on that day, I hope he’ll remember me. Not as the strict old woman who made him do chores, but as the first person who taught him how to handle the game of life with both hands.