If your teenager only knows how to press GrabFood, you have failed as a parent. Case in point: My daughter today.
I cannot carry this burden alone, I need to vent before my blood pressure hits the roof.
Today is my day off, so I decided to bring my 15-year-old daughter to the neighborhood coffee shop for lunch. I wanted some old-school cai fan (economic rice). Usually, my wife or the grab delivery rider handles all the food in the house. But today, I told her, “Girl, go queue up and order for us. One fish, one chicken, one cabbage. Normal rice.”
You know what she did? She stood there staring at the cai fan uncle like he was speaking ancient Swahili.
The uncle asked her, “Mei mei, ni yao shen me?” (What do you want?)
My daughter literally froze. She looked at the food, looked at her phone, and then looked back at the uncle. The queue behind her was building up—at least five hungry construction workers and two fierce-looking aunties staring daggers at her.
Instead of pointing and saying “Zhe ge, na ge” (this one, that one) like a normal human being, she panicked, turned around, and whispered to me, “Papa, how to select? Where is the add-to-cart button?”
I SWEAR TO YOU, MY HEART DROPPED.
She genuinely did not know how to communicate with another human being to get food. Because her entire life, food just magically appears at the door after she taps a screen. She has zero concept of cai fan ordering etiquette. She doesn’t know that you have to point aggressively, she doesn’t know how to order shao bing (less rice), and she definitely doesn’t know how to handle the pressure of an impatient coffee shop uncle shouting “Hurry up, next one!”
In the end, I had to step in and save her before the auntie behind us started clucking her tongue.
The moment we sat down, what did she do? Did she apologize? Did she reflect on her lack of basic survival skills? No. She immediately pulled out her phone, opened TikTok, and started scrolling. Brain completely turned off. Zombie mode.
What is wrong with this Gen Z / Gen Alpha generation? They have 99+ notifications but zero social skills. They can edit a video with AI, but they cannot look a stall uncle in the eye and ask for chicken rice. If tomorrow GrabFood goes down or the internet collapses, my daughter is going to starve to death in front of a coffee shop.
Parents, please. Force your kids to go down to the kopitiam. Make them order their own teh peng. Don’t let them become digital disabled citizens who only know how to interact with a UI/UX interface. I am seriously so worried for her future.
TL;DR: Brought daughter to coffee shop, she froze at the cai fan stall because there was no “add to cart” button. Young people today are completely glued to their phones and lost in the real world.