Corrie ten Boom tells a story of asking her father a difficult question. Instead of answering, he handed her a heavy suitcase and asked her to carry it. She tried—but couldn’t. Gently, he took it back and said, “It would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load.” Some things, he told her, are too heavy for a child.
I can’t stop thinking about that story. Especially now. Especially when it comes to technology, social media, and the access our kids have to it all.
We’ve handed them a world without borders and called it connection. We’ve opened the floodgates to constant comparison, judgment, opinion, and pressure—and called it freedom. But the weight of social media isn’t just in screen time. It’s in soul time. It’s in how a single post can feel like a verdict, a trend like a requirement, a missed message like isolation. We think they’re scrolling—but they’re carrying. And much of what they’re being asked to carry, they were never meant to bear. Not yet.
As an educator, I see it every day—the silent damage of too much weight, too soon. It crushes spirits. Fractures friendships. Smothers innocence. Our kids are strong—but they are also still becoming. And we’ve given them more than they know how to hold.
As a parent, I’ll be the first to admit—I haven’t done enough. I haven’t always protected my kids from the weight of this so-called freedom. I haven’t always stepped in to shield their hearts or fought hard enough to preserve their rest, their wonder, their peace. I’ve let them carry a suitcase they weren’t ready for. I’m still learning how to take it back.
And the more I talk with family, with friends, with students in quiet hallways and tearful offices, the more I believe this: our kids aren’t struggling because they’re weak. They’re struggling because the weight is unreasonable. We ask them to build resilience—and yes, we should. But how do you build resilience under the constant hum of comparison? In the darkness of a bedroom lit only by a screen? With the quiet drip of a thousand inputs never meant for the hearts of children?
What if the mental health crisis in teens isn’t a sign of fragility—but a sign of misplaced expectations? What if strength, right now, looks like allowing a grownup to step in—not to shelter forever, but to shoulder the load long enough for them to grow strong enough to bear it?
Maybe the most loving thing we can do is take the suitcase—and say, “This one’s too heavy for you right now. I’ll carry it for a while.”
Even when they get mad. Even when they worry about being left out. Even when they slam the door in protest.
I don’t ask my kids to pay the mortgage, fix the plumbing, or buy the groceries. That’s not their responsibility to bear. Not yet. I do ask them to do the dishes, mow the lawn, clean their rooms. I ask them to be kind, to do their homework, to be good humans. I give them what’s theirs to carry—nothing more.
And then I carry the rest. With intention. With love. For as long as it takes.
Because if we won’t carry this particular suitcase—the one filled with endless notifications, invisible pressures, addictive comparisons, and algorithm-shaped truths—then who will? Our kids are scrolling through more than content; they’re scrolling through identities, values, and worldviews they haven’t yet had time to build. And while they’re becoming, we must be the ones protecting. Guiding. Saying “not yet” when necessary. Not out of control, but out of deep love. Out of the belief that childhood is not a race toward adulthood—it’s a sacred space to become.
