Before I begin, a disclosure: My wife and I don’t have kids. Our “baby” is Mexico News Daily. But having spent time with the kids of friends and family — and enough time studying what the world is demanding of the next generation — I think that I have a well-reasoned perspective. And frankly, sometimes an outside observer has an advantage because they aren’t as deeply immersed and invested in the day to day of what parents go through. I am also someone who has spent over 30 years navigating significant personal and professional change — from studying abroad, to traveling to 60+ countries, to now building a life and a business here in Mexico. That experience is the lens through which I write this.
Here is something that many parents already know: Research consistently shows that today’s young people are measurably more anxious, more depressed and less resilient than any previous generation on record — despite living in conditions of historically unprecedented comfort and safety. More comfort. More anxiety.
That is not a coincidence. A growing body of thinkers, researchers and leaders have begun to make the case — compellingly — that our level of comfort is actively undermining the mental and physical health of our children. The data backs it up: A significant percentage of American parents now say they believe that their children’s emotional health is getting worse.
And yet the dominant response to this crisis in most households I observe is to double down on comfort. Kids have their own cars if parents can afford it. Grade inflation is accepted as normal. Mental health days are routine. Many kids don’t have jobs. And if you ask a parent about their child’s development, nine times out of ten the answer involves sports. Never books. Never struggle. Never a job.
To be fair, sports matter. I played them. They teach discipline, time management, how to win graciously and how to lose without falling apart. They build teamwork, accountability to others, and the ability to perform under pressure. These are real skills, and I don’t dismiss them. But sports are a managed discomfort. The rules are fixed, the coaches are supportive, the metrics are clear. When a season ends badly, there is always next year. Life does not work that way.
Sports prepare kids to compete within a known system. What they rarely teach is how to navigate a system that doesn’t exist yet — which is precisely what the next decade will demand. Life does not come with a referee. The world your child will inherit is not managed. It is chaotic. Geopolitical instability, climate disruption, trade wars and the seismic arrival of artificial intelligence are reshaping every industry, every career path, every assumption about what skills will matter. The CEOs of the most powerful AI companies on earth have said publicly that intelligence itself is becoming a commodity.
When intelligence is a commodity, what becomes scarce? Character. Judgment. Adaptability. The ability to stay calm, curious, and capable when everything around you is shifting. That kind of character is not built in a comfort zone.
Consider that one of the most successful builders of our era, CEO of Nvidia Jensen Huang, spent his teenage years washing dishes and scrubbing toilets for minimum wage. He didn’t just survive it — he credits it as foundational. He came to the U.S. as an immigrant child from Taiwan, was dropped into a world entirely foreign to him, and had to adapt or fail. That daily friction of not fitting in, having to learn the rules, not having it easy — is precisely what helped him forge the mindset and skill set that built the largest company in the history of the world.
I ask myself: What is pushing kids out of their comfort zones today? In many cases, what could be growth-building discomfort instead is replaced by curated extracurriculars, producing a generation that is impressively scheduled yet likely very unprepared for real life.
Which brings me to the single most underutilized growth opportunity available to a college student: a genuine study abroad experience, chosen not for the Instagram aesthetic but for the productive discomfort it delivers.
I recently returned to my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to understand why more students aren’t choosing to study in Mexico and find out how I could help. What I found was striking: Of 32 business school study abroad options available today, five are in Italy, five in Spain, four in France — and zero in Mexico. Over 200 students a year go to Barcelona alone. When I spoke to students, professors and administrators, the framing was nearly universal: Study abroad is a resume item, an extended vacation, a box to check. The discomfort is being optimized out of the very experience designed to create it.
I want to be clear: Any study abroad program is valuable. But not all destinations are created equal — and I say this not as someone promoting Mexico, but as someone shaped by it. When I studied in Guadalajara 30 years ago, I was forced into discomfort. The language barrier was real, the cultural norms were different, and the relationships required patience I didn’t know I had. That friction rewired how I think and how I lead. More than 60% of employers globally now say graduates with international experience are stronger candidates, specifically because they demonstrate adaptability and cross-cultural competence.
Mexico — a country that shares a 2,000-mile border, $800 billion in annual trade, and generations of human connection with the United States — offers that formative friction in one of the most professionally relevant contexts imaginable. It is not about Mexico for its own sake. It is about what genuine immersion does to a developing mind. The same mechanism that shaped an immigrant child from Taiwan into a world-changing technologist is available to any student willing to be challenged and grow with the harder path of a study abroad experience in a country like Mexico.
So, what do kids gain from this experience?
- Resilience — the ability to stay grounded when the world shifts beneath them
- “Figure-out-ability” — the capacity to solve problems that don’t have a playbook
- Cross-cultural fluency — a competitive edge in a globally connected, AI-disrupted economy
- Self-reliance — earned confidence that no participation trophy can replicate
- A story worth telling — the kind of formative experience that shapes identity and character, not just a resume
- Perspective — seeing the world and the United States from another point of view
The window to take six months, step outside of everything familiar, and grow in ways a classroom simply cannot provide — is short. Most adults never again have the opportunity once they leave college. Every parent I meet says that they are worried about their kids’ futures. Here is the most actionable thing you can do about it: Stop protecting them from the discomfort that helps build the future they will need to face. The most important gift you can give your child right now is not a safer path; it is a harder one.
Travis Bembenek is the CEO of Mexico News Daily and has been living, working or playing in Mexico for nearly 30 years.
