word-choice
After eating the sausages, Mary pointed at the cherry tomatoes and
smashed potatoes and said, "I bet the rest is/are tasty too."
Should it be are or is this case? To me is sounds more natural but are sounds more logical because there "rest" consists of two items?
In your usage
With little remaining energy, Mary hauled herself into elevator, fought the gravity generated by the ascent, and staggered out to the 14th floor.
Since Mary is climbing upwards, her action is called an
ascent - (n) a climb or walk to the summit of a mountain or hill.
in mountaineering first attempts of climbing a mountain are called
It should be pointed out that your sentence does not really make sense since climbing upwards does not generate gravity.
Your other word has a very different meaning
ascension - (n) the act of rising to an important position or a higher level
June 2nd will be the 64th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's ascension to the throne.
One of the most famous paintings of an ascension is Raphael's Transfiguration
This painting is also the subject of one of the largest "instant" Poloroids ever
Given the context of the original statement you want to paraphrase, you should not use either term.
The specific language you want to paraphrase is
I think it can be due to our upbringing. We want what we want when we want it.
You've proposed
today’s teens are much too pampered and as a result, lazy.
You've got a great start with reformulating the sentences so that you can replace "due to" with "as a result". You have also (like the narrator of the original piece) paraphrased the second half of the quote as "lazy", which works fine.
Your sticking point is how to paraphrase "our upbringing". You have proposed either "pampering" or "spoon-feeding" as replacements, but neither is really appropriate here.
When paraphrasing someone else's words, it's very important not to mis-characterize the original meaning. In this case, the original speaker talked about "our upbringing" and its results ("lazy" and "want what we want when we want it"). But she did not specify what aspect of rearing caused these result.
You have inferred that these lazy young people's parents were "pampering" or "spoon-feeding" them, and that has caused them to behave this way. But perhaps, instead, Ms. Benoit meant that she and her peers had been particularly deprived for most of their childhoods, and now that they don't have to work as hard they don't want to. That scenario might not seem as likely to you (it doesn't to me, either) but the original statement leaves open the possibility.
So, what should you use?
Look for a neutral synonym for "upbringing", or just use "upbringing", and then leave the specific deficits of this to the imagination of the reader (like the original speaker did). You may need to rearrange your sentence slightly to make this work. I would suggest something like
today's teens are lazy as a result of their upbringing.
or
as a result of the way today's teens were raised, they are lazy.
or, to stick as close as possible to your original structure,
today's teens were raised to be entitled and as a result, lazy.
Note that in that last example, I have substituted the adjective entitled for the statement that teens "want what [they] want when [they] want it", as suggested by Rhythmatic. That works, since you actually do have two descriptions of the young people in the original, and you were previously using the single word "lazy" to stand in for both. What we don't have is a description of the teens' parents' parenting style.
Best Answer
You could use either. If "cherry tomatoes and smashed potatoes" is a single dish you could treat it as singular example
If you imagine the tomatoes and potatoes as separate items, then use "are"
I prefer "is", because I think of it as being one meal.