That's a mistake. Struggle builds character. I think *we* wish we had and knew THEN what we have and know NOW. I think we wonder "if I'd only done THIS when I was younger, I wouldn't have had to deal with all of this pain and heartache". But pain and heartache made you the fine person you are today. But your child is different, and needs those kinds of experiences. No one develops character by having things handed to them.
NOT having things - doing without - taught me to cherish what I have and to take care of things. Having to save money to get things, taught me not to spend foolishly. Having people treat me poorly taught me to not care what people think who don't care about me, and to treasure those who do. Bad things in my life taught me to never be the cause of it to someone else. I still remember being over at Sunday dinner at my best friend's house, where he was giving his wife a hard time for undercooking his breaded pork chops. I lived alone for years at that time, and I took him outside and told him "you have no idea how lucky you have it! I would kill to have someone BURN MY DINNER EVERY NIGHT....your wife loves you. Imagine how lost you'd be if she were gone tomorrow!".
A long time ago, my mom wrote me a letter (which, amazingly - I still have) and one of the things she said was that I was going to fail at a lot of things in life but to take heart, because people usually only learn through failure.
I don't want my kid to suffer either - but I'd rather he become a good man.
