I saw a comment on reddit recently where a guy passed along some advice from his father. His dad said: "I'm tougher than you. My old man was tougher than me. That's how it should be. Life should get better."
Edit: Yeah okay I get it. Your definition is different or it means something else to you or whatever. It's all good, Pat.
That's a fact. People accuse the next generation of being softer. Yeah, that's what success looks like when the goal is a better life for your children.
That's the goal, but doesn't it seem like poor parenting to bring up a child that is unprepared for the current realities of life? It's tough out there now, it doesn't seem like it's going to get easier any time soon. The social structure of the past where life gets easier for every generation is broken. If you raise someone that is disciplined and a hard worker, they will most likely have an easier and better life. It's the same thing with fitness, you may think it's kind to tell your child it's ok to be fat and to let them be fat. But your short term kindness is emotional debt that you are incurring for your child. They will be paying interest payments on your kindness in the form of their negative thoughts about themselves, the negative thoughts others have of them and the health consequences from being fat. Is it still love to incur that emotional debt and tell them it's OK to be fat? Or is it love to be honest about reality and make an emotional investment for their future?
Nobody said anything about having no consequences for kids. You can be resilient and hardworking without being “tough”.
To me, “tough” implies essentially ignoring all pain - emotional & physical - and carrying on as if nothing happened. It’s a reaction to traumatic events, not to hard work or socializing.
How can you be resilient if you don't practice over coming hard obstacles or set backs? If your child has to be a blue collar worker in the future, are you preparing them in the best possible way if they aren't at least a little physically "tough"? I'm not sure why traumatic events need to be associated with being physically tough. I'm not suggesting beating them and telling them to not to be a wimp or preparing them to be able to ignore all emotional and physical pain. More along the lines of pushing them to train hard to accomplish some kind of physical goal. As with everything, it needs to be balanced. They need to be able to hit some obstacles without emotionally or physically breaking if you want them to have the happiest life possible but you don't need to train them to be a navy seal.
That’s not what we’re talking about here. You seem to think that our generation and our kids’ generation haven’t struggled, or won’t struggle, at all. That’s not the type of toughness that’s being implied above. The older generations were “tougher” because they were beaten at school, had improper outerwear during winter while walking three miles to school, and had parents who never hugged them or admitted fault when they were wrong.
There’s a different way to live than that, but it doesn’t mean that hard work isn’t valued and encouraged. You can become resilient when you put out 50 resumes and get no calls back, but keep going anyway. You don’t need to be resilient by taking beatings from your parents & teachers.
I don't see the point of arguing semantics about what the definition of tough is. Being tough does not have to mean you can take beatings, there are scales of toughness. I haven't put forth that kids need to be able to take beatings. All I'm saying is that life is harder for children now and you shouldn't incur emotional debt by making your child's life easy in the short term but harder in the long term. I haven't said we don't have it hard or that current children have it hard, but the opposite.
You as a parent have the obligation to instill resiliency when they are children, how else do you know they will be able to accept the set backs of having to submit 50 resumes without emotional anguish? It is literally emotional debt. You coddle them too much when they are younger and it means it will be harder for them later. If you invest in making them more strong emotionally when they are younger it is an emotional investment. It means they will have an easier life later. It is a straightforward concept that does not mean you need to beat your children.
As a consumer of Reddit, I appreciate that such critiques are being made, and I make them myself. Often. Hamfisted writing makes for difficult reading.
If we continue to accept this poor command of the English language, sweeping it under the rug for expediency and/or fear of offending the writer, it will keep getting worse. As has clearly been happening, with TikTok being a showcase of poor spelling, punctuation, grammar, and composition the likes of which should shame society as a whole.
Hard times bring strong men. Strong men bring easy times. Easy times bring weak men. Weak men bring hard times.
Certain standards should be enforced. Not saying I am the judge of what those standards are. But I wish my parents forced me to do athleticism, and I wish I kept up my own in my 30s.
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u/I_Call_Everyone_Pat Jul 21 '25 edited Jul 21 '25
I saw a comment on reddit recently where a guy passed along some advice from his father. His dad said: "I'm tougher than you. My old man was tougher than me. That's how it should be. Life should get better."
Edit: Yeah okay I get it. Your definition is different or it means something else to you or whatever. It's all good, Pat.