I heard it said that our generation is the cloud from which the snowflakes fell, and it caught me off guard. Not because it wasn’t clever, but because it made me pause and wonder:

Have we really softened our children that much?

We were the generation raised by parents who believed in tough love. We knew what it was to be sent outside until the streetlights came on. We were taught to brush it off, walk it off, and not talk back. Consequences were swift, and feelings weren’t always up for discussion. We learned grit by default. Struggle wasn’t optional, it was expected.

But we were also the first generation to begin questioning that approach. We grew up watching Mr. Rogers talk gently about feelings. We learned about empathy and inclusion from the characters on Sesame Street. We were the kids who started seeing more diversity in our classrooms and hearing early whispers about mental health and emotional intelligence. We were raised to be tough, but we were also absorbing a quiet call to be tender.

So when it came time for us to raise children of our own, we knew we wanted to do things differently. We traded harshness for grace. We taught our kids the names of their feelings. We told them it was okay to cry, okay to talk, okay to ask for help. We gave them what we always needed but didn’t know how to ask for.

And that is good. Necessary, even.

But here’s where the contrast becomes uncomfortable.

If you live your life on a high wire with a safety net just fifteen feet below, you stop being careful. You don’t fear the fall. You don’t respect the wire. Because deep down, you know you’ll bounce back with little cost. There’s comfort, but no consequence.

And that’s where our good intentions may have gone too far.

By always catching them, we may have stopped preparing them. By trying to protect them from pain, we might have accidentally protected them from growth. We wanted to give them a better life, but life isn’t always better when it’s easier. And when the net is always there, they don’t learn to steady themselves.

The contrast is this:

We were raised with struggle and scarcity, and we built strength.

We are raising them with softness and safety, and we are building sensitivity.

Both have value. Both have limits. And neither is complete on its own.

So maybe the answer isn’t to go back. It’s to go forward, wiser.

To raise the safety net just high enough that they remember the wire is real and the fall still matters. To love them fiercely while still letting life teach them. To match tenderness with accountability. To remind them that emotions are valid, but actions still have impact. That failure isn’t final, but it should sting a little.

Because in the end, our job isn’t just to comfort them.

It’s to equip them.