When my daughters had chicken-pox last year, I spent two sleepless nights dolloping them with calamine lotion and rubbing their backs.

It was a hard few days, but of course we all survived. And damn if we didn’t appreciate the first full night of sleep.

Looking back, it makes me think about how comfortable we have it.

Chicken pox vaccines, candy vitamins, melt-away cough medicines. The slightest pains, the slightest miseries, are all to be avoided.

Headaches are excuses to stay home, and the flu is something we  look-upon with pandemic fear.

We should never feel any discomfort. Never feel any pain. Never know what its like to suffer the even most minute hardship.

But if we don’t let our children experience any of these simple hardships, like chicken pox or the flu, how can we expect them to handle the truly difficult ones?