WHY OUR CHILDREN NEED ROCKY ROADS AND THUNDERSTORMS

How else is a person to grow, if not for blisters and throbbing and that feeling of I can't go on--- and yet still finding a way to go on?

How can one learn just how fast she can actually run or what it feels like to be warm and loved and wanted if she has never had to run, if she has never been cold and wet and hungry?

Consider John Irving's epigraph at the beginning of A WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR, which is one of my favorite epigraphs EVER:

"...as for this little lady
the best thing I can wish for her is
a little misfortune."

- William Makepeace Thackeray

And this NYT article entitled "What is the Secret to Success is Failure?"

As hard as it is to let our fledglings fall, we need to let them. It's the only way they'll learn to fly. (Writers: this goes for characters too!)