The Gift of Discomfort
Written By Josh Doyle
Dr. Leo Buscaglia spent his career exploring what it truly means to love another person. One of his most enduring lessons came not from a lecture hall, but from a single telegram his mother sent him — and the quiet wisdom behind her refusal to make things easy.
Why Loving Your Child Means Letting Them Struggle
Decades ago, Dr. Leo Buscaglia shared a story from his youth that used to leave audiences roaring with laughter. Long before he became a renowned speech and language pathologist at UCLA, and later, a celebrated author and speaker who dedicated his life to exploring the complexity of love and relationships, he traveled to Paris for the mere experience of going to Europe. Having spent his last dime, he sent a dramatic, one-word telegram to his Italian mother: “Starving.” Fully expecting his momma to cave and send him the money he needed to be comfortable, he waited. Exactly twenty-four hours later, her reply arrived with equal brevity: “Starve!”
To fully appreciate the weight of that response, one must understand the context of a traditional Italian mother. This is a culture where feeding the family is practically a sacred duty, and where the mere thought of a loved one going hungry—much less starving—is usually entirely unbearable. Yet, despite her maternal instincts to nurture and feed, she fiercely refused to treat him as a victim of his circumstances. Instead, she allowed him to struggle through the natural consequences of his own poor choices. Years later, before she passed away, she revealed the deep wisdom behind her decision, telling him, “I knew that if I didn’t let you starve, I would never let you actually grow up.”
When I first started telling this story to parents twenty years ago in my consulting practice, they would laugh knowingly. Today, however, the reaction has completely shifted. Modern parents are often visibly horrified, asking how a mother could do something so seemingly cruel.
This shift in reaction highlights a profound cultural change I’ve witnessed over the last two decades: a growing, paralyzing fear of letting our children be uncomfortable. In our well-meaning desire to protect our kids from the harsh edges of the world, we have inadvertently begun robbing them of the very friction required to develop grit and resilience. Growth does not happen in a vacuum of comfort; it happens when we are forced to problem-solve, adapt, and rely on ourselves. When we swoop in to eliminate every struggle, we send an accidental but damaging message to our children: I am intervening because I don't think you are strong enough to handle this.
This fear of discomfort becomes acutely painful when families reach the point of needing to send a child to therapeutic treatment. Making the decision to place a child in a program is perhaps the most excruciating choice a parent will ever have to make. The emotional static is deafening. Parents are routinely consumed by agonizing questions: Will they ever forgive me? Will they think I’ve abandoned them? Will they hate me forever? Have we really exhausted all other resources? Will we be harshly judged by other family members?
These are deeply human, understandable fears. But when we let these anxieties dictate our choices, we aren’t protecting our child—we are protecting ourselves from the discomfort of their temporary anger.
True parental love requires us to be the anchors, not the rescuers. Just like Buscaglia’s mother, we have to be willing to endure our children's short-term discomfort and our own heartache so they can achieve long-term healing. Sending a child to treatment isn't abandonment; it is the ultimate act of fierce, unconditional love. It is making the right choice for the right reason, choosing their survival and growth over our desire to be liked in the moment. When we find the courage to step back and let them face the hard work of recovery, we aren't leaving them to starve—we are finally giving them the space to grow.
Epilogue: The Modern Shift
Recently, a friend and colleague challenged me on this perspective. While we agreed on much, he raised a compelling point about how drastically the landscape has shifted since the days of Leo Buscaglia.
Years ago, the world was more predictable. When young adults faced a choice like Leo's, they were essentially forced to eat a slice of humble pie. They had to realize that to survive, they needed to tap into their own inner agency, pull themselves up, and figure out a way forward. Today, however, that dynamic is playing out on steroids.
My colleague's contention was that many young adults today would much rather forgo humility and instead adopt a permanent victim narrative. Supported by a culture that rewarded everyone with participation trophies—where we tried so hard to ensure no one was ever a winner or a loser—many have internalized a belief that it is their God-given right to be provided with food, shelter, and disposable income indefinitely. The result? The "terrible twos" have effectively evolved into the "terrible 22s."
Yet we don't need dramatic, cinematic scenarios of refusing to rescue our children while they "find themselves" on a European vacation to teach this lesson. Frankly, this generation isn't nearly as adventurous anyway. Instead, Mama Buscaglia's boundary can be applied on a far more practical, everyday level. You don't have to let your child starve in Paris to build grit. If they want spending money, they need to work. If they are hungry, they need to learn to cook. If they want mobility, they need to overcome the odd modern reluctance around getting a driver's license. As parents, it is entirely appropriate to ensure they are clothed, but you are under no obligation to bankroll the specific brand names they demand. Let them figure that out on their own.
Part of this comes down to a complete collapse of distress tolerance. Boredom is simply no longer a tolerable state of mind for anyone. Indeed, the advent of smartphones has all but eliminated what true boredom was—and has, in turn, made life for many people, well... pretty boring. Let's be honest with ourselves—when was the last time any of us even sat down on the toilet without immediately looking at our cell phones? Around 2010, boredom died as we knew it, giving us instant access to maladaptive strategies to evade what used to be conventional behavior and engagement. As a result, neither kids nor parents know how to sit through uncomfortable or quiet feelings anymore.
Young adults today also possess an arsenal of weapons that previous generations never had: they can broadcast their victim narrative on social media, publicly shaming and vilifying their parents to a global audience. This is continually fueled by so-called "influencers" who actively market and promote a victim narrative around being sent to treatment—not out of genuine grievance, but out of a desire to force others to accommodate them and reframe their own lack of accountability as righteous victimhood. It is no longer a matter of keeping family friction behind closed doors. Parents now live in fear of being publicly humiliated by their own children, effectively becoming prisoners in their own homes.
This lack of distress tolerance has transcended to the parents themselves. We have become terrified of setting hard boundaries because we lack the resilience to watch our children struggle. Yet, we forget a fundamental truth: parents are often far more powerful when they say "no" than when they say "yes."
When parents refuse to hold boundaries, a toxic, self-fulfilling prophecy takes root. If you don't set firm limits now, your children will live with you forever—and eventually, you will become the victim of children who were never allowed to grow up. At some point, every parent has to ask themselves: When am I going to let go of the bicycle seat? Yes, they might crash. Yes, they will get scraped. But how else will they ever learn to ride on their own?
To the parents who agonize and ask me, "Will my child ever love me again if I send them to treatment?", my answer used to be simple: "When your child gets to a healthier place in treatment, they will begin the process of reconnecting with you. But they need to get well first."
Today, I say that—and then I add an essential second piece:
You must stand up for yourselves. You can no longer allow yourselves to be bullied or manipulated into feeling shame for doing what was necessary.
The moment anyone identifies as a victim, they hand their power over to someone else. It is perfectly appropriate to tell your child, "I am so sorry that you feel hurt." But you must never apologize for making the hard choice to seek treatment when their actions were having a pervasive, destructive impact on the entire family.
Holding a boundary is nothing you should ever have to apologize for. When you refuse to enable a false victim narrative, you stop rewarding empowerment through projection—and you finally force your child to discover true empowerment through achievement.
(Special thanks to my good friend and colleague Scott Hess for challenging and arguing with me about this subject and insisting that I need to write the epilogue)