'You have to be able to struggle': Arnold Schwarzenegger warns against 'generation of wimps and weak people'
Arnold Schwarzenegger has warned against creating a "generation of wimps and weak people" and insisted people need to go through "pain, misery and discomfort" in order to succeed.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has warned against creating a "generation of wimps and weak people".
The 'Terminator' actor insisted people need to "be able to struggle" and go through "pain, misery and discomfort" in order to succeed, but he is concerned the youth of today are being "over-babied" so need to be taught how to be "tough".
Speaking on SiriusXM's 'The Howard Stern Show', he said: "Anybody that tries to baby themselves, and pamper themselves and protect themselves — ‘Oh, I don’t want to feel bad, I don’t really want to go through any discomfort’ — It’s over! You’re never going to get there. It’s just the way it is. You have to be able to struggle...
"You have to be able to accept pain, misery and discomfort, all the things that you don't like. Because the more you experience the things you really don't like, the more you can go and the tougher you get and the more you can handle. It's that simple.
"So many young kids these days shy away from that, but you have to be attracted to that...
"Don't start creating a generation of wimps and weak people... Let's not over-baby people. Let's go and teach kids to be tough, to do sports, to study and struggle and go through these kind of painful moments sometimes."
The 76-year-old Austrian actor -who has Katherine, 33, and Christina, 31, Patrick, 30, and Christopher, 26 with ex-wife Maria Shriver as well as 26-year-old Joseph with Mildred Baena - recently revealed he once threw one of his son's mattresses out of the window into their swimming pool as punishment for not making her bed.
Speaking on 'Jimmy Kimmel, Live!', he said: "For the way I grew up, I was lenient. But I think for American standards I was probably strict.
"My son did not make his bed. He had his nanny make the bed, which was not allowed. So, I came in one time and the bed was made so immaculately, that I looked at it and I said, ‘Patrick, did you do that?’ And he said, ‘No, I didn’t.'
“So I grabbed the mattress, opened up the doors, and threw it off the balcony down into the swimming pool! It gives an example. So he had to, kind of, drag it up, the mattress and the pillows — I threw everything out there!"
The 'True Lies' star went on to add that his daughter regularly infuriated him by not putting her shoes away, so one day he decided to teach her a lesson by burning them.
He said; "My daughter would have this habit of taking her tennis shoes off and putting them right there by the fireplace.
“And I said, ‘I’m not going to go be a servant here. You know where the shoes go, they go into the mud room. Don’t put them here. The third time I said, ‘Okay look, I’ve told you now for three times, I told you I’m going to burn the shoes…so I took the shoes and I put them in the fireplace!"
