Courtesy Heidi Stevens / McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceWill Stevens on his first day of kindergarten.

It has always struck me as a little misguided, this notion that our kids need us to teach them life is tough.

I hear it so frequently — from readers weighing in on my columns, from well-meaning parents and coaches (“The sooner they learn that life is tough …”) — that I’ve come to believe it’s one of those accepted truths of parenting.

Nasty, brutish and short, as philosopher Thomas Hobbes once said. Might as well make a cross-stitch sampler and hang it in the nursery.

But I wonder if we should, instead, let our kids remind us that life is beautiful. If we should stop pretending to be wizened and worldly and admit that there’s something to be said for pure, unbridled joy.

My son, Will, started kindergarten this month. Talk about tough. I spent the summer mentally cataloging all the reasons he would hate it: He’s the youngest in his class; he can’t write his last name; he has to wear a uniform; the kids are strangers; his teacher is not made of Legos.

I fretted for nothing. He loves it. He loves snack time and lunch time and gym time, which, I realize, are only three of the many times. But they’re the ones he talks about after school and the ones he looks forward to the next morning. Honestly, wouldn’t we all do well to adopt that approach to our days? Pick the three or four things you like and let the others roll off your back? (It’s harder than it sounds; I’ve been trying.)

This child has been sunshine personified since the day he arrived; his older sister is a gorgeous sky, filled with artful clouds you want to ponder for hours: Where will the wind take them? Will they dissipate and give way to sun, or grow dark and dampen the day? She knows life is tough. I spend many hours reminding her it’s not, actually, that tough.

My son knows it, too. He was born a week after his dad was downsized out of a job, which made for a tense, cash-strapped beginning; I was working days and teaching nights. The exhaustion left me hospitalized with meningitis when he was not yet 2. The marriage fell apart less than a year later. He has known three homes in his five years.

He has feelings and questions about all of it, and we talk about them frequently. But his sunshine doesn’t fade. When I call after him at school drop-off, “Have a great day,” he calls back, “I will!” And he will.

What are we trying to protect our kids from by teaching them life is tough? Disappointment? Heartache? What if, in the process, we inoculate them from enthusiasm? And hope? That’s a lousy trade-off.

Bedtime in our house always begins with bouncing. Will bounces on his bed while I pick out his pajamas and run through a list of bedtime book titles. The other night he had a new ninja-gymnastics bouncing move to show me. “Watch, Mom. Watch.”

I promised to watch.

“Clap at the end. Even if I fall, OK?”

“OK, Bud.”

“Even if I fall, OK?”

He fell. I clapped. He repeated his move a few more times, unfazed by his lack of progress.

I hope no one tries to teach this kid that life is tough. I hope his teachers and coaches and friends and whoever else is lucky enough to have him in their lives for even a moment decides he’s witnessed a lot and fallen plenty.

And I hope they decide to just clap for him.