No offense intended, of course. Hardship does have an effect on character. You can't blame someone if they grew up in Peace and Prosperity for not having enough hardship. (Although some of us did seek it out.)
No offense taken; I was joking, of course. I do agree that we were raised with an artificially high level of protection from hardship; I asked my WWII vet father about that once, and he said, "that is the way we (collectively) wanted it to be for you", meaning my generation.