Our poor kids. We want them to be tough, upright, self-sufficient little troopers. Yet we cater to their wimpy traits. Even profit from them.

No wonder we get a crop full of conflicted little ... er, brats.

Sara Lee is the latest offender, coming up with a notion right out of "Revenge of the Nerds." Unlike the movie, the idea is likely to bomb.

Sara Lee is planning to debut a new line of "crustless bread." It's the brainchild of market research showing that 37 percent of kids want the crust cut off their sandwich. Sara Lee will do the cutting at the factory -- relieving Moms and Dads from an oh-so-tedious task.

Sure, cutting off the crust starts out as a sign of love for kids that are just learning the art of chewing and sandwich manipulation. Personally, I think you should probably let kids learn the ins and outs of crusts from the start. But I know the parental pitfall of wanting to indulge your kids. We all want our kids to be happy.

However just like pacifiers and security blankets, you don't want the kids to stick with it. In fact, you start to wish you hadn't introduced it in the first place.

Why? Because cutting off the crust is wimpy. Want proof? Watch "The Breakfast Club." Cool Judd Nelson makes fun of wimpy Anthony Michael Hall's lunch of a peanut butter sandwich "with the crust cut off."

Rambo had a knife, but didn't cut off crusts.

Arnold? No way. Demi Moore in "G.I. Jane"? Uh-uh.

How about television? I don't recall any crustless sandwich heroes there, either.

In fact, on "Fear Factor" they eat worms and other gross things -- not crustless sandwiches.

On "Survivor" they'd kill for a crust.

So here we are holding up the tough and the crusty as the icons to emulate, yet giving our kids crustless bread.

You can't really fault Sara Lee. Naturally the company wants to freshen up its bread business, which had flat revenue growth in the last fiscal year and an operating profit drop of about two percent. The company plans to market the product under its "IronKids" brand (that's irony). The plan, first reported in USA Today and later confirmed by the company, is to debut the product this weekend at a food industry exposition and start a $10 million ad campaign. By July, 60 percent of the country will have the crustless option.

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"In this area you try to come up with a differentiated product," observed John McMillin, who follows Sara Lee for Prudential Securities. "And that's what Sara Lee is trying to do here, innovate. This is a good start but the company needs about 100 more products like it."

Frankly, we already have too many products like it -- one too many. J.M. Smucker & Co. has "Uncrustables," pre-made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches without the crust. Smuckers says it is very "pleased" with sales of its two-year old product.

And there's a crustless data clash. Smuckers' research concludes that 27 percent (not Sara Lee's 37) of kids want the crust off. Well really their parents, who were the ones answering the survey, say the kids want the crust off. And 96 percent of those responding parents want to keep their crust on.

It's a crustless parent conspiracy. If it were up to kids alone, the product would probably fail. Kids want to be cool. Crustless ain't cool.

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Unless, of course, "Spiderman" takes the world by storm. The movie rocks. And Spiderman's alter-ego, Peter Parker, would definitely eat crustless sandwiches.

But waiting for a mutant spider to bite your kid and teach him or her not to be a wimp and get pushed around isn't really an option, is it?

Hey kids, the world is full of crust.

Suck it up and eat it.  

Allen Wastler is managing editor of CNN Money and can be emailed here.