“舍不得孩子套不住狼”，原话其实是“舍不得鞋子套不住狼”。鞋在古汉语中读作孩，现在一些地方方言依然把鞋子读作孩子。
之所以舍不得鞋字套不住狼，是因为狼一旦被猎人发现，就会逃走或躲起来，要想抓到的话就要跑很多的山路，过去的鞋子一般是草鞋、布鞋，所以很费鞋。故此就有了“舍不得鞋子套不住狼”的说法。
“If you can’t bear a child, you can’t cover a wolf”, the original sentence is actually “If you can’t bear a shoe, you can’t cover a wolf”. Shoes are pronounced as children in ancient Chinese, and some local dialects still pronounce shoes as children.
The reason why I can’t bear shoes to cover wolves is because once a wolf is found by a hunter, it will run away or hide. If you want to catch it, you have to run a lot of mountain roads. In the past, the shoes were usually straw sandals and cloth shoes, so it was very expensive. . That’s why there is a saying that “you can’t bear your shoes but you can’t cover wolves”.