"These Children Come Here to Grow Us Up"

I wrote the beginning of this in 2023.

When I put my youngest son on the special education preschool bus last school year, I smiled and waved at a tiny girl usually wearing pink. She sometimes returned that smile and said "hi". Later, I helped in my autistic son's classroom and discovered other funny things about the little girl: she always lost her shoes (or took them off), she loved dumping everything out, and she could be stubborn and yell "no!" when you asked her to put it away.

This pretty-in-pink girl passed away in January. She had significant developmental delays, which ultimately took her life. In her short time on earth, she touched many lives through her stubborn perseverance.

A few days later, a friend's son about the same age passed away because of a severe developmental disorder. This precious child could giggle, smile, cry, and flail his limbs. Besides that, he had to be fed and carried everywhere. His parents had lost two other children with the same condition, yet they still tried for more children. Each child means so much to them. At the boy's funeral, the family talked about the spirit their son brought to their home.

His grandmother stated that "These children come here to grow us up."

These children come here to grow us up.

Finding Purpose In Pain

About 200 years ago, people hid or locked away children like them. Or abandoned these children. Under Dorothea Dix's guidance, children with Down Syndrome lived in institutions instead. Thankfully, now we have these children in our classrooms. Yet in some countries, people with Down Syndrome and other developmental disorders are rare because of lenient abortion policies. In some places I believe it has become the social expectation to abort these children because of the emotional, physical, and financial burden.

In my opinion, many of us want to avoid suffering and avoid watching others suffer. (I do.) Our empathy says that we imagine their pain and they must want to be relieved of it because we would want to be. Wanting to alleviate this suffering is a good goal when we think of charity and palliative care. Yet there is always pain beyond what we can relieve, or empathetic discomfort beyond what we feel we can bear. I believe this empathy can cross the line into feel-good policies like all-access abortion and medical assistance in dying (MAID).

That said, we don't need to prolong anyone's life through medical intervention, nor shorten anyone's life through medical intervention. Just let them experience their physical bodies in the short time appointed to them to live.

Because I try to view suffering as a necessary part of eternal and spiritual growth, I believe these children wanted this experience before being formed in the belly. I believe we wanted this experience too, but have forgotten the spiritual purpose of suffering and discomfort: We only know joy because of our sorrow.

My Son's Club Foot

My husband and I felt heartache for our third son in utero. When the ultrasound technician called the maternal-fetal doctor back into the room, we knew something was wrong with our third pregnancy. Did he have a terminal condition? After many tense minutes of waiting for the doctor, the doctor revealed our third son had a clubbed foot. She discussed that it was treatable over several years.

After our initial scare, treating a club foot felt relatively simple. We remain grateful for the doctors who reversed our son's club foot and many others who kept him alive during a risky birth and another near-fatal accident.

I want to say gratitude lasts, yet the daily grind often drives away those moments of clarity. Sadly these moments sometimes only happen when a trial comes. Or when I see others' heartache through trials.

My husband and I have discussed that some couples may consider abortion in the case of a clubbed foot. That seems extreme to us, yet others struggle. Maybe a mother or father wonders if they'd have the financial and emotional means to correct a condition, or care for a chronic condition. Or they struggle at the thought of bearing a child only to lose the child shortly after. In those cases, I wish we'd immediately put these pregnant women in contact with crisis pregnancy centers to help them make these difficult decisions.

Bringing Joy and Pain

Each life matters from in utero to the deathbed because our pain enables us to feel joy and gratitude. Statistically, married parents with children are happier. Pain really does deepen joy. In the end each child's life matters because "they grow us up".