There’s something about the intersection of the loss of a child and thoughtlessness that produces a dreadful lot of dreadful platitudes. But your child doesn’t even have to die — finding out that your child has an incurable disease or disabling condition can result in more horrible platitudes.
Some people will protest that, “Well, they mean well, so it’s really okay.” No. When someone says something cruel, or does something rude to another person, their “good intentions” don’t really amount to a hill of beans. Even using treacly god-talk doesn’t sugar-coat the insensitive words enough to make them palatable.
Finding out that you will have to learn how to do many things differently due to chronic illness or major disability involves some initial sense of loss for expectations of how life would be. But the situation is not analogous to having a child die. The parents have not “lost a normal child”. The child is not dead, but very much alive, and still loved. Furthermore, the child would not be “better off dead”.
Sometimes people pull out the platitudes because they want to “make things better”. But a few saccharine words is not going to help. The death of a child cannot be healed by the verbal equivalent of a bandage on a cut finger. When at a loss for words at the magnitude of someone’s grief, it’s okay to be honest and share that, “Oh, I’m SO sorry. I hardly know what to say.” And if you can’t think of anything further, then share a hug if these are hugging people.
After the initial shock, share memories of the child with the grieving parents, rather than trying to make the social “problem” go away by ignoring it. Don’t suddenly drop the parents of disabled children from social groups, as though the family has contracted something horribly contagious.
But please, don’t pull out the insensitive platitudes:
Don’t be so selfish; you still have your other child.
You can always have another one.
Children are not interchangeable, replaceable units, like dolls.
Having another child won’t somehow magically make a family “complete” — the family isn’t defined by the number of members, but by who they are. There will always be a sense of loss for the missing person.
God wanted the child with him.
What kind of deity is so selfish as to deprive parents of their child? What, God couldn’t have enjoyed the child’s presence more by watching it grow up with its family?
God’s punishing you for putting your desire to have children ahead of Him.
Make that selfish and vengeful. Where’s the “loving deity”?
It was God’s Will.
And you know this because … how?
Your child’s in a better place.
How is an early death better than a full life?
God never gives people more than they can handle.
Nonsense; there are plenty of people who have cracked under the strain of grief, falling to depression or sometimes even violence.
Everything happens for a reason.
True, there are causes for everything. True, people can create extra purpose in their lives in reaction to events that happen to them. But I cannot accept that a deity required a child had to die for its parents’ moral improvement.
Think of the money you’ll save; having one kid is cheaper than twins.
Oh for ~~ one doesn’t have children for budgetary reasons!
Guess what — I’m pregnant! It’s like God’s making up for the baby you lost.
Let’s blame the maternity hormones for that incredibly tactless, thoughtless remark, and hope that she has a full recovery.
Haven’t you gotten over that yet? You just need to pray more / work harder / think about others.
Grieving for the death of a baby or child is not something over and done in a few days. Really, one grieves for the loss of a loved one the rest of their life — it’s just that the grief becomes tolerable, and the memories more wistful than painful.
You’re lucky the baby died early — it could have been handicapped.
Being disabled is not worse than death.
It’s for the best — she / he would have suffered from being, ‘you-know’ … Retarded. Crippled. Deaf. Blind. Palsied. (et cetera)
Being disabled is not a life sentence of suffering.
Well at least you have your other, healthy child(ren). You could even try again.
If I have a disabled child, I am not about to discard them, nor decide that I have not succeeded in getting the “perfect” child that I deserve.
God gave you a special child to teach you something.
We all learn things from our children, and many parents find they learn unexpected things from children who have different needs. But such a platitude smacks of begin given a special-needs child as a prescription or punishment for a moral failing.
It’s just as well; so many sick preemies survive nowadays, and there’s too many special-needs kids being a burden on society.
The social burden is not special-needs kids.
The social burden is people who feel they have some special hotline to heaven. The social burden is people who think that death and disability are divine punishment for sins. The social burden is people who can only see the disabled as those who are a useless waste of public resources. The social burden is people who imagine that a disabled person cannot have a happy, loving, productive or even [otherwise] healthy life.