Certainly Hashem could have created children without so many physical and emotional needs. But those needs are meant to train us to become givers – and help us understand our relationship with our Father in Heaven.
Though I am now in the stage of my life when waking up at night with a baby is a thing of the past and changing countless diapers is a distant memory I can well remember that hectic and challenging phase. Juggling the many roles of a mother and taking care of the innumerable physical and emotional needs of each child was certainly rewarding; yet at the same time it was very overwhelming.
Every now and then a question would creep into my mind: Why did Hashem create children this way with so many needs for so many years? Surely it would be no more difficult for Him to create children who could sleep through the night and who didn’t need to be changed so often. Surely Hashem could have chosen to create children who weren’t so needy.
And then as the teenage years set in I realized that parenting young children was a piece of cake compared to parenting teenagers. I must confess that I would often fantasize in the deep recesses of my mind — If only kids could go straight from childhood to adulthood and simply skip the teenage years. What did Hashem possibly want to accomplish by creating the teenage years?
As I continued to learn and grow and mature in my thinking (yes even adults need to continue to learn and grow and mature) I began to internalize the concept that HaKadosh Baruch Hu created all aspects of our life for our good and for our growth. Certainly Hashem could have created children without so many physical and emotional needs but then we would have been deprived of a vital opportunity to accomplish our ultimate purpose in life.
Create a free account to keep reading.
