Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov A family is one body, and often the spiritual burden which lies upon it is divided among its members unequally. It happens that children shoulder a load beyond their strength and pay with their health for the sins and failings of their parents. Here is the case of one family I know. Their daughter's illness passed.
People sometimes wonder why it is that children suffer.
It is, by the way, one of Dostoevsky's perennial concerns. The Brothers Karamazov, for example. On grounds of human justice, the question is insoluble. The answer can be found only through the perspective of eter-nity, of God's providence. Dostoevsky came to recognize this only after the death of his son, when he went to Optina to find some consolation and spoke to Elder Ambrose, although it was only just before his own death that he fully comprehended the spiritual meaning of the suffering of innocents.