You know how you'd do anything to spare your children pain? Every bump and bruise they get resonates in our very bones. If it weren't for having to put a brave face on for the child's sake, wouldn't many of us bawl our eyes out at the sight of even simple injuries ... our darlings bleeding from split lips, grazed knees and imbedded splinters?

If we could eliminate the possibility of pain for our kids, would we?

An article in the latest issue of the journal Nature illustrates why that would be a very bad idea.

Research to come up with better painkillers has found a genetic defect in children from three families from northern Pakistan who have a rare disorder that manifests in these kids never having felt physical pain.

Gene SCV9A is now known to be linked to pain perception. Lacking that gene means nothing will ever hurt. (Physically, that is.)

Sound good? Well, it's not. Pain is a warning and a lesson, and life without it gets very dangerous very fast.

All of the no-pain kids studied ... there were six of them ranging in age from that age of 6 to 14 ... had injuries to their mouths, some severe enough to require plastic surgery and two having lost more that one-third of their tongues, from biting themselves and not having it hurt. Most had bone fractures that had gone undiagnosed until the area stopped working obviously enough to warrant x-rays, and many were scarred by burns that came from sitting on radiators or exposure to liquids hot enough to damage the skin.

These kids weren't numb. They could feel touch, warm and cold, tickles, pressure, everything ... just not pain.

Pain is a part of living, and without it we're missing a hugely important experience. Although it's not part of the human makeup to recognize the subsidence of pain like we do the on-coming and we rarely appreciate how wonderful the pain-free state is when we're in it, having known pain ... going through it and coming out on the other side reasonably in tact ... gives us a perspective that impacts almost everything we do. It's a big part of what makes us human.

There's no way we can or should save our kids from pain, and that is a horrible truth about parenthood.