Should we plan for the special needs children though? I mean, certainly, reprioritizing when you have one makes a lot of sense, and we should as a society invest to make sure these children lead fulfilling lives.

But... bringing up special needs kids seems a bit disingenuous as a point when they're, I believe, a small minority of all children no?

There are a lot more people with "special needs" than people think.

In Australia, the (reported) rate of Autism in the general population is 0.7%. That's pretty huge, over 170,000 people. That's Autism alone.

My daughter for example has Type 1 Diabetes. It's much rarer than Autism. However, when you start adding all these up, it's significant.

I should probably qualify that I'm strictly talking about helicopter parenting (e.g. arguing with the daydreaming kid because they won't stick to a packed strict schedule). Special needs are, as the name says, special needs.