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How common was it for parents to lose a child?
11–20 of 84 posts
Re: How common was it for parents to lose a child?
#12As a fairly recent father of a toddler, I was a bit hesitant to click the link. It's just one of those things you think about but quickly bury to the back of your mind. The quotes of grief from the article especially resonated. "Inexplicable" grief comes to mind. Thank goodness for modern medicine, healthcare and vaccinations.
Children are innocent, thoughtful, and full of anticipation for life. The death of a child is a tragedy.
"Here ends the joy of my life" is the proper opening to such a diary entry, and would likely be my words as well.
Re: How common was it for parents to lose a child?
#13typo in the title : "was it was"
Thanks! Fixed.
Re: How common was it for parents to lose a child?
#14I have said for a long time that having a child die is one of the most human experiences (more flagrantly "welcome to being human"). We are fortunate to live in a time where it has become a rarity. Nice to see someone try to put numbers on it.
why do you consider it one if the most human experience?
Re: How common was it for parents to lose a child?
#15I have said for a long time that having a child die is one of the most human experiences (more flagrantly "welcome to being human"). We are fortunate to live in a time where it has become a rarity. Nice to see someone try to put numbers on it.
why do you consider it one if the most human experience?
my interpretation: because it invokes raw emotion and wasn't uncommon.
Re: How common was it for parents to lose a child?
#16This is something that struck me when reading Dickens; people died, a lot. One thing it highlights to me is the importance of modern medicine and antibiotics. Another thing is how different the human experience is now for most of the world; children and death are much less common (for most) than previous centuries. Sure this is common knowledge, but taken for granted I believe.
> people died, a lot
As always, as many people die, as are born :).
We got better at hiding the fact - by letting people die in hospitals, in homes for elderly (western world) just so it's out of sight and we are less reminded of death. On average, people live longer, yet it's not that they die "less".
Re: How common was it for parents to lose a child?
#17From genealogy it appears to me that before the dawn of antibiotics and vaccines all parents had at least some children die of childhood diseases. The only exceptions I find are cases such as where the woman has two children then dies herself in childbirth or shortly thereafter from complications, and both children eventually grow up. Having no dead children a century ago and beyond seems to have been a very rare exp…
The converse is also true: when divorce became easier and more common, there was much hand-wringing over one-parent families, but in the past, one-parent families were just as common. The difference was that it was usually one of the parents had died.
Around here in the Boston area, every town has a colonial-era cemetery, and they are all have a lot of graves of children.
Re: How common was it for parents to lose a child?
#18Reminds me that the Inca didn't use to name their children until either 2 or 3 years of age, because of how likely the were to die.
Re: How common was it for parents to lose a child?
#19As a fairly recent father of a toddler, I was a bit hesitant to click the link. It's just one of those things you think about but quickly bury to the back of your mind. The quotes of grief from the article especially resonated. "Inexplicable" grief comes to mind. Thank goodness for modern medicine, healthcare and vaccinations.
Unfortunately, we can't inoculate against the random accident. I try to remind myself of this every day as a devotion to be the best dad I can be today for my kids.
Re: How common was it for parents to lose a child?
#20This is something that struck me when reading Dickens; people died, a lot. One thing it highlights to me is the importance of modern medicine and antibiotics. Another thing is how different the human experience is now for most of the world; children and death are much less common (for most) than previous centuries. Sure this is common knowledge, but taken for granted I believe.
> people died, a lot As always, as many people die, as are born :). We got better at hiding the fact - by letting people die in hospitals, in homes for elderly (western world) just so it's out of sight and we are less reminded of death. On average, people live longer, yet it's not that they die "less".
One can only lose two parents, but one can lose a lot of children!
If we have a stable population, then a higher child mortality means a higher absolute death rate. If the population is growing, the situation is even more pronounced!