Re:Play Deprivation Is a Major Cause of the Teen Mental Heal...
by hilbert42 on Friday July 28, 2023 @06:51PM
(#36914448)
"...especially when most parents only ever have one or two children."
That I believe is part of it. My parents were children before WWII and both came from large families—there were seven siblings on each side. On the other hand my generation had typically two kids.
It would be ludicrous to suggest that my grandparents didn't love their kids or care as much about them given their numbers but the fact is—put brutally—there was considerable solace in having 'spares'.
Today, it is very easy to forget that prewar many more kids per capita never reached adulthood. Most people alive today have never known a time without penicillin or the pre-polio-vaccine days. People in those days were much more fatalistic about life and the lives of their kids as life back then was considerably more 'fragile'. Today, we expect our kids to reach adulthood and outlive us, back then most hoped that would happen but they were more circumspect about it. When a kid died of course parents would be terribly upset but when it happened they always knew there was more chance of it happening than just a remote possability.
I noticed this fatalism in my grandparents, especially my grandmother, she came from a big family and she had a big family and in both cases some kids died before reaching adulthood.
That I believe is part of it. My parents were children before WWII and both came from large families—there were seven siblings on each side. On the other hand my generation had typically two kids.
It would be ludicrous to suggest that my grandparents didn't love their kids or care as much about them given their numbers but the fact is—put brutally—there was considerable solace in having 'spares'.
Today, it is very easy to forget that prewar many more kids per capita never reached adulthood. Most people alive today have never known a time without penicillin or the pre-polio-vaccine days. People in those days were much more fatalistic about life and the lives of their kids as life back then was considerably more 'fragile'. Today, we expect our kids to reach adulthood and outlive us, back then most hoped that would happen but they were more circumspect about it. When a kid died of course parents would be terribly upset but when it happened they always knew there was more chance of it happening than just a remote possability.
I noticed this fatalism in my grandparents, especially my grandmother, she came from a big family and she had a big family and in both cases some kids died before reaching adulthood.