
How common was it for parents to lose a child? - how-about-this
https://ourworldindata.org/parents-losing-their-child
======
marktangotango
This 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.

~~~
agumonkey
Pardon the seemingly naive idea. How much life is worse when you're shielded
from harsh.

I wonder if people weren't more mentally stronger due to the fact that they
knew how fragile and dangerous things were. You have to overcome fear and
sublimate your existence.

Nowadays I (maybe many others) feel like always wondering if I should dive in
the pool.

And the recent VR era is not helping, someone on IRC was complaining that he
couldn't be in VR 24/7 so he could just live in it try anything without ever
fearing death.

~~~
watwut
Groups countries going through hard times tend to have higher suicide rates,
substance abuse, crime rates, violence rates and what not including mental
health problems.

So likely not.

~~~
agumonkey
Thanks for your answer.

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riffraff
One thing that shocked me was finding out J.S. Bach had 20 children, out of
two marriages.

Of these, 4 died during birth, and 6 died within the first five years.

I can't even imagine what losing ten kids would be like, even if you have ten
more.

~~~
eej71
Not to make light of his loss, but even with ten kids, I marvel at his ability
to crank out as much music as he did! I can't imagine any peace and quiet at
home for concentration.

~~~
bena
He apparently only did two things: Compose and have sex.

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AstralStorm
He also played organ in cathedral. That was his day job.

~~~
tomjen3
Can you imagine that? Going to mass and think the guy playing is pretty good,
but then it is Bach?

I mean that is like going to a meeting with your sons HS teacher and it is
Einstein.

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hyperion2010
I 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.

~~~
ido
why do you consider it one if the most human experience?

~~~
hyperion2010
I think about it this way: until about 3 or 4 generations ago, every single
one of my ancestors running back to the time before they were 'human'
experienced the loss of a child.

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bt848
We don’t really understand the human condition of the past, even when it is
within living memory. A related aspect of life that has been practically
eradicated is teenage motherhood. 18-19 years at birth of first child was the
most common age for Americans in the middle of the 20th century. 40-year-old
grandparents were common. That was just 60 years past, but we view everything
differently today.

~~~
yellowapple
I wouldn't call teenage motherhood "practically eradicated", at least here in
the US. Two of my sisters had kids before they were 18; one is (like me) a
millennial, and the other is (I'd reckon) Gen Z. They ain't exactly outliers,
either; teen pregnancy is still pretty commonplace, especially in impoverished
areas.

Thankfully, my sisters were part of a big family that was happy to share the
burden of raising these kids and hopefully allowing them to live happy and
healthy lives (and the numerous nieces and nephews I got out of it have been
absolute blessings). Not every teenage mother has that resource,
unfortunately.

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peter303
Another aspect of frequent death more than century ago was blended families. A
widow or widower usually remarried soon after the mourning period because it
was hard for single parents. If both parents passed together, then children
were quickly adopted into other families needing labor. Shiffs book on the
Salem Witch Trials has a long section on blended families. She attributed that
causing some of tensions leading to witch accusations.

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lordnacho
I often think about whether or emotions towards our children are affected by
our evolutionary past, specifically that since your kids had high mortality,
you were smart to not get too close. Interestingly Darwin himself is the case
study. I happen to have visited his home and I discovered he lost several
kids. But it hurt him as much as you'd imagine, according to his diaries.

You also have to wonder if we have a coping mechanism, for the same reason.

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soperj
Reminds 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.

~~~
yellowapple
Pretty common to see things like "Child Jones" or "Son Adams" or "Daughter
Johnson" or similar placeholders even in Western family trees. Lots of kids
wouldn't get names until they were at least a couple years old.

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jd75
Did I miss something, or does this article say that, for example, if one
parent lost 5 children, that means that on average 5 parents lost 1 child
each?

It's an interesting topic and the recent bumps on the graph have me wondering
what caused young child deaths to rise in the '80s and '00s.

But unless I missed different numbers than averaging all child deaths across
all parents, it doesn't answer the question in the title at all.

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anonu
As 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.

~~~
cabaalis
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.

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droithomme
From 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 experience.

~~~
Finnucane
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.

~~~
lostlogin
Its interesting to walk in them and read the headstones. The older headstones
where I live are for very young children, then there seems to be a gap then
it’s young men and women. The males seem to have died in workplace accidents
and the women in childbirth.

~~~
Finnucane
At the beginning of the 20th century, before antibiotics and safety rules, the
top killers were pneumonia, tuberculosis, childbirth, and farm accidents. Yes,
work was dangerous.

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ameister14
This thread reminds me of the Frost poem 'Home Burial.'

[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53086/home-
burial](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53086/home-burial)

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teunispeters
Judging by families I've known - even if you ignore the still common
stillbirths (something that's heartbreaking for those it happens to) - it's
still pretty high. My own family lost one, another family I know lost some,
know others who lost some too. It's still too common.

I've known too many people who probably wouldn't have survived childbirth
either, if it weren't for modern medicine. (particularly including my own
mother)

This is all changes within "recent history" \- my great grandparents were born
before any of this were available.

I came close to dying too, of a disease that now has widespread vaccination.
That vaccination wasn't available when I was little, and that disease still
kills many where such isn't available - and most particularly children. And
one will live the rest of one's life with the complications in a bad case.

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peter303
Another factor towards the large morbidity rate decline around 1900 was clean
water and sewage.

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moosey
For those desiring an affirmative defence of the Enlightenment; reason,
science, and humanism (which I think falls short ethically, but is a subset of
what I try to practice), then I would strongly suggest reading "Enlightenment
Now", by Steven Pinker. He makes a few broad generalizations of political
groups, but I wouldn't try to argue against the specific policy
recommendations that he has. Similar data is covered in so many different
disciplines that it left me with incredible optimism that I continue to carry.

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massysett
The decline in child mortality explains why anti-vaxxers are getting footing.
They’ve never had to watch a child die from something that was readily
preventable with cheap, nearly risk-free medicine.

~~~
amasad
Not sure if vaccines are relevant here because -- as per the CDC data, and
contrary to popular belief -- child mortality rates were on a downward trend
well before the introduction of vaccines in the mid 1960s. The CDC claim it's
had a "modest" effect:

Infant mortality:
[https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4838a2.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4838a2.htm)

Edit: children mortality follows similar trend:
[https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-
mortality?tab=chart...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-
mortality?tab=chart&time=1933..2016&country=USA)

~~~
rpmisms
Why is CDC research being downvoted?

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EliRivers
If I had to guess, because it's about infant mortality but the poster
presented it in support of an assertion about child mortality; which of
course, it says very little about.

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jjtheblunt
typo in the title : "was it was"

~~~
dang
Thanks! Fixed.

