this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
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I think we need to remember that child mortality was wayyyyyyy higher back then. In particularly in underdeveloped areas like Europe, where medicine and hygiene were centuries behind many other regions in the world. So generally about half of children would die before reaching adulthood. Especially in Europe that was still the case in the 18th century.
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past
So there was a feedback loop, where the love "invested" into children had to be rationed, because their premature death was likely and they also needed to be "tough" if they wanted to survive.
Because many children would die anyways, it was easier for the affluent parts of society to abuse them as expendable by normalizing sending them to coal mines or to be eaten by the machines. Also the lack of contraception would ensure a steady "surplus" of children, further fueling the idea that they are expendable, whereas them being "expendable" limited the supply of adults, which is why adult life was given the higher importance.