We have discharged one generation of debtors after another, but we do not find that their numbers lessen. We find only that we forget, when times are good, that times were ever bad.
Jill LeporeRead
Historians once assumed that when childhood mortality was high, people must not have loved their children very much; it would have been too painful. Research has since proved that assumption wrong.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Love for children can exist even amid high mortality rates.
This quote challenges a historical preconception regarding parental love and childhood mortality. It emphasizes that despite the pain associated with the loss of children in high-mortality societies, the depth of love parents have for their children can be profound and unchanging—a love that persists in adversity and loss, rather than being diminished by it.
Themes
LoveChildrenMortalityParentingHistory
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about parenting, one might reference this quote to illustrate the depth of parental love throughout history.
More from Jill Lepore
All quotes →Americans like to get rich fast. That this means we go broke fast, too, is something that we have become very good at forgetting. Our ignorance of history is matched only by our unfailing optimism; it's actually part of our optimism.
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History is hereditary only in this way: we, all of us, inherit everything, and then we choose what to cherish, what to disavow, and what to do next, which is why it's worth trying to know where things come from.
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