>But then, if every woman has gone through multiple stillbirths, child deaths, and so on, then everyone is going to be messed up. What they'd consider "normal"

>But then, if every woman has gone through multiple stillbirths, child deaths, and so on, then everyone is going to be messed up. What they'd consider "normal" is what we'd consider as "struggling with deep trauma". >I think you're right - everyone would be traumatised by modern standards. But if everybody is traumatized then nobody is, it's the local normal. Sure we can say they were "wrong" but that's just a reflection of our current cultural norms. What is right and wrong or traumatic or not is a matter of cultural norms and social consensus. The reason we give a crap over whether or not people are traumatized is because it makes them "messed up" and affects their ability to function normally in society. If people are able to function normally in society, are not "messed up" according to the people around them and don't consider themselves traumatized are they really traumatized? It's really easy to sit in an air conditioned office and say the past was horrible but it's only horrible because we have a different frame of reference. For the people who lived it it was just how things are. I think it's kind of paternalistic to say the people of the past were all/mostly traumatized because it's not like they had any other options, the things they had to experience were unavoidable facts of life.