this is because it is not a cause and effect thing like you’re trying to read it as here; the author simply wrote the book when those were contemporary circumst

this is because it is not a cause and effect thing like you’re trying to read it as here; the author simply wrote the book when those were contemporary circumstances, even if they had been worse before meanwhile the book’s words about what happened to those children are a fiction hinting at the truth of the loss of a child and are more symbolic than literal documentary words