In the ‘good old days’ people would, could and did just disappear. It’s less painful for us if we cling to the idea that our elders did these things for reasons that went with the era: out of shame or because of religion or poverty or some other very difficult set of circumstances. We don’t want to think it was down to pure selfishness. Or that sometimes, in the ‘good old days’, people were just absolute arseholes.
