Historians talk about this problem a lot, if you look into it. The history of families mostly-peacefully raising children who do the same-ish things as their parents isn't recorded in a lot of places. If you want 'positive' history, you need to study individual families. Personal example, I have a pretty detailed genealogy/family tree that goes back to Sweden in the late 1400's. What we know about the people who lived back then, and in all the years inbetween 1480 and now, is very little. We know they lived, had X number of children, of whom Y survived to adulthood. Sometimes we know what they did for a living for a large portion of their lives. When we're studying 'history' we are most often studying the short, painful periods of drastic change between one paradigm and another paradigm. The Dramatis Personae of history are almost all right and proper bastards because you have to be a right and proper bastard to start and/or end a war. Contented, peaceful, happy people do not dramatic change make.The world is a terrible, grim and painful place if all you choose to look at is suffering.
There are a few examples within the Durants' books where they say "King X was, by all accounts, a kind and generous man who presided over forty years of prosperity. We wish we could say more about him but the record of his accomplishments and failures is predictably spare, as with most great men who fought no wars. Fortunately for us, and unfortunate for the world, his throne was inherited by Y the Terrible, who will be the subject of the next several chapters."