All tangled in a not

[Ardub]

I've been staring at a complicated sentence in AWAl that I think has an extra "not" for the point it's trying to make:
(about how childhood isn't all fun and games, p. 196)

Oh, the moments of delight, of pure joy, were there, all right, but what adults seemingly couldn't bear was the idea that their whole childhoods hadn't been that way, that the trouble and sorrow of their adult lives, the result of the Lone Power's meddling in the worlds, wasn't something they'd always had to deal with, right from the start.

The way I read this, it would make more sense as "was something they'd always had to deal with...", right?

p.s. - Maybe this is like how computer memory can have "bit flip" errors, where a 0 becomes a 1 or a 1 becomes a 0, (essentially an extra "not" occurring spontaneously,) due to entropy. The Lone Power strikes again. :-)

[Priellan]

The way I read this when I try to cut it down to subject-verb-relevant section is "adults seemingly couldn't bear...that the trouble and sorrow of their adult lives...wasn't something they'd always had to deal with..." I thought it made sense with the 'not' in there at first, but now I see your point. It took my head some cutting and interpreting to figure it out.