To wonder how mums of yore did it

I might actually hoover the house if I had uppers in my fizzy pop!

Expectations have changed. I am one of 6 including one disabled sibling.
My mother didn't have hobbies exercise outside the home, date nights, 'me time ' etc. She looked after the family and that was her role. My father worked all the time and was hardly at home.
That was just how it was then.

This sounds a little like my wee family. I have 5 children and we all do our part.

My husband works very long hours in his own business and I do what I can to lighten the load. Mostly admin, picking up things etc

My older dc all have a weekly job and help out with dinner and clean up daily. They help the toddler get dressed and make him constant snacks as he's a bit of hungry monster.

But I don't do any sewing in the evenings I'm afraid and I don't iron either 😂

I have five and didn’t have huge input from family, need my eldest to care for the younger ones. I played with all my children and they attended some afterschool activities but probably not to the level I read on MN!

I do think that you have as many as you can cope with and live the life you enjoy. If you really prioritise the sort of self care that requires a lot of hair/nails/exercise classes then there isn’t going to be room for much else. If you prioritise a larger number of offspring you aren’t likely to be able to have a job that requires a lot of late nights and travel. So long as everyone is doing what satisfies them I can’t see any of the options are lazy or overworked unless you make it so.

I’m one of five. My mum worked part time, always (and sacrificed a lot financially that I wouldn’t do). We did some clubs but usually the same eg we all did music centre on a Saturday morning, different instruments. We did stuff together - baffles me when people say an 8 and 15 year old need very different activities - just do the same. Walk round house and garden or go bowling or whatever.

My gran was the 7th of 8 surviving children. Her slightly older sister (5th of the 8) had responsibility for the younger kids as their mum was either running the house or helping to run the pub that their dad managed. They slept 3 to a bed and on Sunday my gran (7) would take her younger brother (5) to the museum so that everyone else could get on with running the pub or making Sunday dinner.

My gran's focus was always on having a "nice" house. They lived on an estate of prefabs and were then rehoused in a brand new council house in the mid 50s. Her focus was always on cleaning and everyone looking nice (her favourite word) so that the nighbours would respect her. She and my grandad adored one another and would walk the mile to the nearest pub leaving my 3 year old dad asleep with his 1 year old sister - as did everyone else. By day, my dad would be sent off to wander the fields with the dog. If he wasn't back by tea time, the postman next door would go look for him on his bike.

My parents married young and we lived in 1 room in a shared house. Then i was sent 500 miles away to live with grandparents so that my parents could both pull double shifts to save a deposit. In the early 1970s I walked myself to and from school from the end of Y2 and stayed home alone until my mum got back from work. She was a nurse and an evening shift might not finish until 9pm.

My kids are now adults and were, by contrast, the central focus in my life.

Much good that has done me. I look forward to seeing how they do it.

You are ridiculous in imagining everyone lived like this. I can assure you my family did not have lower standards, or Valium, and as a child I did plenty of extra curricular activites. What I didn't have was my mother hovering over me and making sure I was kept busy all the time, instead letting me fill my time in my way. In summer we kids practically lived at the swimming pool, our parents weren't required to be there, and we played happily with friends rather than having to be constantly entertained.

Mums with big families either have lots of support... grandparents, extended family etc. Or they are the kind of women who have an air of obliviousness about them and don't register how shit things are.

Well the big difference is I came from a very ordinary background but one wage, my Dads was enough to pay for everything so Mum was at home. HOWEVER although it was grest for the rest of us she did later admit she hated leaving her job and feeling dependent on him for money. We were never short but it rankled so there is no perfect solution. I'm happier and more fulfilled as a working mum than she was, despite the mad stress of the early days. Also I'm 53 but even in the 70s and 80s did music, swimming, guides etc so it wasn't all free range !
This is completely separate from a DH who can't change a nappy, utterly incompetent and needs to change.

Late 70s child here. We were outside playing all day, only came home to eat. Bath once a week. I did a few activities but only ones that were close to home and that a sibling, or local older child, could walk me to and from.
Our neighbours had 10 kids. Three bedroom house, one toilet. It was total chaos. Some of the kids were bullied unmercifully by their siblings. The eldest was a girl, followed by a line of boys, so she ended up taking responsibility for the younger ones. Interestingly, she chose to have one child herself.

My own mother had a lot of help from her mother. She also had a ‘nervous breakdown’ in the 80s and when she was in hospital I was carted off to live with cousins and aunts.
DH’s mother had five kids. Her mother and a cousin lived with them so she had four extra hands to help.

How do women do it? Men could never

Of course they can

Some chose not to. And
Some women chose to facilitate it

In the really big families the older kids look(ed) after the younger ones. And miss(ed) out on a lot of their childhood by becoming parents at a very young age.

Plus you would have expected multiple children to not make it to adulthood.

And there's an element of people coping with things because they have to. Doesn't mean they enjoy it. Lots of sacrifices of literally everything.

This is why I decided not to have any at all, because I spent a lot of time looking into it and realised that for me personally, it would make me physically and mentally miserable and there's no way I could be a good parent in that situation.

I'm in my 50s. In my experience of large families in the past, mothers did very little else but parent and work. So minimal socialising other than in family groups, no gym or out of the house hobbies, much less time on 'self care'. Then on the other side, less active involvement with children, not feeling the need to occupy and entertain them all the time, play with them or take them on days out, basically just allowing them to be there. Enlisting the help of older children with younger ones, and children having chores.

Born in the 60s and brought up in London as an only child , It was routine for friends /classmates to have a family of 6 children! This was when babies were left to cry in the garden,smacked if naughty ,and left outside the pub! Now we have a much more enlightened and kinder attitude .WC women not expected to work / have any hobbies ,Often needs must and they worked PT in factories /cleaning or bar work . It was a far cry from today and years of campaigning for womens rights . 1 or 2 children is the norm now

You've literally summed up my childhood, and my kids', to some extent.

My mum came to the UK in the 60s, from an African country. From a young age we were expected to help with household chores - washing dishes, making our beds, vacuuming, popping off to the corner shop to get bread, etc. We still had time to go to clubs - gymnastics, majorettes & Brownies/Girl Guides, but they were all literally five minutes down the road, so there was no expectation of your parent being a taxi driver.

My kids are aged 32, 23 & 17, and there's a marked difference in the amount of extra-curricular activities that were available to my oldest in contrast to the youngest. I've definitely spent more time ferrying the youngest around than I did the oldest.

They've had a slightly more relaxed upbringing, but they were still expected to do chores. They all started doing their own laundry once they went to secondary school, and all learned to cook basic meals. I would have made them do their own ironing too, but my husband enjoyed settling in on a Sunday afternoon, in front of the ironing board, with a glass of wine and Murder She Wrote on the TV 😀

There were fewer expectations for both quality of mothering, and child outcomes.
No one batted an eye about kids of all ages, from toddlers to teens being outside playing from dawn to dusk, all year round. There was an expectation that the older ones would watch out for the younger ones, and they'd generally get on with it. Parents didn't have that expectation of providing entertainment to their children all day long.

Nowadays, there's all these clubs and activities parents feel obliged to get their kids involved with, with all the associated ferrying around and paying for. There was none of that back then. Maybe a kid did cubs or brownies every Tuesday evening or maybe took their musical instrument to the local Saturday music school, but that was it.

Frankly, not that many generations ago, if a parent got their child successfully to adulthood, they took that as the only "win" they needed.

My gran, born prematurely into a farming family at the beginning of the 1900’s, was considered very fragile and needed extra care. As a toddler she was tied to a kitchen table leg for long periods and left to play. She remembered her mum having to just get on with the farm work (no choice) and couldn't spend time keeping her safe. Her older siblings were out shoving sheep and cows around at 4 or 5 years old and my little gran was safer on a rope in the kitchen.

Different standards.

My great grandma had 12 children - I dont know how her pelvic floor did it!!
In terms of childcare my grandma told me the babies slept in drawers from chest of drawers, they topped and tailed in a double bed.
Oldest went into service at 14 so basically left home.
Older siblings looked after younger siblings, extended family all lived within a few minutes walk or even next door, neighbours looked out for each other's kids.
Kids were left a lot to own devices, were not ferried to activities parties etc, walked to and from school by themselves no homework, played out in fields /on street and had chores at home.
Being a parent was a noun like being sister brother not a verb or an action you did. Less was expected of parents.

I think the point of threads like this is to show that so many people are just acting that everything is great and they are handling life well! Majority probably feel exactly the same as you and so many of us which is that life is exhausting and can be shit all of the times, for women trying to have and do it all!

we need to stop and try to enjoy what we have while we have it and can enjoy some of it

I remember hearing somebody talk about ‘the beautiful ordinary’ and learning how to find pleasure in the simple things every day. I remember thinking it sounded lovely, but just like another thing I have to learn to do. 🤣🤣

Different times and a very different world!

more family support and close by
less expectations - self imposed and worldly - for most women to maintain a high flying career outside the home, low stress and jobs around the family were more normal when women worked

older siblings and cousins and friends kids all played together
not too many distractions like SM, gadgets, online world

@Peonii it’s genuinely good to hear someone relate or agree.

it hard to talk about to people you know/ IRL
I sometimes feel I am going slowly mad… like how are all these women quietly going along with it?
is it me? Am I doing it wrong?

i don’t know what to do other than fight with him or/and cry about it.

Added to the list of things we have to do nowadays is staying or looking young.
You were allowed to age, you were physically active so you didn't need to fit in gym or yoga, you didn't need to "make time for your marriage" and fit in date nights etc.... basically expectations of your performance as a wife and mother were different.

We need to resist that pressure. Yes I know it's ultimately caused by the patriarchy and the fact that women are still primarily regarded as decorative, but so many women collude in promoting these beauty ideals and shame women who don't live up to them. I do yoga because I enjoy it and because it stops my joints from aching after long walks (which I also do because I enjoy them) and it helps cure my plantar fasciitis.

But I'm lucky to have always been able to take time to do those things, even when my dc were tiny, because I'm not married to a man who thinks chilcare and housework are my hobbies. Date nights are supposed to be enjoyable. My parents socialised loads when I was a child - way, way more than we do.

Kids played and stayed out all afternoon until it was time to eat.
Standards have changed and what was ok last century, would be deemed as negligence now.

Oh shit I am 38 this year and expecting our 2nd 🫣

I think life was just much, much tougher. My great grandma had 11 kids. I've seen photos of her and she looked ancient, even in her 40s.
I think it's quite a modern thing that we expect so much from life - we expect life to be enjoyable, fun, to be happy and fulfilled, to have a good career, to have leisure time, to have perfect relationships, to have holidays, nice houses etc.
For my great grandma's generation life was tough and gruelling. You didn't question it. You just got on with it. Then you died.
I think life is so much better now.