To wonder how mums of yore did it

I have 3 under 6. I don’t work, I don’t have my hair or nails done, don’t go to the gym, don’t really do much for myself at all. It is all about the children to keep the ball rolling. That isn’t for everyone & I definitely get down about it at times. But I was an only child and am still sad at 32 that I don’t have siblings so it was important to me.

I think you just have to lower your expectations with each one. I don’t regret my decision but I would never have anymore.

Me and my friends (80s kids) were mostly dragged up on a diet of chicken nuggets and benign neglect. I look back and think it must have been easier for my mum than it is for me now, as she didn’t actually do anything specifically for me. I was out roaming the streets and playgrounds till all hours, dinners were crap from the freezer. I was never supported to do well in school, to aim for anything, never taken to the dentist or told about periods or sex or relationships. This was the case for 90% of my friends and we’ve all gone through mental health issues, abusive relationships, health issues etc etc and had to drag ourselves up and over the lack of education and help.

One thing we always circle back to is that we were palmed off on relatives a lot as little kids, shout out to the nans! but our parents don’t help us much with our kids at all. I don’t know, maybe my community was just full of shit parents, or the 80s, or they were going through their own crises. Between my friends parents and my parents there was alcoholism, abuse, nervous breakdowns (remember that term?), being left for weekends and more, neglect and worse. If the back in the day stories are true, my Nan did more as a mum in the 50s than my own mum in the 70s/80s.

It’s interesting about hobbies/clubs/classes for the kids and the expectation of these on modern families (mothers in particular?).

I was talking to my Mum about trying to get my 10yo DD interested in taking piano lessons- I took piano when I was a kid and my Mum created that opportunity for me- buying a keyboard, paying for the lessons, driving me to the lessons, making me practice etc. My DD isn’t particularly interested in taking lessons and I was even saying to Mum that I was thinking of offering to pay her (eg £1 a week) to try the lessons!!

Then my mum said that when she was a child (1950s) if she wanted to do something extra-curricular like that, it was just down to her. It wouldn’t have occurred to her that her parents would’ve even got involved in arranging anything, if she wanted to go to a club or something.

Also similarly with homework, reading books etc. So many parents now practically do their child’s homework for them, get them tutors. Mum told of the time she wanted to be named as class prefect- she had to write a speech and so on, she couldn’t remember her parents being involved or even aware at all. If my DD came home now saying there was a vote for class prefect, I would be spending time with her, writing the speech with her, listening to her practice aloud, wishing her luck, congratulating or commiserating with her.

Its swings and roundabouts with this really because the modern parents feel that they’re giving their child more- more opportunities, more support, by taking them to classes and getting them a tutor. However, there’s an element of taking a horse to water there and the older generation who were forced to do it for themselves may have more self motivation, independent skills, work ethic.

Parenting was different. Your kids needed to be fed, clean and do as they were bloody well told. Which makes sense if there are going to be numerous kids.

My gran's husband died when her 7 kids were between 20 and 5. She told them that they, especially the boys, would have to be damn near perfect,because as a single mum, she'd be judged for them. The older girls helped with the house while she was at work. School wasn't seen as overly important, because you left school at 15 and did what you could.

On the other hand, a great grandmother of mine ended up having to look after numerous siblings when her mother up and left, so I don't think women did cope.

I remember earwigging on conversations my mum had in the 80s, where women had had 'nervous breakdown' and had to go to the hospital.

I think that today, we read more about child rearing (often contradictory) and worry perhaps too much. Juggling home/kids has always been a challenge. But I look at my life and it's still better than my predecessors.
I work ft. Mum didn't but was trapped in drudgery and shit jobs.
I have time for hobbies and nights out. Mum's hobby was sewing- which was also practical. My hobbies are useless but fun.
I've brought my kids up the way I was brought up, but a bit less authoritarian. They help out round the house more than I was expected to.
I've always been slim, so didn't worry about getting my figure back. I suspect my mum ate less than she should.

While some people think parents (or society) is too child-centric now or that life revolves around children rather than them fitting in, I definitely think there are advantages to being more involved.
DH and one of his siblings are dyslexic but in the late 60s/70s this wasn't picked up, either by school or family.
After another family member had an ASd diagnosis, it was widely accepted within the family that one of the siblings was probably autistic too, and I have suspected for probably a decade, that DH is ND, although not diagnosed.

They came from a fairly hands off/free range type of parenting because I think that was more normal, then. But they were labelled as slow or lazy, or troublemakers at school because ND wasn't really recognised by society as a whole, and in turn their parents wouldn't be aware

I have three. Yes, it's hard but not impossibly so. As they get older, kids get easier. Mine are in school now and it's so much easier than when they're babies and toddlers. They play together and I'm starting to get time back for myself. I also work full time although worked part time whilst they were young.

Personally I wouldn't have it any other way as they get along well and will hopefully be good support for each other when they're older.

I think life has gotten a lot harder for many people. So many adults are on antidepressants, cash strapped, stressed and anxious. I don't know why, although I have a strong feeling the conservatives cut backs in public services plays a big part in it. Life feels bleak for many and, because of this, they struggle with mental health and then parenthood gets a lot tougher. It's hard to look after others if you're not feeling happy and positive yourself.

What are you still healing from physically 14 months post partum? Are you seeking treatment?

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.
I'm not suggesting it was easier then, not at all. It was probably gruelling. But you were focused on home, now our efforts are spread across a number of areas.

I honestly think it’s all nonsense. I’m always slightly baffled by people thinking having a large family is so “hard” or that you can’t be caring for them to the same standard as smaller families. Why? I know small families whose are brilliantly parented and ones that aren’t so great. Yes there are times that having more than one or two is tiring but I’m sure that you aren’t MORE tired than someone with two children and work, or something else. I do thing it can be quite difficult to be understood/appreciated but that’s because it’s fairly rare to have a large family now and smaller families are fairly vocal about what they perceive as the down sides.

60s childhood. My mum worked, part time to full time, but this was relatively unusual for wives at that time, indeed it was frowned on.

I cooked tea for myself and little brother from around age 10. I may even have been younger . It was normal for us to be left unsupervised at home from coming home from school, until around 7.30pm. I often made chips for tea using a deep fat fryer.

Far fewer activities after school. We played out a lot. Went next door or up the road on our own to see our friends from age 5. That’s something I never see where I live now, children going up and down the road without an adult. Even though there are lots of similar aged children in the street. I went alone for bike rides from about 11.

I walked to and from school alone from age 7 with another child aged 7. This involved crossing 2 busy roads.

My parents were unusual in that they actually played with us.

There was far less choice about food, the expectation was that our mum would make a meal and you would eat it. We were allowed some individual preferences but not that many.

Cleanliness and personal hygiene standards were lower - not dire, but I don’t remember children getting a daily bath or clean clothes every day.

I think there was far less focus on minimising risk, and far less emphasis on the child’s happiness minute by minute. Parenting didn’t have such a strong psychological focus and by and large parents weren’t expecting their child to be their best friend.

All this must have reduced mothers’ loads to some extent.

I can remember many instances of when I was at risk of something or other. I nearly electrocuted myself once, alone in the house, and skidded on my bike once on loose gravel and nearly went under a lorry. We just weren’t so focused on risk as people are now.

This is a really interesting topic. My gran used to be quite baffled by all the things I did for mine, I'm the youngest of lots of cousins and she even noticed a difference within the generation. She had 4 so not loads but basically after the baby stage they were pretty much free range and went out to play coming back for meals and entertaining each other (admittedly it was a very safe rural area). There were no baby groups, health visitors etc back then. She didn't go back to work until they were a bit older and it was just part time cleaning locally so the kids could just come and find her if they needed something.

My mum had us in the 80s and took a career break for a few years. She says she went to a local church playgroup, made some friends and they would take turns going to each others houses for coffee and biscuits while the kids played. There were much lower expectations even then.

It was a different generation wasn't it.

Four children is a lot, emotionally, practically and financial. I have 3 and putting them all through nursery, Afterschool clubs and then University has cost a small fortune. I only had 3 as I had my eldest when I was a teenager, and so he was 11 when I had DS2 and I wanted a sibling close in age for DS2 so had DD. I’d have only had 2 children if I hadn’t have had an older child. I have a career too, and have kept going with that and a chronic illness whilst raising them all. Youngest is 16 now, 2 more years to go!

Im in awe of my (late) mother. Born in 1920s, she went to university (as did her older sisters, one became a doctor, one a lawyer) and had a career in social work. She travelled the world. At 35 she married and had three kids. She worked part time and we had an au pair. Remember back then no dishwashers and there were cloth nappies. I hope she had a washing machine which became more common in the 1950s. My father worked long hours (doctor) and did minimal around the house. At one point he was ill and spent nine months in hospital- goodness knows how she managed to even feed us then. She had some family (all the women worked) but they also had children and none lived in London.
No matter how you look at it, I believe they had it tougher. Maybe there was no 'expectation' that the majority of women would work, and one salary went further, but the sheer drudgery of it must have been extremely burdensome and stifling. Even if older kids helped out, that still requires the mother to do it all for several years. And desire to pursue one's own interests and career - that's not something that just sprung up in the 1970s! Look at Jane Austen for goodness sakes - women were lamenting their lot back then and I'm sure for centuries before.

I have 4, and DH not around much due to work.
It’s not that hard tbh. Weight loss: well you don’t need extra time for that.I just ate loads less for a bit and lost weight. C section recovery happened in time. Hobbies..No I don’t have time for them, but I try and do fun stuff with my dc in the holidays that I also get something out of - hiking, surfing, art galleries, baking. Seeing friends - during the day with other mums of toddlers, and weekend evenings.

I don’t need to work which makes life a lot easier!!

I make life easier where I can. I don’t make amazing meals for the kids, just the basic pasta, veg etc and I have a cleaner. They play alot together without me. But I do take them to lots of activities etc all the time and I sit with them and make sure homework is good.

It’s a life very much saturated with children and I don’t have time for myself but it’s not really that hard.I think not working is the main thing making it easier.

No-one is talking about smacking and corporal punishment. I agree with expectation and a normal childhood then would be considered neglectful now. However, you'd get older women sitting out in their path and they'd keep an eye on us. You feared being told off to your parents. Schools, other adults could threatened (and hit you) and it would be thought of as your fault. My generation sat nicely on buses etc because it was smacked legs if we didn't. I had my first in the 80's and was always being told to smack, even for a normal tantrum. My childcare while my mother worked was me walking to a friends house and her teen sister minding a gang of us. As said children were clothed and fed and sometimes neighbours/wider family had to step in on those. Because of a lack of contraception, bad parenting wasn't judged.

I disagree to some extent. I think far too much was expected of older children within families, especially girls.

But that's based on my own family experiences. It seems to have been a common thing in previous generations of our family for the oldest girl to spend a lot of time helping in the house and caring for the other children. And I can think of one cousin in our generation who, although not exploited quite so overtly, was 'leant on' a lot by her parents. Whenever we visited, for example, she would be put in charge of babysitting us and looking after us while the adults went out.

I think it used be: kids expected to slot into my life

Now it's: my life revolves around kids

I personally think the first one is better for everyone.

There are lots of people on MN with larger families (including me). I don’t recognise quite a lot of the descriptions of how it was or is. Of course it takes more to look after more but it’s not insurmountable and the major difference now is that people CHOOSE to have larger families if they want them on the whole.
So if you live on one income you adjust your spending to that, your older children don’t have to care for their younger siblings, you can have time to play with your children …. I really don’t see its any more work than anything else.

Much less investment per child, I suspect. And children expected to contribute a lot more.

They chucked the kids out of the house to play at a much younger age. Older siblings, especially girls, were expected to look after the younger ones and help around the house.

My grandmother worked away during the week for a couple of years when her children were young and the oldest daughter (my aunt) was expected to do the cooking and cleaning and get herself and her younger siblings dressed and to school on time, then pick them up, bring them home, look after them and make dinner in time for my grandfather coming home. A lot of responsibility for a then 14 year old. The neighbours helped a lot, though.

This

I am in my seventies. I am one of seven children. My grandmothers had four children each ( both lost at least one child). Both my grandmothers and my grandfather worked. One of my grandfathers died when my father was twelve. They didn't have a choice, my grandmothers, whether or not to work. My Dad and Mum were both clever and passed for grammar school but both had to leave at fourteen and get jobs. My Dad had an apprenticeship, my mother had a variety of jobs, always very basic but as she said, it helped put bread on the table. She worked in a factory, the evening shift and then all day once the youngest went to school. When she was in her forties, she did English and Maths 'o' levels at evening class to help her get an office job. My Dad worked until he was seventy, my Mum until she was sixty five, then she did childcare. All us kids went to university.
I had four years off after having children then went back as a teacher. One of the mums from school looked after my kids after school until I got there. I worked full time until sixty five then part time once grandchildren appeared.
I do four full days a week of childcare. I once admitted I found it hard on MN and got shot down by mothers anxious to tell me that a grandmother has it so easy, we get nights off supposedly. I have both sets over night one day a week.
I think most mothers cope. I think some Mothers on MN think that if everyone tells them life is hard then it must be and they manifest anxiety and depression. My grandmothers had no time to be ill until they died.I think tv appeared in the decade before they died and they both loved it. A reason to sit down in the evening.
Most mothers, animal as well as human, are programmed to care for their children whatever it takes. My grandmothers literally worked until they died. The idea of 'retirement' didn't exist on their radar. They both, along with most mothers then, were happy if their children were ok and making their way. And the children mostly did ok.
Nobody back then, and both sides of my family were proper working class, would have understood the idea that work is optional. So many mothers on here ( but perhaps it's just an MN thing) think work is a choice. They are too posh or needy to pull their weight being nurses, doctors, carers, teachers etc. My grandmothers would be flummoxed by their life styles.

I was born in 1971 and tbh my childhood wasn't wildly different from my dc's. DM and I both had postnatal anxiety after one of our babies, but aside from that, I don't think either of us found it very hard at all. The neglectful non-parenting is not something I recognise from my own childhood. Neither have I subscribed to the 'Must be a perfect parent' pressure described now. Tbh from my mum's descriptions of her childhood, I don't really think my grandmother experienced the difficulties people are describing either.

Like most women, my DM and GM did not work once they were married. I went part time when my dc were born.

Times have definitely changed, there's far too much pressure on parents to provide, whether it be a nice house, extra curricular activities, holidays, mobile phones etc.
How a single parent would cope alone with three DC is beyond me.
Add into the mix the cost of childcare and you're basically fucked!
I'm not saying my childhood was better, it was a different time with different expectations.
I'm GenX, my DP's had 4 DC and both had to work full time.
We basically looked after ourselves, can't remember what happened when we were babies but as we got older we were responsible for each other, older DC would take and collect younger DC to school, I remember being taken to school when my eldest Dsis was about 7.
We stayed home alone until DM got back from work.
We stayed home alone during school holidays, we were responsible for cleaning and cooking.
We never asked for anything as we were very aware that money was an issue, everyone was in the same boat so we didn't feel deprived.
We had no extra curricular activities because the money just wasn't there.
Think, outside toilet, no central heating, coats thrown over the beds for extra warmth.
I certainly wouldn't like to raise a family today, I take my hat off to all those parents trying to make it work

I was born in the very late 70s, one of three.

We grew up on a farm that my parents both worked long hours on. We were basically feral, running out around the farm and village during the day.

As we got older (ie from 6 or 7) we were expected to pull our weight on the farm and around the house - cleaning, tidying, gardening, cooking.

My parents had a lot of informal childcare arrangments with family and friends, often we were just left with an elderly neighbour the afternoon. Once my older brother was a teen we were left alone.

So people coped by making their kids contribute to the household and not being so uptight.

In my grandparents day (all from large familes - eg 10 plus kids) the older ones basically brought up the younger ones and cbildren were expected to be little adults from 10/11.