To wonder how mums of yore did it

I often think about how they coped. My friends mum was one of 1 and 10 and their father was killed in a mining accident in the 1950's. The extended family moved in to help out so they didn't go into care. The family are still extremely close.

I also was brought up in the 60s/70s and my experience is so very different from yours. Most people in our town did not have huge families, although we were friends with some couples who had a large number of kids, up to 10 in one case, and I can assure you their mothers were not on Valium. I was an only child, as was my mother, and my father was one of three (both parents born in the early 1930s).

I had an extremely happy childhood, as did my friends in the same age group, and so did my parents. Not all families are the same you know.

Reading some of the posts on MN I have to agree that life is not a bed of roses for many women at the present time.

Seriously, you think everyone lived like that? That isn't the experience of any of my family members.

Funnily enough many of the older generations thrived and lived to a good old age, without all the mental health issues so many kids seem to have today. I really question that a better job is being done now.

How does he not know to change her nappy? Can't he smell the wee? He sounds like an awful parent if he leaves his daughter in wet clothes and causes her to have a sore bum from leaving her in wet nappies.

Don’t know if I count as a ‘mum of yore’ now 😂😂, but I have 5 kids. They’re 21-17 now. I went back to university when no2 was a baby, so I had most of during my degree. This sounds insane in theory, but really it worked well as I was never in uni for longer than 8 weeks at a time. I wasn’t physically slogging a manual job, I did an nhs course so I was working 1/2 days a week in clinics for years 2-4 so I got paid, I got help with childcare on-site at uni so I could go to a lecture then feed the baby or babies (3 and 4 are twins)/see the toddlers. By graduation the older ones were in school so that cut my childcare bill and it went pretty well. (Though sitting my y3 exams 37 weeks pregnant and going in labour during the last one was probably cutting it a bit fine 😂😂)

My mum had 4 . She didn’t spend hours playing with us, we entertained ourselves either inside the house or outside a lot of the time . She never drove , she didn’t need to take us to any venues for hobbies or sports and we walked to school or took the bus ,and she never worked . We all had school dinners in England ( many years ago ) She did keep on top of her house work but she also loved it and took pride in having everything organised . My dad also did all the life admin . She always had an afternoon nap. I think all in all, a big difference to the lifestyles of today’s families.

Children weren't cared for much back then. They saw to themselves. Think about that. You seem to think that they were these amazing superwomen BUT churning out 8 children, do you think each child had the time and attention let alone had the opportunity to be children?

There are several books that I've read which really give a lot of detail of what family life was like for larger families

Lark Rise to Candleford

Round about a pound a week

Twopence to cross the Mersey

This.
My aunt started school age 14.

I was brought up in the 60’s/70’s. One of six. Expectations of women were very different and it was an absolutely miserable life for many of them. My mum and every adult woman I knew, was on Valium. Lot’s of women were down trodden and lived unfulfilled lives. I hated every second of it and was determined to use education as a way out of the situation, which I did.
I wanted my children to have a completely different up bringing and they have- private school, driving lessons, no physical discipline and my time.
I do think that women can be their own worst enemies though; staying with useless partners, having even more children with useless partners, undervaluing education, rushing here and there to extra curriculum clubs, cooking from scratch.
I love social history, but it is so depressing reading women’s history and it’s sad that for many, the present isn’t any better.

I've sort of got a dual perspective on this as I had one British and one Iraqi grandmother, both of whom had 5+ children spaced out in age. Its an open secret that my Iraqi grandmother had some pregnancies quietly terminated as well - quietly because they were Catholic - so clearly she did think there was a limit to what she could manage. My British grandmother was poor - very poor - and with minimal education and opportunities. My Iraqi family are pretty wealthy and solidly upper middle class, and my grandmother was also a high school teacher, though her husband was the main earner. For the British family - well, their childhood was rough. There wasn't much in the way of parenting, from what they say - the kids were fed and watered when food was available, but there was minimal supervision and they were 'playing out' (or doing various things to get money and food) from toddlerhood, but that was the norm. Babies were left to cry. Older children were expected to look out for the younger ones. And they mostly muddled through. I don't think it was great, but I do think there's a middle ground between that and the excessively child-focused fashion of parenting we see today, where the ideal seems to be that children never have to tolerate frustration, injustice, boredom, or want. I certainly wasn't raised that way, and I still find it pretty shocking to hear the way (some!!! by no means all!) British children and teenagers speak to their parents. On the other hand, my Iraqi family had much more of an extended family setup. My dad, for example, spent long periods with his aunties (both biological and in the Arab sense of "auntie")- he was not a healthy child and I think they thought it was good for him to be away from his rambunctious brothers, I'm not sure. I'd say there was less of a sense that older children were obliged to care for the younger, but maybe because she had all boys, but friends and family did a lot. Children are more integrated into adult socialization in the Middle East - its normal for children to stay up late and eat and talk with the adults (my brother and I did this too), and people visit each other's houses a lot - almost every evening there would be lots of friends and family around. I'd say that children are much more raised by the "village" than in the West, and less seen as exclusively the responsibility of the parents. My Iraqi grandparents' house was always full of people.

I kinda aimed at 70 so in reality it is 50%::
Driving us all
Making sure finances are in order
Running small side business I had an idea for
Almost all gardening
All home improvements
Almost all dog walking
Half the cleaning
Majority of dish washing
He is absent from cooking as I cook better and laundry as well I do have to do something
Ironing his own stuff
6am children take over from me and all related to them untill 9 when I start work
Nursery drop offs and pickups
More than half nappy changes during day
Half of entertaining children

In some things I am OK he does them however he wants as long as they are done. In children area and household I expect him to follow agreements.
Yes we had fights about it but it is now done to some standard.
Few times I stopped "cleaning as I go" and just let shit build up and exploded at him about the mess so that has improved too.

The bar for men is quite low and my MIL told him how "he is so nice for helping me with household work". He told her he also lives there. Probably prompted by a fact that his horrible wife was in the same room 😏

Well the women didn't have a choice did they? No birth control is what gets you 21 children. And the older girls do all the babycare. No expectation to work outside the home.
I don't think it was better then. Just have sensible expectations of yourself. Get off Facebook and instagram as it's all lies.

Parenting was very different. We actively parent now. Then you just fed them whatever you had, dressed them in whatever you had. Washed them once a week. And that was pretty much it. Babies would just be left in prams till they needed feeding or changing. Toddlers just roamed. Older kids worked. If they did something you didn't like you, or a neighbour, hit them.

No tummy time, soft play, clubs. No regard for their nutrition, development, education, mental health. Lots of them died, couldn't read and write, were abused, became abusers etc. I'd definitely say we're doing a better job now.

I used to run around in the woods with my siblings when i was 3

You often hear about benign neglect on here and it really was a thing. When I was 4 and my brother 6 we used to play on a huge patch of land which was a derelict railway siding. Nothing bad ever happened but who would entertain that now? We'd be in soft play or swimming.
I'm a child of the 70s.

I think it depends on personality somewhat as well. I have five at the moment and I don’t feel particularly overwhelmed at all, occasionally I need them to go play far enough away that all I can hear is a dull roar, but basically I’m pretty laid back and enjoy the chaos of a good-ish sized family. I grew up constantly surrounded by small children, as I imagine many women in the past did when large families and living nearby was more a norm, and thus it’s just life as usual to me.

This isnt you "being particular" or wanting perfection.
Its him being lazy and thinking "meh...that'll do"

No it wont do. Its also depressingly common irrespective of what you may be told.

Push back, challenge and fight it hard now. It only gets worse otherwise. I refused to accept this shit standard and my tactics work/worked but its a hill my marriage may yet die on.... (not joking)

As an example...
I had the wet thing with dh.
I said it if was "fine" to leave her like that i was going to pour a small glass of water on him and he could sit in it for an hour and then we would talk. This was in winter. We had a blazing row and i said if the baby was wet he didnt have to change her but he did need to agree to tell me so i could change her because it wasnt too much trouble for me and i would do it he couldnt be bothered to meet her needs.
He was furious about the "unfair accusations" and it all kicked off but he stopped leaving her in wet clothes.
We have had the same/similar format arguements multiple times about various topics relating to meeting our childs (imo basic) needs to (imo) a reasonable standard.

Frankly i HATE that he makes me be this person and take these extreme postions... he was 💯 a fully functioning adult when we met and i wonder if i made him like this somehow...
What i find more baffling is we are fairly MC with nice couple friends and he is pretty much considered one of the " best dads" in our friendship group. The other women are fairly efusive re: his parenting and im told im lucky a lot.
I do not feel lucky, most of the time i feel stitched up.

Re women in the past.
I have no clue how most women/mothers today arent standing in the street just screaming with rage at the fucking injustice of it all.
If i was born in 1920s I'd probably have thrown myself off a bridge leaving my 7+ kids motherless...

To quote taylor swift... if i was a man, I'd be the man. It's fucking depressing.

Rich women had servants - still do except the events live out.

So if you have a nannie (or two) and a cleaner and a gardener abc maybe if you are mega rich a housekeeper then you can have a career because the raising kids/looking after the house is subcontracted to others.

Otherwise - yeah, what people are saying. Definitely getting the older kids to mind the younger ones and do a lot of the chores. Much much lower expectations.

If you look at parents with lots of kids these days they tend to be either very rich or pretty poor. The pretty poor ones live like they have always lived - two or three or four to a bedroom, chores, no extra curricular etc.

So my grandmother had 6 children and raised my aunt’s daughter - who was born between my mum and her younger sister.

They were poor in a way we couldn’t imagine and wouldn’t put up with.

Eg: my mum shared a bed with her sister as well as a bedroom with her other sisters. They used to top and tail.

No holidays ever.

My mum and her sisters all left school by age 15.

Lived as a family of 9 in a 3 bedroom council house that they never owned and that my grandparents lived in until their respective passing. (Zero inheritance to pass on to their family).

Evening meals were an egg and a slice of fruit cake. They ate a lot less.

We have an ability to choose in a way that mothers of yore did not. Contraception, education, expectation are all very different now

My 1st husband was one of 9 kids (born mid/late 1950s onwards) & there was still 6 kids living at home when I met him, late 1978.
We were babies really, getting married at 21 - those were the days.
But his Mum often talked how she managed chores & kids - each of the older ones had a younger kiddie to watch out for if they ever went out as a family. A rare event apparently but she then only had the baby.
These same older 4 kids would be in the back seat of the car with a younger one on their lap, she had the baby with her in the front.
Ye gods - but maybe in the 1950's /1960's etc cars were driven much slower.

They each had chores like dishes, baking, ironing, lawns, milking cows - age appropriate. But discipline was fierce too, I can remember visiting there & one of the teen girls was fetting the jug cord around the back of her legs because she had been sewing not ironing all the school uniforms.
So I think there was a definite routine in that household & they all had their bit to do.

My DD is similar age. We never had help from either family (not even an hour), so we rely on daycare a lot.

DH does his fair share of childcare and housework. We are both overwhelmed with love for our child and also the reality of everything that is juggled with it. I enjoy working and missed it a lot while I was in maternity leave. I very much enjoy the balance of work and being a mum. I wouldn’t have more for many reasons but one of them is because I want to focus on a career. I worked hard to get my current role. More children would probably put career on hold for a lot longer and for me personally I don’t want that. With one I am easing back into the workplace but am having such a great time being a mum.

I enjoy reading the responses here and am happy to see I’m not alone! Sometimes when it’s an extra hard day it can feel like that.

Please please please tell me your dh is doing ALL the housework and cooking. Please. If he can’t fit that in with marathon training, then he can’t fit in marathon training. (& once baby is here parenting takes precedence over training!!)

They just got with it and probably didn't do this spending all their time feeling judged or complicating every single aspect or trying to involve themsleves in things that are not their business?

Yes both mine were farmers wives in Ireland.
Not exactly healthy though as poverty stricken Catholics
Lots of porridge, potatoes and cabbage though.