To ask if anyone finds parenting just fine and natural and easy any more (I feel like some people used to?)

They were less pressured because that’s how we parented. They didn’t do 27 after school activities. They didn’t invite the whole class for parties and attend 30 themselves. We didn’t care what other parents were wearing on the school run.
I could go on for hours.
My adult children have parented the same way. Try it. You may like it!

Definitely agree with this.

I love being a mum - way more than I thought I would. I find being with the little ones easy and natural. I could be a stay at home mum for sure but as a single parent it is impossible.

What I find hard is having to work so hard to financially support them and therefore not spending enough time with them as a result as they also need wrap around care as well as nursery/ school. That feels unnatural and the mum guilt is immense.

This week I do. One of my children is away for the week and the other two are a dream. They're 15 and 16 and just lovely young people.

I absolutely bloody loved it, every second of it. Had mine late nineties/early noughties. I found babies/toddlers particularly easy. Teen years were slightly more difficult. DS and I are both ND.

I just think we are all different and cope/enjoy different things. It definitely doesn’t make you a bad person if you didn’t sail through it surrounded by rainbows, glitter and unicorns.

I find it quite easy and enjoyable. I have 2 young dcs and a very hands-on DH, and I'm a sahm. I don't have a huge social network but I think that is an advantage really as I have no peer group judging me or that I feel pressured to meet certain standards for. I'm not the kind of person to get lonely and I enjoy spending time just me and the dcs, or with DH as well. I don't have many nights out and I'd rather be with DH and the dcs in the evenings.

Financially we're doing well and that allows access to plenty of activities to keep the dcs busy and entertained. We tend to have a full schedule and I put in the effort researching and booking things and ferrying them about, but not doing the hands-on entertaining. We've booked up summer camps all through the holidays doing different sports and arts, and weekend breaks away at places with on site activities. I'd be miserable and stressed being a sahm on a budget thinking up activities for them every day or trying to wfh and have 2 young dcs cooped up at home.

I loved being a mum to 4. It was in the 90s. I was very lucky that I was SAHM for a long time as it was affordable then. I was also lucky that they were all easy and quite chilled like me and DH. No velcro babies. No terrible twos but they did wake up at night for a few years but we had a large mattress on the floor in our bedroom so they just came in and went to sleep so didn't have the stress of keep taking them back. They grew out of it eventually.
There are so many posts on here of mums saying they can't stand the school holidays and can't wait for them to go back to school or nursery. I don't understand that.

Parenting is fine when you don’t make your children your reason for living. They should fit into your life and you should be a family unit. They should not dictate every aspect of your life,nor should your life revolve around them alone.
Also children aren’t princesses or princes ( unless they are) so don’t treat them like the world owes them a living.

I think I got quite lucky to live somewhere with "local" local groups for small children as this hasn't been the experience for other friends I've spoken to. I wouldn't have coped as well at the toddler stage without them. It meant I could come up with a good routine with something every day.

Other than that as a millennial parent I try to incorporate the aspects of 90s parenting that I can get away with. We try to have a less is more attitude to things like Christmas events and not over schedule.

These are really interesting insights. I think it aligns with my earlier post of feeling like I don’t have much local support. Everything seems very atomised in comparison to what I remember growing up in the 80s/90s

It's never been easy - not ever - but I'm naturally fine, thanks.

And yet there are those who complain about their parents/IL’s wanting to be involved, calling round, asking to join days out…

One of the differences, that I am so thankful for, is in the 90’s there was less expectation in ‘doing’ in terms of the ‘perfect, magical event’.
Christmas was one chosen event each year ( apart from school events), so we went on a Santa steam ride one year, a farm carol service the next. Halloween maybe a witches hat and a linked story at home. Easter a picnic and a few eggs to find in the garden.

We stayed at home, DC’s played in the garden, played with construction sets, made their own fun.

I know how tired my DC’s and I were by Christmas and feel horrified at the endless days out and events that families go to in December every year.

On here there are often threads about…’we have booked Winter Wonderland, Santa Express, Star Lights, Snowy Trail and hope to go to Lapland…is that enough or can anyone think of anywhere else for the weekend of...’

The exhaustion, the expense, the pressure.

Keep it simple!

(Late 90’s parent - single parent by the time DC’s were 18 months - 6 years - thanks exH - ‘family life is not for me’ - worked full time teaching once DC’s were in KS2, part-time teacher prior).

I love being a mum and found it came naturally to me. Have 3 children under 5 at the moment. It’s not always easy but on the whole I find it easy and natural. I ignore lots of advice and just do what works for our family ( co sleeping when needed etc)

This is more about your mil being a complete pain in the arse than about parenting being harder now.

My mil was the same. She judged me when I worked outside the home ('poor child being looked after by strangers'), she judged me when I was a sahm ('poor husband being the only one working'), she judged me when I was a childminder ('poor children having to share their home'). She used to say ridiculous things like she'd never seen a child have a tantrum before when my eldest was having a typical 2 year old's tantrum. I know this to be a lie as I saw her other granddaughter have plenty!

None of it had any basis in truth, she was just a glass half empty, pass judgment on everyone kind of person.

What does your husband say about his childhood with this amazing, devoted, perfect mother?

@Fragmentedbrainalso imo it’s only when we’re older and have more distance from the everyday hands on parenting that we’re able to be more objective about pressures faced by each generation.

when I was in the thick of it - giving birth in September, then returning to work 12 weeks later in December, still breastfeeding, pumping early morning before dropping ds off with the childminder - I remember thinking how easy my mum had it back in the 1960s as a SAHM with my dad able to support the family on his wages.

it was only later, looking at things in a more rounded way, that I realised my mum actually had no choice. There was no regulated childcare available to her. The expectation when she had me and my brother and sister were that mothers wouldn’t work anyway. So actually, although she didn’t have the pressure of being a WOHM, she also had the disadvantages. She was a clever, capable women who these days would probably have a professional role. In reality, after having children, she didn’t work for over a decade and then just had a series of fairly low status part time jobs. She was never able to achieve her potential outside of being a mum and I think that must have been very frustrating for her at times.

I found it very hard, and while I love it now DS is a bit older (and such a wonderful kid), if I went back I would have stayed child-free. Those first few years were not worth it in my opinion. I think a lot of people don't talk about it being tough, or at least they didn't used to. I've been thanked multiple times for my honesty around how difficult parenting can be and had newer mums come straight to me to open up when they're struggling.

I agree with others that there are different pressures now - most parents are trying to juggle full time work, childcare, screentime, social media and financial difficulties, and at some point you also need to do all your housework. It can feel like a real slog.

I wouldn't necessarily say I find it easy inherently, but I do think I have it easier than previous generations did for various reasons. My DP didn't have any family support around whereas I do, I have access to the Internet and (often but not always) useful parenting tips/advice/whatever whenever I want it. Society in general are more kid friendly compared to when I was a kid.

But I really enjoy being a mum too. My DP worked a LOT in my childhood (by choice, they weren't poor) and made various other choices for various reasons that I wouldn't make with my DC. I enjoy doing the day to day things with my DC that I didn't get to do as a child, even if to some people it seems really inane and boring because I spent most of my childhood in childcare from 7:30am-6pm every weekday, and every day of the school holidays 🤷‍♀️

I don't find parenting particularly hard and certainly have moments of enjoyment but what I do find difficult is how mind numbingly dull it largely is.

@Fragmentedbraini find your post interesting, as I had my babies around the same time as your mum did.

I wouldn’t say being a parent is always easy, but I found it very enjoyable. My children are all adults now.

imo there are different pressures faced by each generation, it’s just tricky to appreciate them because we only live within our own generation. From my lived experience as a mum in the late 80s/early 90s was that legislation around maternity was far less favourable. I had to return to work when ds 1 was 12 weeks old. And we didn’t all have extended family around - I had to phone the council for a list of childminders and nurseries. There was no paternity leave. Dh was back at work the day after my births. Also there was no ‘free hours’ for childcare. Ds was a Sept baby so we paid childcare in full from 12 weeks until a fortnight before he turned 5. And I understand the difficulty of getting on the housing ladder for younger generations, but believe me, with interest rates in double figures and childcare being just as expensive in the 80s/90s relative to income - it was really financially tough back then too.

in contrast, if you have a baby now you can have up to a year off on mat leave, which seems incredible to me. Your partner can take Paternity leave and also share some of your leave. Flexible working is also far more prevalent. So the legislation around parenting is far better.

However, I do think there are different pressures now largely because of social media and the ‘competitive’ nature which this fuels. I think a lot of mums feel they are failing their child if they’re not feeding their child a certain way, or signing them up for baby sensory, and god knows what else. Social media influencers - those awful ones who splash their children all over the place online- have a lot to answer for. I think generally there feels a lot more judgement about aspects of parenting which could be quite harmful, eg if you don’t buy a super expensive car seat so your child can rear face until age 6, you’re not doing the best for your kid. When I had my babies, we all seemed to borrow or buy second hand much more. Yes my kids wore an assortment of clothes from charity shops or hand me downs but that didn’t matter back then. We borrowed baby equipment from friends.

I also think another pressure now is the whole thing of whether you put your child on social media - whether that’s posting photos before they’re old enough to consent, to when you allow them to have a digital presence.

So @Fragmentedbrain- all in all, I don’t think parenting was easier 30/40 years ago, I just think it was different pressures.

I have 2 DSs (9,4), work full-time in a stressful job and so does DH.

I don't find parenting natural or easy to me. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy my kids, and I'm so unbelievably proud of them both. But it's really hard. The kids are at ages where they bicker constantly. The younger one needs a lot of attention still and we're often very exhausted. In the past 3 weeks, DH or I have had to cut working days short at least x2 each week to attend end of year events at school or preschool - it's lovely that the settings host these things, but I'd by lying if I said re-arranging work constantly isn't stressful (particularly as DH's job is not flexible at all (teacher) so it generally falls to me to flex my job). Our house is very loud as both boys are naturally noisy and they whinge a lot at each other - sometimes my brain just wants some quiet time! Weekends are filled with ferrying the eldest to various sports matches/training and they often both have a party to go to, so our downtime from work at weekends doesn't really ever give us a proper break. Even holidays are exhausting as you're parenting but in much hotter climates, without all the toys and home comforts 😂

I've painted a bad picture there... But I do love my kids so much. I'd choose them each and every time. But, its hard. I'm tired!