....to think women find having babies harder now?

I think childcare and part time working are factors too. I was born in the early 1980s and most women, according to my mother (professional role) didn’t go back after babies - and it was virtually unheard of to work part time in that kind of role. By the early 1990s, in her circles, most women did go back and part time was more likely to be an option. I remember most of my teachers coming back somewhere between 3 and 6 months after having babies, and often coming back full time in the mid 1990s.

We have more options now, and more to consider, so there is much more pressure to make the “right” decision. How can you not, when you have all this information? Expand that to cover every possible parenting dilemma and you can see why mothers are stressed!

Indirectly, I’d also blame property prices, especially in the SE - the lifestyle available to professional couples in the 1990s is simply not available, in most cases, to couples in equivalent roles today. My parents could have borrowed their first mortgage on the basis of one salary in the 1970s. No way could we have done that.

Ultimately, whoever said having it all has become doing it all is quite right. And expectations have changed. (I’m sure my mother didn’t have to fish 15-20 letters per child out of each book bag each week.)

Also, ad hoc childcare existing. Having someone you can safely leave your child with whilst you go to a dental or medical appointment.
The leisure centre opening a crèche was another thing that really helped. Being able to join an exercise class or have a childfree swim is great for mental health.

But again, those things come down to money and availability.

If you can buy in support it must help. Having a nursery place meant we had reliable childcare and support in place (nursery was a great place for advice and reassurance!). Child was rarely ill so we didn’t really have the sick child can’t go to nursery situation. I do feel that, when they’re ill, they do need one of their parents around, so having employers who support that helps too.

If I’d known maternity nurses existed and had the money I’d have paid for one of them. Having someone around who knew what they were doing would have made the first few weeks of parenthood much easier, especially as the community midwives/HV were fairly useless. The sort of support probably provided by reliable extended family once upon a time. That would have avoided no end of problems, a hospital readmission (thanks for that, useless midwife) and been much better for my mental health.

Building a good friendship network makes a difference. It took us a while to form those relationships and find our tribe, but having someone to chat to about the ups and downs, or who can look after your child in an emergency really helped. Again, the sort of stuff once provided by extended family.

I made a similar point upthread about life being so much better for child-free women now. I wonder if there is any way to bridge the gap between a fantastic life pre-kids where you spend your 20s and 30s travelling the world, partying, going to festivals, taking career risks, dedicating time to self-care and exercise & fitness, pursuing hobbies (literally the life I and my friends lead in our mid to late 30s), and the drudgery of raising children? There are obvious things like only having one child (I’ve told DP this is non-negotiable if we go down the baby route) and living near family, but what other things help? Like is it actually any easier with a nanny vs nursery? That would take care of a sick child being sent home every 5 minutes at nursery, but it doesn’t seem to alleviate any other pressures. I’m just wondering out loud.

I lived on a modern 60s built housing estate, with 3 bedroom detached houses and some bungalows. Families could afford their house on one salary and have a reasonable standard of living. Women didn’t need to work. My mother and the neighbours spent half their time, having coffees and lunches with each other.

I’d say my grammar school was in an even more affluent village, with an intake from villages all over the county, and the estate where I lived, part of the county town. They prided themselves, as being the foremost grammar school in the county. I never know why working mothers go on about being good role models for their DC. At my school, most girls were expected to go to university, without question - and especially do sciences. We got all the encouragement and role models, we needed at school!

This: long before I had my own baby I had changed 100's of nappies and held 10s of newborns. I had watched my mother, her friends and my aunts breastfeed. I think this is partly a luck thing ( 10 cousins lived within walking distance) and partly a class thing. My MIL in contrast (age 80) had never held a baby until her own and freely admits she didn't have a clue.

@WhatNoRaisins My first was born 4 months into covid - didn't feel like a shock or like I was missing out because everyone was stuck inside with no social life and we hadn't been out in months anyway it really made a difference to not have FOMO

I agree with above. When I had my first it was like being plunged into the twilight zone, every aspect of my life was completely different.

Maybe that wouldn't have been the case as much in the days of big families and intergenerational homes. Many girls and single women would have been involved in the drudgery of childcare and domestics without having their own kids.

Having read the first page I think most posters have identified one of the key issues - family support.

But I think another isn't getting mentioned.

Life is way better now before children. Compare your middle class no-child woman's life now, to 60 years ago? Travelling, festivals, friends, university, careers, indipendance, disposable income etc. etc.

How much of that was all true in the 50s and 60s?

Part of the reason that some find it harder than before, is before they dropped from a B grade life to a C... Now they drop from an A to a D. Childcaring is harder with less support and more work, and non-childcare life is better...

As a result the comparison breeds more resentment and depression.

Forget the title, but I read this in some memoirs of rural Gloucestershire or similar, late 1800s, about the village woman who kept on having a baby every 18 months, well after (it was thought) she should have stopped, since her own eldest were now having babies.
’Each was cared for tenderly while it was helpless, swept outside as soon as it could toddle, to school at 3 and to work at 10 or 11.’

I don't.

There’s a huge amount of pressure on women now. Expectations are much higher, as well as the lack of a village that’s so often talked about.

There are interesting studies to show that mother’s today spend much more time with their children. Parenting is much more intense, it’s become Olympic level in some circles! My mum definitely didn’t worry herself about setting out Montessori, open ended play stations etc. Parents in the 60s/70s/80s could just kick their kids out into the streets for hours.

@BlueandWhitePorcelain

Your anecdote is unusual in that case 41% of women in 1958 were still in work 2 years after the birth of their first child, this figure was 58% for women in 1970.

I will reiterate what I said upthread:
Yes giving birth and having babies is easier and safer than Victorian times, but from the 60s? Not so much

I think there is a point around 1960s/70s when it was easier - contraception and vaccinations available, smaller family sizes, food readily available, domestic appliances exist, housing more affordable, much more comprehensive maternity and postnatal care. Not perfect eg no right to request a CS and little awareness or support for mental health or support for SEN children.

The consequence of smaller family sizes though is a reduction in the number of people available to provide support and knowledge. Those 10+ children per family in previous generations would have included older girls who would be expected to help out with the younger ones. Generations overlap more so more sisters, cousins, aunts etc around. Nobody had ten children in their two bedroom house all day. Most of them would have been outside all day entertaining themselves and the older ones working and/or looking after the younger ones.

I don't know, I'm late gen x...benefitted from a free uni education, all the mod cons, the maternity services weren't ground to shit, sure start at the bottom of the road for the first two, cbeebies was actually entertaining - (Sid and Andy - space pirates - big cook little cook)

Every generation believes they have it hardest.

Women have always worked. Some lost the jobs they trained and were qualified for because pregnancy ended their jobs.

They didn't have washing machines, effective Hoovers, dishwashers, instant or pre prepped meals. Shopping had to be done daily and takeaways were very rare. Women felt tied to the kitchen. No central heating so ash and cleaning fires was a daily grind.

No TV to entertain kids.

Terry nappies were a massive chore and many had more than one in nappies at a time.

Many husbands did no chores and very little childcare.

Not all women lived in the villages they were born in and isolation was a feature then.

Women generally would have to use public transport as they wouldn't have the car (if there was one).

Mostly the attitude was "shut up and get on with it".

It surely depends on when you’re comparing it with. The sort of relatively recent era, when you stayed in hospital for a week, is very different from the days when you had to wash nappies with no washing machine at all, and if e.g. you had trouble breastfeeding, substitutes weren’t easily available, especially if you were poor.

My maternal GM, born around 1900, who had 6 (one died as a baby) once told me that she’d asked her own mother, who had 10, how on earth she’d managed without a pram.

‘I used my arms.’

I was born in the 50s. Most of the women neighbours and school friends mothers were SAHMs, when I was at school. In my year at secondary school, only a few mothers worked.

I’ve been studying my family history. It seems like in the 18th century, it was about the norm to have 13 children - many died under five. Victorian times, they had between 6 - 10 children. If they had 6 children, maybe 2 survived to adulthood. My father’s family moved into Leeds for the Industrial Revolution. There were two major cholera epidemics in Leeds in the 19th century; and I saw in the parish records, 4 members of the family in one household died on the same day.

The genealogy website prompts users to look for other children, if there is a gap of three years plus.

IMO, it would have been difficult to expect much help from other women, when it seems they mainly had a pregnancy every year; and anything up to 10 children, given the poor families probably lived in 2 rooms?

I also think it must have been soul destroying to have no access to clean water, adequate housing and proper sanitation - to see children dying of malnutrition, cholera, typhus, dysentery; and working in dangerous factories. Imagine looking after 4 members of your family with cholera and seeing them die on the same day?

Married women virtually had no rights, such the vote, owning their own property, custody of children, protection from domestic violence and rape within marriage…

I can’t see how sleep training or whatever problems modern women have, can compare to the scale of non stop pregnancies, childbirth, disease and death for women before the twentieth century, with the fear of the workhouse ever present?

@Blueskies3 I agree it’s not as simple as stay at home parents have it easier than working parents. Some women obviously have no interest or desire to be with their children all day.

The fact that I have time though is because I am a stay at home mum - there’s nothing else (like paid employment) competing for my time with my child.

Many stay at home parents like myself are financially comfortable and well supported.

Money (up to a certain point) does make life a lot less stressful and more comfortable.

If I was a stay at home mum with an unsupportive partner with no money to go out everyday with my daughter and I was forced to live in a small/unsuitable apartment because that’s all I could afford I don’t think I’d enjoy being a stay at home mum as much as I do.

Women were not allowed to know or given much choice in the matter

Parenting standards were extremely low by today's

Hired help if rich or extended families, close knit communities and children expected to do their share if poor

I completely agree. This very modern philosophy that all mothers must, ecstatically, sacrifice themselves utterly on the Altar of Motherhood is insane. And I know it contributed massively to my PND, too.

I felt like a freak of nature because I wanted to sometimes be allowed to actually finish a hot cup of coffee, or shower for 5 minutes in peace. I honestly believed that I should spend every waking moment just gazing devotedly at DD. My horrible midwife genuinely sneered at me when I wanted to stop BF at only 4 weeks, and reduced me to tears.

@Katypp 10000% attchement parenting is a dangerous alt right Christian crock of BS that they peddle as science based to terrify women into compliance.

Keep them knackered and they can't escape.

There is no evidence a routine or sleep training will traumatise a baby. There is bucket loads of evidence that sleep deprivation causes mental health issues.

God, the amount of shit I've seen on the internet, I hope people aren't just googling for the answers to these parenting challenges.

Responses like this kind of illustrate the problem with the current obsession with baby-led care.
Unless I misunderstand you, what you seem to be saying in your last paragraph is that the baby is the only important person in a family and everyone else should not mind being 'inconvenienced' by a parent who is sleep-deprived?
I honestly struggle to get on board with the concept of a baby - who will have no memories before around 18m to two years if they are lucky - should be able to rule the roost in a functioning family.
Yes, they are tiny and need care and attention, but this silly narrative that they must not be put down if they 'refuse' to sleep in a cot, must not be allowed to cry, must get instant attention at all hours of the day and night is ridiculous in the extreme and is a short cut to PND for the mother.
But then, she doesn't matter does she?
And remember, the research and studies so beloved on MN that show everything up to now is wrong, are about children and adults. We have no way of knowing how today's best practice will pan out yet.

Are you unable to use google?

All sleep training methods are about reducing the amount of help given to a child to fall asleep, until they can do so without help (you place them awake in their cot, they drift off to sleep). In some methods you remove help very slowly even introducing other dependencies that are theoretically easier to wean off later e.g. dummies, and others you remove all help at once.

When babies know how to fall asleep on their own, they won't cry for their parents whenever they lightly wake up overnight going from one sleep cycle to the next, or when they just wake up for a random reason. They will though still cry when there's something wrong with them, contrary to your insinuation.

This means baby will be able to ask you for less help because they will only cry for you when they are unable to drift off to sleep for whatever reason, resulting in better sleep for themselves and the whole family.