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

I didn't think it was hard at all, much easier than I expected from all the doom and gloom I saw online.
My kids are still very young oldest is starting reception in September, but the birth, babies part was a breeze to be honest.

Obviously can't say it out loud though or people think you are lying or goady.

Now we have a constant barrage of mumsnet / instagram posts / panorama documentaries berating mothers for feeding their child food from a jar, and making them ashamed to be seen to be doing so in public.

Example AIBU post: ‘Saw mum feeding baby from pouch in a cafe, it’s just junk food, why don’t mums today make and puree their own food?’ Followed by 200 comments saying how lazy and fat modern mothers are.

It has always been hard, there was hardly any choice over it at all until well into the 20th century. Look at how many women used to die in childbirth or just after, even among the very wealthy.

Yes, this is true
My first was born in 1993 and certainly then the expectation was that those with 'careers' went back to work. Certainly I and all my contemporaries did.
The difference was - rightly or wrongly- we had no expectation of any changes in the workplace once we returned to it. So flexible/home working was pretty unheard of and because there was no expectation, we did just get on with it.
Maternity leave was also much shorter - I think it was 6 weeks on 90% pay then another 12 weeks on SMP, then that was it. I think i even got a bonus for going back before three months if I remember correctly.
Because OUR mothers had either been housewives or retired at 60, there was more grandparent care done. And because much of our guidance on childcare came from our mothers anyway, there was much less angst about what they were doing 'wrong'. We were the new mothers so we did not assume we knew better. That is a key shift I think.
Different times.

I think we have over complicated things with motherhood and that is the overboard information that we get from the internet and social media. I remember once my Mum saying it is ok to feed your baby out of a jar, they won't die, but it will give you a night off. I also had pnd and was felt like a complete failure because I wasn't doing the tummy time, reading enough, cuddling enough, socialisation, organic homemade foods, language acquisition thing well enough. Plus having a baby is sold as a fairytale and while I love being a parent it certainly isn't one long sweet fairytale. There are hard, tiring and boring bits to it.
Also there are higher pressures on us financially. If we want to hold on to our jobs and most of us need to we have to return to work sometimes earlier than planned.

There definitely was more of a family and community point of call. My mums an 80s baby and her and her sister used to knock on her neighbours door and take their baby out regularly. Times have massively changed! People would be horrified if kids did that today.

I think as well previously housework was all consuming...no washing machines so you'd hand wash, no fridge or freezer so shopping every day, no convenience food so lots of cooking from scratch. Women didn't have time to sit on the floor playing with their kids. I remember a thread on here where a new mum was not even going for a wee when she was alone with her baby because she didn't want to put them down, she thought she had to wait for her partner to come home...

I had no family in this country so it was just me alone after husband went back to work with the baby! none of my friends had babies and it was just so hard and lonely.

Totally agree. I went to a childminder when I was a child because both my parents worked in the 80s/90s as did many other children so it’s not a new thing. Some people seem to not realise that not every woman was a housewife back then either.

This.

Add in underfunded NHS, maternity & women’s services and it’s a shit storm.

People are talking about their struggle more than they used too. Must Women have to work full time. Still do the biggest share of childcare and housework.

I really don’t think this is the main reason. My mother had me at almost 40 in the 80s and says there is so much fussing now about rearing children compared to back then. I had my first at 32 and adapted easier to it than some people I know who had them in their early 20s.

I think in the olden days people, especially women, were around more babies growing up. Closer knit families. So they had experience of having children around.... most of us nowadays - the first baby we look after is our own.

Poor women have always worked.

@WaitedBlankey what era are you referring to?

I think it's always been hard but less talked about. My grandmother had what would probably have been diagnosed as severe post partum depression which she got no help at all for.

I think - and sorry if anyone else has already mentioned this - that we are also expected to have more input into our children. I suspect that this is a detriment to both parents and children. There are aspects of this that we can't avoid - when I was a child I went to the local village shop a 5 minute walk away alone from being around 5 or 6. There is no way I would let my children do that (our shop is a little further away but a similar village set up) because the roads are so busy. So they lack that independence.

But I spend far more time supervising, joining in with games and helping with homework than my parents ever did. I have three aged 8, 6 and 4. I am now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, in brief glimmers, but dealing with the three of them often feels like a second full time job. I'm sure there are those who think that I am just pathetic, and maybe I am, but that might be part of it.

When my mum had her first baby in 1970, she stayed in hospital for 10 nights so that she could rest. My sister was looked after overnight by the nurses and midwives in the nursery. During the day, the new mums were helped with washing, feeding, taking care of baby etc. This was for a straightforward delivery, married adult woman on the NHS in London.

When my mum came home with Dsis, there was no expectation to get out to baby classes, baby yoga, rhyme time etc. Mum was surrounded by other women in her friendship group and family.

We have over complicated early motherhood and placed so
many unnecessary pressures on ourselves to breastfeed at all costs, get our figures back, make lots of mum friends, get baby out and about, all while building a strong new family and making memories.

Women have always struggled with adapting to motherhood but we have made it worse with our unrealistic expectations.

This exactly. I completely agree. And many of the friends I met at uni have eventually sold up in London or wherever they ended up, and moved back home to be nearer parents and family. I did it! And lots of the people I've met since moving back up north have done the same, left for uni, forged careers, had kids, moved back to their home town or at least nearby. No one thrives without friendship and support.

Years ago women were taught their whole lives how to be home makers and mothers.
Now women are working full time, AND trying to figure out how to be a mother and split homemaker 50/50, which it never is.

Are you mad? We only got 12 weeks maternity leave. Of course we had to go back to work early, or quit entirely and be too skint to pay bills.

Definitely! My granny had her babies in the late 50’s. She worked part time as a hairdresser once my mum went to school & then in an office when she was widowed when mum was at secondary. I think caring for the home was much harder work, both physically and how much they had to do, but they had no childcare costs, my mum says from a young age she would let herself into the house (door was never locked) and all the mums on their council estate looked out for & made sure all the kids were behaving and where they were supposed to be! My gran laughs at all my baby books as they had lessons at school in how to care for babies (actual babies that mums brought in!) even how to peg your washing out properly!

I think a lot of the challenges now are this loss of a village, increasing housing costs and lack of council homes meaning mums and dads having to work FT & pay for childcare. My parents were the first I knew to have a “bought house,” everyone else rented a decent council house.

Absolutely absurd (and offensive).

Add this to the list of stresses for modern parents - they have to work to pay the bills, but then if not spending 24 hours a day with their child they’re neglecting them in some way / ‘haven’t learned how to parent’.

They don’t live in the nurseries full time you know. When did it begin that unless mums were ‘actively parenting’ every second of the day, they were crap? Certainly wasn’t the case when I was a child.

OP I think you are trying to call people snowflakes ir something similar. Give us some examples then of the youth of today being hopeless? Or maybe you’re just being goady with nothing to back it up.

I also think what people perceive as success (for want of a better word) around birth also doesn't help.

When I was told that, for various reasons, my twins had to be c-section I felt like a failure. To not even "try" naturally, after everything that had been said at antenatal classes just felt like a complete fail.

I was brought up by my grandparents and my Nana, kindly but firmly (and rightly!), pointed out the changes from when she gave birth. Her twins were undiagnosed so caught everyone off guard, which was dangerous. And when she was pregnant a successful birth was classed as one where both mother and baby survived.

Whilst it's good that standards in many things have been raised sometimes we do lose sight of the actual important bit, and put too much pressure on bits that ultimately don't matter 1, 2, 10 or 20 years later.