To be confused by the two working parent set up

I’d love to know when this time was too
I’m 61 and have always had to work - lone parent from DC being 4/5
DM always worked
My DGM born in 1903 went back to work as a teacher in 1939 and stayed until retirement - she had been forced to give up teaching once married before that but was allowed to return to help the war effort

Two salaries were always essential unless you wanted to live on the breadline, or the man had a very good job, banker, civil service or something, ordinary jobs didn't support a family at anything but the most basic level. The myth is that it wasn't like that in the past for most people.

Just came here to agree. This simply isn't true at any point in my life. Sure, there were some women who didn't work but very many did using GParents where available and nurseries if not.
From about 1965 every single mum I knew, worked. Maybe after the youngest started school, but they worked. Part-time, term time, cash in hand, domestic-whatever but they worked. The vicar's wife taught in a local school.
Household budget/luxuries/sanity. Take your pick.
ExDP spent lots of time with his GM, even going to the school near where she lived. People did what they could,
Would just add, no-one I knew was wealthy at all.

My mum only just retired at 66 . Always worked as did my dad. They had no help and really struggled with childcare/housework and full time jobs. I think my mum spent her 40s on the verge of a breakdown . I did the childcare from 9 onwards for my younger siblings after school.
I dont think it used to be easier at all. Its just for some they could have one parent working and one at home.
I think wages need to be higher in general to keep up with the cost of everything.

I don't think we should be harking back to the good old days of young children being latch key kids from the age of 6. Someone must have minded you while your parents were both at work especially during school holidays but plenty of people tell me that there were no nurseries like there is today. No school breakfast clubs. Working people now are out the house 8 till 6 every day or longer, so I'm assuming that "full time work" meant the same then. Did you take yourself to and from school, and start cooking the evening meal?

I agree, OP. And you know what the most galling thing of all is with the set up we have these days? Women had it drummed into them for years that it was a bad idea to be a housewife, to give up your independence and full time work because if your husband buggered off, or died, you'd be stuck.

So then women DID keep their careers, their full time work, the kids in nursery for longer than the adults are in work every day. And yes, for a number of years, there were many women that thought "thank fuck for that" after their husband turned out to be an abuser, perpetually unfaithful, or just a massive disrespectful arsehole treating his wife like a skivvy. It was worth a woman doing all the paid work AND everything in the house because it meant if she was ever a single parent seh could afford her own house. It would be financially a struggle, or it would be a step down in size of house or flat, but it would still be doable.

But look at where we are now. We've got society set up so that (unless you are paid very well) it is ESSENTIAL to have 2 full time working adults in a household, just to afford the basics. The second salary is not for what it used to be for - a backup in case things went tits up but in the event everything went smoothly the extra money was nice as an extra to be able to afford nicer holidays or meals out, home improvements, etc. Now, 2 full time salaries are ESSENTIAL.

It's very difficult now for couples with kids who split up to set up 2 separate homes which can house the kids properly in each. As young children often live with their mother there are often dads who struggle to find accommodation for themselves big enough for kids to stay over, in the area they need to be. It affects everyone. Including grandparents who often end up with grandchildren living with them, or at least staying over every weekend.

Which means people in bad relationships could be just as likely to tolerate a bad relationship as they did in the past. Or worse, jump to another bad one, because at least they could combine households with someone else and share bills.

I am one of the lucky ones who managed to have kids just before housing and then the general cost of living shot up so had more choice. But I worry for my own young adult kids and the rest of their generation.

My mother worked , my grandmother worked

and they did that without washing machines and fridges

middle and upper classes were the minority

I never understand these posts. I suspect I am much older than the OP and my mother worked full time all her life from 14 years of age, a short time off when my brother and I were born and back to work. Life was hard and no benefits then. We didn't have a car and lived rurally so shopping all had to be done by bus and a fair walk to and from the bus stop. And of course no central heating, automatic washing machines, dishwashers or other modern conveniences, everything was harder and more labour intensive. It's a myth that women didn't work, if you were middle class (or above) maybe not but the middle class was much smaller then. Or it was misogynistic husbands who wouldn't let their wives work because of the stigma and wanting them under the thumb, even though the family was on the breadline.

@Soontobe60 thanks for that, I find women's lives in history really fascinating, and individual stories illuminate the challenges that most women had. It's only comparatively recently that the school leaving age was raised to 16, never mind beyond that.

My Grandmother and Great-Grandmother both worked full time hours around their kids - nights, weekends, evenings etc. and worked harder than a lot of office jobs that I and my peers work now. I agree, the myth of the SAHM actually only applies to a very small section of history and class.

I'm 47 and both my parents (now in their late 70s) worked. My Mum had to do everything herself, as my dad often worked away during the week.

Generally people like to look back and claim times were better/easier, but they really were not. Most women shouldered the responsibility of work, home and family by themselves. It's always been a juggling act.

I agree with this.

Grandparents get micromanaged so much they're better off not bothering, or they can tbe grateful with their supervised hour every so often, where you can't even slip 'em some sweets with a wink anymore.

My grandmother, born in 1904, started work at 14. I say 14 but in reality it was much earlier as she was the middle child of 14 siblings and their mother died when the youngest was a baby. Grandma was 10. Her older siblings were boys or married girls so as the oldest girl left at home she was tasked with raising her younger siblings. She left school and eventually went working in the mill at 14. She eventually finished work at 60, working full time throughout her life. Her daughter, my mother, also worked full time throughout her adulthood despite having 5 children born within a 9 year time span. Myself and my siblings have all worked as adults - only 1 sister worked part time but she too had 5 children. Whilst they were little she obtained a degree then worked full time in the NHS until she retired this year at 67. I had 9 months out of work when my eldest was born, but did go to uni and trained to be a teacher when she was a baby. I then worked full time until I was 59, went part time and am still working at 66. I plan to retire completely when I’m 67. I took 3 months leave when DD2 was born.
I’m not unusual - in my family and friendship group, most of us have worked full time most of our working lives.
We now have the benefit of automatic domestic appliances, online shopping, subsidised childcare, UC if unable to work, none of which were available to my grandma and mother, and not all available to me.
We have come a very long way in terms of improving the lives of working parents!

Exactly - the introduction of domestic appliances has removed the idea of women’s work @Screamingabdabz

I don't think this is quite fair, I think people very much value the village and I'd say parents very much want it more than ever. The difference is there are some changes in parenting values across the generations - my parents felt it was fine to smack and I don't so I won't accept them hitting my child. Similarly they are very blasé about certain safety issues like not putting ds in a car seat with a big puffy coat on. I try very hard not to sweat the small stuff because I really value a grandparent relationship, but equally there are safety issues which as a parent it is my job to step in on when my kid can't advocate for themselves. I firmly believe in discipline and clear boundaries for children but i also know how my mum spoke to me at times and how i felt as a child hearing her form of discipline and i don't want that for my child. My mother was married, my dad was really hands on and she worked part time and availed of loads of babysitting from relatives- I'm a lone parent working full time and I have to be very selective of when I ask her to babysit because she doesn't want to do it and really begrudges it. She would never ask to do anything with ds and I know that when she babysits he'll be sat in front of the TV all day which I feel really guilty about even though I'd never say to her about it. So she might do an hour or two for me every few months which she will later complain about. Me and my sister try to help each other out as much as we can but I would love to have a village and a more involved grandparent. Any friends I have who have kids have a grandparent or two who are really involved and they are very appreciative of this.

I do think however there are some grandparents (such as my own mum) who can weaponise babysitting against their adult children knowing things are tighter now financially. My mum will be very vocal about whether she'll be 'allowed' to give my ds chocolate since I'm so picky about what he eats (I've only ever asked her to cut grapes in half when he was younger and decided to breastfeed even though she didn't think I should). She'll talk about when she babysits things are on her terms and she will lie to me about things and tell ds not to tell me things which I find inappropriate. It makes me feel like I can't trust her to babysit to the point I've had to change job from a job I loved to have less evening work events I had to attend.

I think if you're saying you'll only spend time with your dgc and babysit as long as you have free rein to do whatever you want with someone else's children then I'd question what your motivation is with that? Because that's not in the best interests of either your dgc or your children?

You're absolutely right! I couldn't agree more. Plus, as I said upthread, women working for less money than men, fewer rights, no minimum wage and often "off the books" ie, not documented.
No "Golden Age" indeed.

Interestingly, it looks like the big growth in women working came in the 1940s and 1950s.

this article suggests that interwar (so 1920s and 1930s) only 10% of married women worked.

by 1951 this was 20%, by 1961 35% and by 1971 49%.

https://academic.oup.com/past/article/233/1/269/2915149

so if there was an age when most (married) women did not work it would have been the 1920s and 1930s and I definitely would not want to go back to then!

I totally disagree I’m afraid. I’m also in my 40s.

My mum “didn’t work” insofar as she didn’t have paid employment except some part time work in the school canteen. She didn’t have a car and there was no supermarket in our town. We didn’t own a microwave, a dishwasher or a tumble dryer - I only knew one person who had anything that fancy. And we only had a one-drawer freezer at the top of our under-counter fridge. So she had to walk to the shops for groceries several times a week, and walk me and db to school and pick up. Every meal cooked from scratch except occasionally we might have a Findus crispy pancake or a beef burger - but even then it would be with home-made chips. No breakfast or After school clubs back then. Most of our clothes were cotton so yes everything had to be ironed, they didn’t just fall out of the washing machine nicely like my DD’s plasticky school uniform does today. Suits had to go to a dry cleaner which was a bus ride or a long walk. Clothes were mended and altered and passed down. You couldn’t get anything delivered - mum had a Burlington’s catalogue for some purchases but everything else required a bus ride to the town. It was incredibly hard work for my mum. And we had so few of the conveniences that make our lives so easy today. I think people glamourise the past so easily. We were not poor or unusual - this is how life was. When the work at home was so much harder and so much more time consuming, it didn’t leave space for 40 hours of paid work a week.

Remember also how caring has changed - my mum helped care for my grandfather who was gravely injured in ww2, until he died in the 1980s. That meant travelling on a bus to see him three times a week while I was at school, as my gran couldn’t cope alone. After he died, mum cared for my grandmother whose health was pretty shattered. There was no social care help whatsoever and mum got no benefits for the caring work she did. When I was tiny, I recall my gran didn’t even own a proper washing machine so my mum would help her mangle the clothes after they’d been washed, then hang them on the line.

We didn’t have much family - most of my relatives had been killed in wartime or had lost partners and had not had kids. WW2 cast a long shadow for many families. There was no “village” aside from the church, and that never offered any practical help.

So whilst I agree it’s not easy now. It certainly wasn’t easier for everyone in the 80s and 90s.

What a depressing thread where women give domestic tips on babysitters, ‘letting the housework go’ or batch cooking as if it’s a woman’s sole destiny to be the crucible of these matters.

No. Let’s not perpetrate this sexist outdated Stepford wife crap. Women need to expect that their partners will be big boys (or girls) and carry half the load and no excuses. He might have a bigger job but tough shit, he can still empty a dishwasher, cook tea or help the kids with homework. It’s not rocket science.

My Mum worked from when I was about six. School days, I’d go with a load of kids on the mini bus, which picked up from just around the corner and brought me home again. I had a key to let myself in and was home alone until my Mum got in around 5 (so for about an hour). Tuesdays I would go to a friend of hers and wait there for her, she’d have a coffee with her friend and then we’d go home.

School holidays were more problematic, and I would go to friends down the road most days, or next door, or go and stay with my Gran for a few days. Then my Mum got a job in a school so holidays weren’t a problem.

I don’t know if child minders didn’t exist in the 70s, but I certainly wasn’t the only one in my class with a house key around my neck.

And oh look @AmIHumanOrAmIAYeti has proved my point!!

Working is a tool to obtain money - it doesn't make you morally superior.

I know - it feels impossible to me too. I need to find some sort of work but it feels hopeless at the moment. What I feel is that people are pushed into making themselves so ill that they can't work and then might be entitled to PIP....there's no thought about prevention but then I think chronic illness isn't understood. And it's usually only the people with sensitive nervous systems who suffer so you'll get a lot of harsher women on MN invalidating your experience. They think that one week you're well and the next, you're diagnosed with a disease that can be treated and then you're well again, whereas we know that it's developed from years of trauma and people pleasing. I believe that all these chronic conditions are caused by stress and trauma at their root.

All I can say is have faith in yourself, take yourself seriously and don't think you have to push yourself to do what everyone else is doing.

Both my mother and my grandmother worked. (My mother was very career driven and did various qualifications alongside full time work in senior roles.). She married a man who was a capable adult too, who also worked full time but did more than his share of childcare and housework and home and car maintenance. There was no family on hand to help.

I did the same. We only had one child for a number of reasons but we have both been equal parents and there is no job in the house that we both won’t do. No family nearby to help out so we have arranged our work and lives as needed around DD. Neither of us has ever worked part time.

Unless you’ve a brood of 10 children I’ve no idea what is so challenging TBH.

YANBU, but I'd be bored shitless as a SAHM. I'm so glad I get to work, earn enough money to support myself if necessary, have my own bank account and a mortgage. Women (middle class women) didn't work but also had no autonomy. Jobs for women were poorly paid because people genuinely thought men should earn more.

Also, my mum's mum worked in a shop and my dad's mum worked in a factory, once their kids were at school. Working class women have always worked, but couldn't earn enough to support themselves. Thank goodness we're not in that situation anymore. Don't wish away your rights.

Also @Angels1111 (sorry not RTFT and others may have said this) if we go back to the generation that genuinely did not work as mothers (so I am thinking 1950s/60s more than 70s 80s (when my mum btw was a FT teacher), we now have so much more in the way of automated household help.

I recall my mum having a carpet sweeper rather than a hoover; my MiL had a twin tub to do the laundry. Coal fires, no central heating, no supermarkets really (I remember my mum in the 1970s visiting a Sainsbury's for the first time (she wasn't impressed)).

So we do need to be wary of looking back through too much of a rose tint. And I think I did see a PP point out that now women have so much more available to them in terms of range of careers and indeed possibility of education. DH who is in his 60s like me, recalls his older sibling looking at banking jobs (so probs in the 70s again) and the ad said "For boys with A levels or girls with O levels" wow just wow.