To be confused by the two working parent set up

Not in my world it wasn't. Did anyone else on here have flexible working in the 1990s??

My mum had flexible working in the early 80’s so was most definitely a thing by the 90’s!

I also don’t recognise this world of women staying at home and never doing paid work once they had children.
My mother worked full time until the day she reached state retiring age. Her sisters and sisters in law worked too. All until state retiring age. None of them finished work before then.
I didn’t have free childcare I had to pay for it and trust me, it was much harder to arrange then than it is now.
Raising children has always been hard. Some people are more privileged than others in all walks of life. I used to long for a break. Many women had family help, I didn’t so I just got on with it.

My mother was from a middle class family and it wasn't much better. She didn't go to university, although her brother did, as she was expected to marry a man who would take care of her. Career options were generally teaching or nursing which didn't require degrees back then (1960s)

Work may be easier, but I think ‘life” is worse. Yes, undoubtedly food is better appliances are better and so on, but there is a pessimism in the social air that is hard to miss, and no community much. People just aren’t happy.

When I say work is hard and demanding now I’m not saying that women didn’t ever do those jobs. I’m saying that what used to be fairly standard jobs that were now 9 to 5 ask people to bring their whole selves to work, work through lunch, work late, log on later, all this 24/7 bullshit that is driven by the partriarchy and is so damaging to family life and work life balance.

Sorry this is utter nonsense. Work has never been more flexible, work-life balance was not even a thing until the past decade or so and employees have never had as many rights as they do now.
The idea, in the 1990s, of demanding flexible hours to fit around looking after your children is just laughable.
Where on earth are you getting this information from and what has it got to do with the patriochy? Unless you mean women should have special rights because they are women? We 90s workers fought for equality not special treatment.

When I say work is hard and demanding now I’m not saying that women didn’t ever do those jobs. I’m saying that what used to be fairly standard jobs that were now 9 to 5 ask people to bring their whole selves to work, work through lunch, work late, log on later, all this 24/7 bullshit that is driven by the partriarchy and is so damaging to family life and work life balance.

I'm not so sure I agree with this.

I think work is different now but in many ways it has never been more flexible. There are loads of posters on here doing the school run every day while working full time. I don't do it, I use childcare, but many do. Some even see it as a basic right and post about how pissed off they are if they have a manager who expects them to work 9-5

I think this is where class comes into this argument too. I was the first person in my immediate family to stay in school past 15. Then first in my extended family past 18. Then uni. Then first one to have a professional job. And I'm only a teacher.

None of the previous women in my family had the opportunity to be educated to the standard which would have enabled careers, which makes me v angry. Such wasted potential, because it 'wasn't for the likes of us'.But that's another thread

Thank you

My Mum wanted to go back to work after she had my sister in the late 60s. She ended up a SAHM for a few years before finding something. Was low paid and part time because there was little in the way she could manage otherwise.

When I say work is hard and demanding now I’m not saying that women didn’t ever do those jobs. I’m saying that what used to be fairly standard jobs that were now 9 to 5 ask people to bring their whole selves to work, work through lunch, work late, log on later, all this 24/7 bullshit that is driven by the partriarchy and is so damaging to family life and work life balance.

Those posters who have been ‘offended’ by my post because they are thinking I have insinuated that women NEVER did complex or demanding have completely missed the point.

What time frame are you talking about though?

each decade you go back the glass ceiling was lower and the amount of women who had the opportunity to do complex or well paid work is smaller.

and complex and demanding are different and not necessarily connected.

there were fairly limited opportunities for my mother after marriage and children in then 70s and 80s but that started to improve in the 90s

for my grandmothers there were very limited choices post war -
it was all demanding but not complex

for the generations before there were no choices

i would argue that prior to the 90s the volume of women doing well
paid complex work was rather limited

Your mother might have been doing low paid part time jobs, not everyone was. Plenty of women did demanding complex jobs. You werent just giving an example you generalised about the difference in jobs then and now.

Not a chip just want a bit of accuracy and respect for the women who were actually doing complex demanding work even if you didn't know them.

The crap about how demanding and complex jobs now compared to the past. Plenty of demanding jobs done by women in the past, we weren't all doing very part-time low paid jobs.

How have to extracted that from @MrsZiggywinkle 's post ?

Where did I say that?

I was giving the example of my Mum and pretty every woman I knew in my small little world as a child.

You haven’t got a chip on your shoulder at all, have you?

Neighbours, schools, older women in family (grandmothers etc) and largely kids occupied themselves etc.

Oh right we were little women doing undemanding jobs for pin money but now women are all high powered executives/scientists/doctors doing demanding work. Thanks for putting us right.

I agree with this. I sometimes wonder where I got the energy from. But the point is we all did it - there was not a golden age when working and looking after children was easier. Having primary-age children or preschoolers and holding down a job always has been and always will be difficult and exhausting. I suppose I would just appreciate an acknowledgement amidst all the moaning that three months maternity leave, 6am start, no flexible working and no free childcare really was not that fantastic, but no one wants to hear it!

Completely agree with @Katypp and @Smoosha

As I've said previously, this stage of life is really hard work. Looking back I can't believe how little rest we got and what we managed to get through in a day or a week - I certainly don't have the energy to do it now. I have every sympathy with the opening post. I remember feeling that I'm not doing any of my roles as well as I somehow felt I 'ought' to be.
However, on threads like these, what people feel they need to correct is this notion that parents of babies or small children in 2025 (or 26 now) somehow are the first generation to live through this, and the notion that life is so much harder for everyone today than at any time in the past.
It isn't. Every generation has it's own struggles. The aim is that we all try and leave the world a little better than it was, but ultimately, we all have to live with the World that is around us at the time we are living.

I agree with this. (Although this attitude is there for many things not just working mothers. Just life in general). There was even a post on another thread earlier when someone said that some young people are choosing not to have kids and one reason was that maternity pay/leave was so bad so who could blame them! It’s never been better! I’m not arguing whether or not it could be better than it is now, but it’s ridiculous to think that it is so bad now that people would use it as a reason not to have children when they didn’t in previous generations when it was much much worse!

There's very little point in discussing what women had before except to illustrate why changes were positive. But too often the attitude is, "we had it harder, so you should be happy with what you've got".

It's not so much that for me anyway, it's the constant rhetoric that no one has ever had things as difficult as today's working parents, who seem to be utterly convinced that everyone before them had an easy time of it.
Those of us who were working mothers in the 90s know this is utter rubbish and in fact, today's working parents have much, much more than we did - yet still they complain and want even more.
So it's not about being happy with what you've got, it's more a case of acknowledging what you've got and don't envy 'greedy boomers' because their working lives really, really were not better than yours.

I've had recently conversations with the EDI lead at work, and she's incredibly frustrated that people don't understand that this exact sort of thing is a critical part of her role.

She needs to a) make sure the organisation can employ the best staff by understanding the needs and demands of those staff and b) make sure the organisation can represent and serve our community (a charity) by meeting their diverse needs.

The charity employs an unusually large number of older staff and will face a cliff-edge of retirees in 5-10 years, but many of the older staff have a big resistance to anything to improve the lot of working mothers. I faced prejudiced comments when I started the job pregnant (with my manager's knowledge), and turned the role around in 5m before I went on mat leave.

There's very little point in discussing what women had before except to illustrate why changes were positive. But too often the attitude is, "we had it harder, so you should be happy with what you've got".

@RecordBreakers @Smoosha The 60’s is the period I am referring to for my parents. The 20’s would be the period I am referring to for my grandparents, and keep in mind back then many women had children where there were 20 odd years between youngest and eldest given certain religions, no contraception etc.

very different times!!

The older children. The next door neighbours children. Whoever was around. Or they went out to play.