To be confused by the two working parent set up

Exactly. Not everyone was middle class and on a secure income.
Plus there was wage inequality, and no such thing as the minimum wage.

I totally agree. I work school hours for this reason but I don’t get paid a huge amount… I’d like to work more and earn more but I just couldn’t make it work. We have no family or wraparound childcare available where we live. It really would be the straw that broke the camels back if I worked full-time! I feel like I have to wear so many hats already it’s a constant juggle.

I honestly don't find it that stressful?

But I think I must be quite a high energy person relative to the Mumsnet norms - on another thread, people are describing as "exhausting" eating Christmas lunch, playing charades and being around family for 6-7 hours.

I think key is - I don't try and do everything, I don't WFH with the kids around ever, it's wraparound/holiday clubs when I am working. We have a cleaner and we outsource the DIY too. I recognise we are lucky to do so.

We both have slightly adjusted working patterns to pick the kids up from school once a week and buy a week of extra annual leave.

My children are young adults now but I was lucky when they were young - my DH can be an utter arse in some areas, but with children and the house it was split down the middle - we just mucked in and got on with it. I worked four days a week.

I stopped working when the DCs were babies/toddlers. I went back full time when youngest started school and managed 3 years before I ended up suicidal and having a breakdown. I now work part time and have room to breathe again. I do have DCs with additional needs and already have 3 hospital appointments for them in January.
We have less money these days, but then I'm not spending so much on take aways or easy meals because I was too exhausted to cook. I know lots of parents both work full time, but for us it just didn't work and we're all a lot happier with our current set up.

These are really good points.

I think there’s a bit of a myth about women not working in the past.
The women in my family have always worked (in addition to their husbands) due to needing the money. Staying at home was a luxury.

Don't kid yourself that things were easier in the past. It just leads to discontent.
Some people have always been fortunate, some less so. I'm 66. We had no family and not one day of free childcare.
We both had to work and tag team, sometimes it was very tough.
You'll find a way to make it work if you need to be out earning, that's just what people do.

Ive grown very bitter over this. I would give anything to be able to stay at home and raise my children myself. It hurts and frustrates me that I am forced to work and essentially pay someone else to raise them, there's no way we would survive financially on one income. My job doesn't allow for a part time or work from home option.

I think the idea of the village is hard because every family is suffering the same, and with little time to give to our own families, it's hard to give time to help other families.

We are very very lucky we have involved grandparents.

I also agree with this to a certain extent. I mean could you IMAGINE the ranting if someone started a thread about “a neighbour shouted at my DC when they were misbehaving”. It would be full of how DARE they!! No one should be telling off other people’s children. Etc etc.
If people want the “village” back to how it used to be, then you need to accept it all. If you want your lovely neighbour to look after your children, you’ll need to accept that they will also tell them off.

The other thing you see, especially this time of year, is people only wanting to “focus on their little family”. Sod single childless aunt Mary who is alone on Christmas. We’ll see her another day. We just want a nice small Christmas! Then 6 months later, why won’t aunt Mary look after our kids??? She’s not doing anything else!!

You're not wrong. It's a massive juggling act and imo o it works if both parents are on board.
We both condensed hours to do 4 days each meaning only 3 days childcare. On those days we ate freezer meals or a rare takeaway. We divided the jobs. I shopped and cooked and he cleaned.
On a weekend he's taken the kids out for a walk and I'd meal prep freezer meals.
It's a bloody hard few years but now they are both at school it's easier. I now have 2 afternoons off instead of a day so I get to pick them up and they have after school activities.

Ah, give your rose-tinted glasses a wipe. Grandparents have been whinging about the things they can and can’t do with their grandchildren ‘these days’ for hundreds of years. Parenting is ‘too soft’, kids are indulged… It’s a constant refrain.

I’m going to read between the lines and suggest that somewhere in your family, someone doesn’t appreciate your judgement wrapped up as advice. This is not a new phenomenon, nor a surprising one.

OP, I agree. The economy doesn’t support healthy family life, something has to give and it’s invariably the mother’s ability to do anything at all for herself.

I’m almost 58, my mother worked throughout my childhood, in low paid work. She had no time to keep healthy unless you mean walking to get groceries or to the bus stop to get to the launderette to wash the clothes. Meals cooked from scratch meant pork chops or something similarly quick to cook or findus crispy pancakes. At 10 I was frequently left to look after my infant brother while both parents were out.

I'm 40 my mum is 70 and she worked full time in a "serious" job.
She was the only mum in my class of 30 to work full time... this was london. So I do think working ft is pretty rare.

She worked 50+hr weeks in the city and it was crazy. I dont know how she did we had a live in nanny/house keeper / surrogate granny for some years.

Most of my friends mother's either didnt work or had a parttime job - certainly not anything youd describe as a "career"

Structurally there's a fundamental problem in society / work.

Im trapped in demanding 50hr pw ft work with small kids because I cannot go PT and if I step off the merry go round I will never be able to get back on. Its not right and something has to give if we want women to keep having children.

What year are you talking about your ‘’mothers generation”?

Women of my mother’s generation (middle class, can’t speak for the other classes) were very much expected to give up work to have kids when they got married, so glad this isn’t the norm any more.

I’d much rather be at work than looking after kids and doing housework, it’s so much more interesting and far far easier. We both work full time in paid jobs and have a cleaner. I wish we also had a cook, but instead there’s a lot of fish fingers, baked potatoes and batch cooking on the weekend.

It can be another part time job organising all the kid stuff so I decided to stop at one as it is defo me doing all this extra stuff. That’s how I survive it. He’s almost 5 and it’s a lot better now, he’s a great little chap and fun to be with.

I can't help but think that in my mother's generation they had to do the same stuff as us, but with no work

I'm probable older than you as I'm mid 60s and I'm a firm believer that this trope of previous generations of women not working is a complete fallacy. I'm talking 60s-70s here

If I think back to the streets where I lived and my friends from school, all the mums worked, many full time, sometimes in the evenings when the Dads were home. Kids came home to an empty house with parents both at work. Work wasn't a career as such, just a means of earning money to pay the bills. So probably termed working class.

My Dad worked away during the week, so my Mum didn't have the chance to take herself off to the gym, her way of keeping fit was the walk into and back from work. Oh God I'm starting to sound like a Monthy Python sketch.

Look - parents with young families are and always have been under pressure. The causes of the pressure change over time however pressure remains.

On a more practical note - rather than hiring the occaisional baby sitter, hire in people who will take the strain in other areas, eg a cleaner / housekeeper who will keep the house clean, change the beds, a gardener to mow the lawn etc. yes the mental load remains but there is some support. I get it that financially things can be tight so this may not be possible.

You aren't wrong, DC and housework and life admin is a whole job. But being a SAHM puts women in a very vulnerable position.

The ideal is to both be part time and have the number of children you can afford in that wage - although I fear it will be none!

That's not been my experience.

I've found the biggest issue about "the village" is that many grandparents are not local, or are working full time themselves, so the amount of support they can provide on a day by day basis is minimal.

If you don't have grandparents close at hand you are reliant on friends - but they are working if they don't have children, or have children themselves and limited.

Plus, parents who do have grandparents close at hand tend to rely solely on them and aren't interested in supporting those parents who don't, but then have no back up when they are away.

People are more suspicious and less friendly. So many posts on MN from people wanting someone to take their child to school as a one off and they don't know a single one of their child's classmates parents.

I think women having great careers is wonderful but when you add children into the mix, I believe women have been sold a complete pup.

The pressure and mental load is truly immense.
All of my friends, now 60's with very successful professional career's say it was brutally hard to juggle and have all suffered health wise.

I can wholeheartedly understand one and done for women now. Two and more children is very hard.

Some friends had husbands that definitely contributed BUT they were the organiser and mental load carrier for sure.

These are medics, baristers, school principals, rubbing their own businesses.
Combining both with 3-4 children was very busy.

My mother's generation that had professional career's had lots of help, a cleaner, childcare and didn't do any of the driving around of children that has emerged in the past 25 years.
Money went much much further years ago.
It was possibly to live extremely well with one not to mind two professional careers.

I tell my children to think long and hard before having children.
It is not something to rush into, particularly for women, whom invariably carry the load.

I think working class women always worked, at least part time and maybe from home (sewing etc). My more working class grandma worked in factories when my DM was small, and my more middle class grandma occasionally helped out with the family business.

I do agree there was more of a village though - my DM and uncle used to regularly get taken to the seaside by nuns (like in call the midwife) and my dad's mum lived in the same village as all her sister in laws and they communally watched the DC.

I wouldn't say I am particularly stressed but my DC are in primary school (not non-sleeping toddlers) and I am lucky to have to 'have a village'.

I agree.

I'm 45. My mum was a single mother and worked full time. In those days, no one found it concerning that I would walk home as a young child, let myself in, make a snack, and wait for her to come home. I definitely missed out on the chance to do any extracurricular activities but I'm not sure how many kids in my school did this anyway?

Not saying this was better for me as a child. But there was certainly less pressure on my mum to be present and to be a perfect parent.

Edit: also, people had children younger and could retire earlier. So my grandmothers were very present and able to pick up a lot of slack. My own mum still works at 70 and lives abroad anyway...!

There wasn’t UC, free school meals only if you were unemployed or support with mortgages etc etc

People were more ‘on their own’ financially.

So Agree, much harder

I worked a FT career job with two kids as a single mum from the time the youngest was 1. No help from my family who live abroad or my PIL who both worked FT and had carer responsibility. No other family members to help. Dad was useless and only had them for 6 hours on Saturday and I did all the lick ups and drop offs.

My mum was also a single mum working FT in a career job, so to me, the fact there are 2 of you is a gift.

The difference is that standards have gone up too much. Everything has to seem perfect. I prioritised my kids and work. The house....not. Housework was the absolute necessary. Dished done daily. Vaccum once a week, bins emptied when full. Clothes cleaned

What was not not as often as some people: bedding changed only every 3 weeks or so. Bathroom cleaned when needed. Floors wiped when I noticed they were dirty, same with dusting, oh and windows! Ideally, it would have been nice to do more often, more nobody died, and my kids in their 20s are very healthy as I am. Also my kids did eat more processed food than they should have but both were slim and they did get healthy meals at school and weekends. Ironically or not, they are both excellent cooks.

My mum was mostly at home full time until I was 12 but that was because she was an army wife and constantly on the move so no one would employ her. No family support at all. Then my dad retired and she had to go back to work full time as we needed the money. The majority of my friend’s mothers worked. This is in the 1980s.

A lot of mothers now complain about lack of village. What they actually want is free childcare to their exact specifications without the responsibility of elder care. That’s what the village used to be. Women caring for children and older family members. Yes there was more community but it didn’t make for less work for women.