Do we find motherhood harder than previous generations and if so why?

[user365683]

This is just my personal experience so I could be wrong. When I first became a mum I think it shocked me how hard it was. I think the sudden change in lifestyle/lack of sleep etc. My sister has recently also had a baby and was the same. She even said to me why did no one tell her how hard it was. Our mothers response was it's not hard just different. My MIL seems to think similar. I have heard similar from other friends aswell.

So my question do you think previous generations found it easier and if so why do you think that is? Or do they just forget/look back through rose tinted glasses?

My only possible thought could be when I look at the differences between my mums parenting to mine. She apparently left me downstairs in the cot from day 1 at night. Obviously that would be considered terrible parenting now but she said it was just normal then and meant she was never sleep deprived.

I think partlly it's the lifestyle change. If you're having kids in your 30s after a decade plus of fancy meals out, weekends away with friends, foreign holidays etc it's a much bigger adjustment than in the 70s-80s when that kind of lifestyle was less accessible.

It was more acceptable and affordable to work part time or not at all for a few years at least rather than having to do it all

Families lived closer so general support was more accessible

Expectations were lower - no Insta Yummy Mummies, endless podcasts and blogs about how to be the perfect parent and raise perfect children

Less SM crap to screw up the kids although lots of other ways, but SM is so intrusive

Different parenting - letting them cry, sleeping in their own room, leaving the pushchair outside whilst you nipped into the shop, let "targeted" and expensive playgroups and more kids running riot in a church hall

I think in some situations it's because women didn't work, they were more likely to have a local support network, and didn't have the internet to compare experiences. They saw only others around them getting on with it and felt obliged to crack on too.

On the other hand, I think the average age plays a part too. Generally someone younger is going to find it easier to adapt to a new normal, and has more energy than an older first time parent. Anecdotally, the parents I know with large age gaps have found it far harder second time around.

I think I have it harder than my mum did but easier than my gran did.

We have such pressure to be all the things all the time - the perfect parent, the glittering career, the perfect spouse, on the PTA, remain attractive, raise perfect children. I think the 80s was much more laid back in many ways, we were not actively parented, we played out unsupervised from daily young, parents shouted and smacked and never felt bad about it.

But my gran didn’t have a washing machine, had many more kids, still had to work but in a more manual role (didn’t pay for childcare, went back to work when youngest went to school and left them to make their own way from school). Parented through the 50s, so had far fewer options regarding her own education and career.

I do think an entire libraries worth of parenting books between the last few generations have manufactured a false narrative of control available to a parent. So the accepted view is that if you perform as a parent who does ABC they will achieve a child that does xy and z.

Effectively, I think they have over corrected for the assumption that a child is entirely ruled by nature to one were the accepted view is that a child is entirely driven by nurture.

And in that shift you produce a legitimacy to blame a parent entirely for a child's (presumed) failings that cause a parent feelings of deep guilt and shame when things aren't going well.

Plus you have the panopticon of social media to play audience and executioner to parents as individuals and as a group as a whole.

Still though, at least we have washing machines and dishwashers.

@Zanzibar55

We just know more about child development now and try being better. Why is it that this generation of parents think they know better than all previous generations? When I look at some Mumsnet threads - toddlers tantrums, teenagers out of control, then I think the 'old fashioned' ways can't have been so bad.

It depends if you think things like hitting your child is an acceptable alternative. SIDS accounted for 1 in 500 deaths in the 1980s Vs 1 in 2000 now because parents aren't putting their baby in a room alone from day 1 on their tummy even though mine would have probably slept better.

Honestly I think parenting IS harder than it was 20/30/40 years ago! We actively parent, not just leave kids 'to it', we don't have the whole street to help with childcare, we don't smack our kids or leave them in playpens etc.

I think it's also interesting that as parents have 'parented' more, they're more and more likely to allow their kids to shirk responsibility for their actions. Maybe it's because if you put so much effort (or perceived effort) into a project, you want it to be right.

If I was doing badly in school, it was my fault. If I got told off in school, it MUST have been my fault. Now, it usually takes the best part of 5 years before a parent might accept that the problem may actually lie with their own child (or maybe their parenting methods), rather than the school.

Sadly for my kids, I parent a bit like my own parents.

We just know more about child development now and try being better.

I would say we think we know better, but in doing so have lost sight of babies and children as individuals. Whilst some stuff like safe sleeping guidance based on science etc which has saved lives obviously is an amazing step forward; a lot of the other crap isn't. Social media means more competitive parenting, more chances to push a money making guide to being a parent, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. So many at the baby group I went to were horrified that I would leave DS somewhere safe whilst I had a shower, or the absolute horror that I put him in his cot awake- but he was content with that, yet we are still told its bad. Obviously if he was distressed by it, would have been different, but so much judgement on stuff that isn't an issue.

I think we're more concerned with 'milestones' and development and feeling you have to fit in writing practice, and fine motor skills activities, and cycling, and swimming, and messy play, etc.

Plus even if not in an 'insta' way there has to be time for 'making memories'. I'm a member of a parenting fbook group and some people seem to doing days out every day, animal parks, water parks, beach days, every day of the weekend, every day of the holidays. That must take its toll, financially, but also in terms of trying to fit everything else in.

I think it used to be much harder. My grandmother spent 5 years in Great Ormond Street from age 2 and her mum was allowed to see her once a week - no information between visits, and if she didn't have the bus fare, then that was that. When she herself had children she was in hospital for a year (related to the same problem) and her children were allowed to see her once from the window - in the meantime the navy wouldn't release her husband so the kids were looked after by her disabled mum with no help or support available. If her parents had been able to afford to take her to the doctor originally, she would have been saved a lifetime of pain and disability - but the reality of motherhood for her mother was working, running a family, dealing with a husband with PTSD and WW1 injuries, and living in two rooms.
I think I have it a lot easier!

@Maireas

No such thing as "previous generations". Too many variables with class, economic bracket, ethnicity, region, family support etc.

This ^

Despite what people seem to think, my mother worked, my grandmother worked and I worked - my children are now mid-thirties.

I remember parenting being bloody hard work so I sympathise.

Different expectations now. Firstly that woman should do everything but also the involvement in bringing up kids.

Also women have always found it hard, they've just rarely been given a voice in the past.

My mother and I both had children relatively young ( 26& 28). So perhaps less of a gap also I watched DM parent DB (born when I was aged 12). So I don't think our experiences were that far removed from each other. We both returned to work part time, breast fed and tried to give our children a stimulating and loving experience. We both mainly home cooked but would use a jar/ pouch now and then, believe that all children need fresh air and a bath daily. I'd say our experiences were very similar tbh.

@BiscuitLover09876

Different expectations now. Firstly that woman should do everything but also the involvement in bringing up kids.

Also women have always found it hard, they've just rarely been given a voice in the past.

Quite.

I think some forget.

I also think there was far less pressure. Kids were expected to slot into the family but nowadays they seem to be the centre of everything - way more activities, entertainment etc.

We also tend to live in a more independent and therefore isolated way than our parents did in many cases. The 'village' has gone for many of us.

It's bloody brutal.

Despite what people seem to think, my mother worked, my grandmother worked and I worked - my children are now mid-thirties.
Yes. The women in my family, as far back as I know of them, all worked, in tedious, difficult, poorly paid jobs. My life is much easier than their's and I'd hazard that this is the case for most people in this country.

"Insta mummying" or whatever is not obligatory, nor is the obsessive helicopter parenting.

I think there is far more pressure on parents now to be perfect. I think there seems to be a school of thought that a child must be constantly attended to and their lives enriched endlessly.
When I had my oldest dc (34 and 32) there was none of that pressure. Children fitted into our lives. I never felt guilty if the dc watched some TV, played in the garden unattended, spent the weekend doing nothing more exciting than a walk to the local park for an hour on the swings. I didn't feel the need to entertain them, I didn't feel the need to cater exclusively for them, they ate family meals (no snacks) if they didn't eat they waited until the next meal, they went to bed and they stayed there until morning (from three months) and they didn't disturb me unless they were ill. They brought home reading books but there was no homework and no spellings it all seemed so much easier.
My dd seems to put herself under so much pressure to be everything at all times for dgs which is something I and my friends at the time never felt was necessary.

Oh and I worked, I went back to work when eldest was six weeks old the dc went to a childminder who did much the same as I did at home for the princely sum of £35pw each child all meals included from 7.45am to 5.45pm five days a week.

I was raised with stories that parenthood was difficult and unpleasant - but also that so was the rest of life. That didn't mean there wasn't a lot of joy too, but struggle is part of living. I had older family members discussing their mother having gone out to wring a chicken's neck to start preparing dinner, the luxury of not having to grow things we had that they didn't have as kids, and the prevalent use of various 'mother's little helpers'/self-medication by parents that was normalized because it's to be expected to use things that make things feel better/less stressful. So in part, I think the "it's not hard just different" could be a reflection to the rest of life, it's a different kind of hard that takes getting used to, but we're never entirely used to.

Parenting is difficult and I don't think anyone can be really prepared for their first, but I think another part is if expectations unrealistically high and it's contrasted with something easier or viewed as getting in the way of real living, it's only harder. We've all these things around us selling us lifestyles and ways we should be living that in my grandparents' day weren't really a thing. I think that there is much higher expectations of being all the things and facilitating everything for our children that can make things harder so some of it many parents doing more now and expecting to do even more in some spaces.

I've been reading the thread on missing out through early marriage, and in some posts there is a strong contrasting of the freedom of pre-marriage before the drudgery of growing up and responsibilities. It reminded me of some of the things my mother used to say. She had far more 'freedom' than her mother even after kids, only woman in the family who was a SAHP (some others worked from home and were called SAHP/housewives back then, more worked out of the home, but she was today's model of not working while at home at all SAHP) and had far better health, but was generally miserable with adulthood responsibilities and spoke quite a bit about the great things she'd done before and the misery of marriage and parenting. I think this compartmentalizing of life of the fun free times with the 'grown up' times can make things harder. I didn't have that - my few 'wild years' are to me just things I did and many of the things before it were far harder and scarier. For me, the time before kids had a lot of challenges so while really hard, it mostly just felt like a different kind of hard, but at least I'm not alone and I have more spaces I can talk about that compared to the troubles before.

I can't relate to much of this.
My mum did tell me there would be hard days but I would be a great mum and enjoy it. I genuinely did not find it hard. I found mat leave an absolute joy and found my first baby such fun.
I also don't think she worked less or had a harder time in general. We are both teachers. In her time she got less mat leave . She had way more gadgets than me. We had less money and had no freezer, tv, dishwasher, tumble dryer. She had all of this.
We both breastfed. The only difference is she mostly washed nappies, I mostly used disposable.
I just loved having my babies and the hardest part each time was going back to work.

My mum certainly found it hard, all three were very bad sleepers and my dad barely helped after the baby stage, and did nothing domestic or to do with childcare, even though my mum worked three days a week.

I’d say a big difference now to our grandparents’ generation is that we all work and tend to go back to work, and our lives are a lot more hectic in terms of always having plans and being busy. I’m expecting my first and think it will be tough going from a diary booked out on weekends for months in advance and a very intense career to being at the beck and call of a tiny human, whereas my grandmothers didn’t have proper careers and stopped them when they had children, and life was a slower pace back then. I also suspect support networks were a lot stronger and more local so you’d know everyone on your street with babies and be in and out of each other’s houses more often etc which would make life more bearable as people would be more honest/it would be more obvious how they were feeling and doing.

I think many women then were used to having larger families and being around their siblings to help out,feed and change them and so generally had more expectation of life with DC.Often they would marry fairly young and be expected to give up work or go PT when married!Bottle feeding then was the norm ,and it wasnt unheard of to "put an extra scoop" of baby formula in to help them feel fuller and sleep through ! My SIL remembers being the only one out of her baby group to BF! Now most women are expected to work and look after DC.This is hard on young mums I think .However women then had very little independence and were expected to become FT HW,or have low paid PT jobs .They would often be completely reliant on their husbands ,and Divorce was frowned upon as were single mums in the 70s

I think kids are micro managed these days & have less freedom to get on with play etc. We also baby them much later, I was very independent at 12 or 13 and didn’t need constant parental control I don’t think parents let go now until the kids are in their 20s.

My DM and MIL did work but it was very of and on and they weren’t career jobs. They both chopped and changed according to how it fit into their lives at the time.
FILs mother had 9 children (several miscarriages), one room, and a husband who was in the merchant navy who came home once a year and impregnated her. DH always said she was miserable, wonder why.

-Lack of community: no neighbours or friends to babysit, no parents living nearby, everyone is at work all day and your kids are your own problem.

-No older children to play in a group with the little ones and take care of them: they’re all off doing activities or playing computer games. Cousins are unlikely to live nearby and smaller families means kids are less likely to have numerous older siblings.

-Higher expectations: Parents want to have careers and nights out and do the same activities they did before having kids. Plus there are a whole load of new activities like Netflix and computer games.

In summary, there’s more stuff that parents want to do but less babysitters available so they can do it. Which leads to a lot of resentment and struggle.