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 grew-up with my grandparents on their Dorset farm and my gran brought up 4 kids, worked the farm with her husband and kept house. She said she was busy.

Previous generations had kids earlier.? So when you are young you don't miss what you didn't have. When you have kids aged 30 to 40ish you have lived and relaxed and it's a shock to the system

When you have kids aged 30 to 40ish you have lived and relaxed and it's a shock to the system

I think this too. But even when you’re young you then still have friends who don’t have kids who are seemingly having the best time on social media while you’re exhausted and feeling 5 years older overnight.

I am pretty sure that

• my grandmother who left school at 15 to work in a munitions factory and when she got married had 3 children and continued to work variously in a guest house, bar, making clothes and cleaning, or
• my great grandmother who left school at 12 to become a domestic servant who then married had 9 children, 6 of whom died, who lived on the breadline whilst her husband worked as a farm labourer

both had it harder than me and my mum.

Kids fitted in with their parents’ eg trailing round garden centres etc. Now it’s the reverse. Parents organise their free time around their kids activities.

So here's a few reasons.

Previously mums didnt have to go to work and be the main childcare. Instead most were housewives.

Previously people lived with their extended families. There was always someone to pass the kid onto to hold if they crying or just difficult to console. For example I've got a cousin. Her mum lives with her and pretty much just held the baby during the day while mum did the housework. Instead now a lot of families are just mum and dad and the baby. Or even just mum.

There was more of a community. People knew everyone. More people to talk to and visit.

Also I'm sure a lot of baby medicines and some colic treatments had - alcohol? Which would send the baby to sleep.

Not sure if I remember right but if a baby didnt sleep- some would put alcohol in the bottle????

A lot of the parenting methods wouldn't be acceptable these days- leaving a baby outside in the cold in the pram to help them sleep etc

Babies used to sleep with parents- cosleeping- now there is the safe sleep advice.

Also babies were put to sleep on their stomachs- again this is against safe sleep advice but they would sleep better on their stomachs.

As a stay at home parent the mum would be used to staying at home . As someone who goes to work- drives and is out and about all the time it was a huge shock to the system- getting out of the house seemed almost impossible.

Also a lot of ladies would have the kids earlier- early 20's.
It's less of a shock to the system in tour early 20's than if you've loved a certain way til you're in your 40's. It's a huge adjustment- maybe it's easier to adjust when you aren't already set in your ways???

My observation is that some parents take on board a particular label (like baby led weaning) and then get stressed out because they feel they have to follow everything from that or they've failed.

When mine were little we did these things, but didn't label it, and I think that puts added pressure on.

@Christmasfairy2020

Previous generations had kids earlier.? So when you are young you don't miss what you didn't have. When you have kids aged 30 to 40ish you have lived and relaxed and it's a shock to the system

I was 22 when I had my first. 26 when I had my third and I was sterilised at 28.

I read an interesting article on the FT which basically says that we are now less confident in society’s abilities to support our children and be healthy for them (in that society won’t provide them with a good education, affordable housing, jobs etc) so parents feel they have to be more obsessive about everything. If you don’t trust the local school, if housing’s expensive, parental engagement to ensure good outcomes is paramount.

My mother worked. She says it was hard work. But I think her expectations of life were far lower than people have now.

Also older generations often grew up around lots of babies and toddlers in the extended family. Whereas some mothers now have had very little contact with babies since being a young child themselves. So they have less first hand experience of babies.
I am in my fifties and even at my generation I had a fair amount of contact with babies and toddlers as a teenager, including lots of babysitting. I know it is not the same as being a mother, but I did not have rose tinted spectacles.

There was a long thread on this the other day.

I think no. The challenges are different.

Women talk about the difficulties now and peri natal depression is known and there are services even if not brilliant all the time.

In the 60s 70s mothers little helper was a thing. Gin was known as mothers ruin earlier on. Women wanting to escape.

There were slums up until the 80s. Terrible housing conditions. Google images.

My great granny had 10 children that survived. She was widowed when the smallest was a baby. They lived in poverty.

Also women have always worked. Farms, servants, teaching, retail, cleaning, laundry, factories etc etc.

I'm sorry you find it hard. I hated having small children. It ruined my MH. but no I don't think the blankets statement that previous generations had it easier is accurate. Some did. Lots didn't same as now.

They had babies much younger. My MIL and DM were 19 to late 20s. Being in a playpen all day was grand. Got full night sleep as let them cry. Weaned much earlier. Focused more than their Man's needs. Didn't work. Totally different world. It's why I think MIL or DM shouldn't interfer. They haven't a clue what's considered acceptable today with regard to parenting.

And in the recent past miscarriages were seen as something to be forgotten and never talked about. That must have made life harder. I know an older relative lost her baby when she was 8 months pregnant. The child was never talked about.

Whenever I had a hard day with mine I just used to think 'ffs your grandmother had 7 kids and no washing machine, your mother didn't have a microwave and central heating when you and your siblings were small, they managed, pull yourself together'.
I never ever thought I had it harder than the women before me.

Previously mums didnt have to go to work

Depends on what time and class we are talking about. Most women have always worked.

I was born in the 80s and I don’t know if it was just the people we knew back then or if everyone was the same but I don’t remember most people’s houses being spotless and perfectly decorated back then which seems to be the norm now and adds a lot of pressure to most mother’s lives.
We were also were never really inside the house, if we weren’t at school we were outside playing, we never went to sports or clubs after school just went and played chicken on the main road or went for long bike rides stopping occasionally to do dangerous things on building sites and farms, and I don’t think our parents ever really thought about what we were doing or worried about us so I think in that respect it was easier for my mum than it is for me. I supervise my children constantly, I do let them play out near the house but I’m alway checking on them and worrying about them or tracking my older Dcs iPhone to see where they are! I couldn’t just let them go off for hours without knowing where they were.

Middle-class mothers of the past if they had a non abusive husband, may have found it easier. Often whern people talk about the past being easier, they are talking about this group.

There's much more responsibilities being good parents these days. My parents never read with me or took me to the playgrounds, never played with me. We helped out with the chores since we were teenagers. My mum stayed at home and my grandparents were helping.

Now I am a parent to my kids, me and DH work full time, we are responsible with all the cooking and chores and entertainment like parks, days out, playdates etc. I am definitely much busier than my mum when we were young.

@Myusername33 I was working with children in the late eighties. By then a lot of parents were beginning to think the idea of children playing out was neglectful. It seemed to vary in different parts of the country, but was a noticeable trend. People were beginning to write about it.

I think the difference between me parenting now (toddler) and my mum (parenting in 90s) is there's a lot more information and pressure now. My mum frequently says they had no clue about lots of things but it was a blessing, she didn't question her decisions every two minutes. Trips were the park, the beach... Simple things, she didn't fee pressured to do a different activity every day.

Mil hasn’t worked more than 2 hrs/day since the early 70s. Babies got 4 feeds per day, 5 minutes on each boob, no more and she never once got up in the night. Oldest baby cried in the cot on the first day home from the hospital so she went for a walk and left them. All held over the potty from birth after each feed until they ‘went’. Naps in the Pram at the bottom of the garden. Basically benign neglect. One meal- eat it or don’t. No lifts to or from school whatever the weather even though she was at home with a car. She still has no empathy. I couldn’t leave mine to cry as babies, go hungry, walk in the snow etc so I’m a very different mother.

I think there was a bit of a stigma about mental health- not many people had depression, if you had a breakdown and couldn't cope you were a bit of a failure rather than ill.
So youmuddled through and survived.

@esterwin I still live in the same area I grew up in and it’s still normal for even very young children to play out alone! Maybe not with as much freedom that we were allowed in the 80s/80s but still would definitely not meet mumsnet approval 🤣

For what it’s worth I think it was incredibly beneficial to us in a lot of ways to have the kind of independence we had as kids but I know that luck was often the only thing keeping us safe and I wouldn’t allow my own dc that amount of freedom. However I like to let them think they are playing unsupervised and they probably get a lot more playing out freedom than would be seen as acceptable in other places.

My mother and I are only children. My mother never wanted children and I was largely farmed out to nannies or my grandparents. Mother worked. Mother and MIL had their first at 23.

We had our first in our mid 30s. (We are 60ish now). Mother and MIL were 100s of miles away so no help and little empathy. MIL evidently had a cooked breakfast on the table and the nappies in soak by 7am. Mother had no idea at all.

I don't know really. We were older and had no help unless we paid for it. I hadn't changed a baby before ds was born. Mother was no emotional support and told me to pull myself together after every miscarriage as children were a bind.

I had 8 years at home though and I loved every second of it and still love being a mother even though they are 26 and 23 (except perhaps for the 15 to 19 years - they were hard).

We did let them cry a bit though and learn to settle themselves to sleep and the Dr told me to start both on solids earlier than the then recommended 16 weeks because they were big babies who loved food - and needed it.