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.

From my point of view and experience, first of all less childcare issues/stress even if working. Less spending time with their children because we ran wild all day so more time to do things or catch a break. Less pressure and expectation to be as involved in their kids lives .

I grew up around babies and toddlers. Although every child is different, you do learn things that you can apply. So as a teenager I had already been involved in helping to toilet train children for example. So I kind of knew what to do. Whereas I meet mothers now who havent a clue and have to read up about it.
Just one example, but I think I was less fazed.
I remember one work colleague who said until she had her own baby, she had never held a baby before. That must be terrifying if you are starting totally from scratch.

Although in these threads there are always people saying their experience was the norm of the time, when it was not.
So children were read to regularly by most parents for exanple. It is true that most people did not tak etheir children out to lots of activities, but that is because they did not have the money to do this.
Remember as well that how you remember things as a child is different from adult eyes. My eldest son says he was out playing for hours unsupervised. My memory is of him playing outside the back door and me being interrupted every five minutes with demands to look at something, or to intervene in a squabble, or something else. The truth may be somewhere in the middle. But just a warning that your childhood memories may not be that accurate.

@esterwin

Although in these threads there are always people saying their experience was the norm of the time, when it was not. So children were read to regularly by most parents for exanple. It is true that most people did not tak etheir children out to lots of activities, but that is because they did not have the money to do this. Remember as well that how you remember things as a child is different from adult eyes. My eldest son says he was out playing for hours unsupervised. My memory is of him playing outside the back door and me being interrupted every five minutes with demands to look at something, or to intervene in a squabble, or something else. The truth may be somewhere in the middle. But just a warning that your childhood memories may not be that accurate.

Mum and dad were at work. Went to school with a key around my neck, came back,got changed ,went out to play. Same in the holidays. I was unsupervised. Not a lot you can spin or middle ground on that one.

I think it's always been tough but I think whats very difficult now is less family/community support & women are expected to spend more time entertaining/supervising young dc if that makes sense.

@AccidentallyOnPurpose No you can't spin that. But there was a lot of talk in the media about "latch key kids" and worries about it. It happened because there was very little affordable childcare for working class parents. There were in some places childcare run by charities, but there were very few childcare places like this. There were very expensive nurseries in cities and when latchkey was a "thing" no government help to pay for it. So working parents either had to get family to help, or if there was no one who could, muddle through.

I had three children in less than four years. I I had problems conceiving and waited a long time to get them and would have started my family ten years earlier if I could and also would have loved to have spaced them out a little more so I could have enjoyed more quality time with each baby.
It was tough when the youngest was born. The oldest started nursery when he was 12 days old.
I worked as well but do not remember feeling pressured by society as such, it was more a pressure on me to be the best mum I could be and still be able to provide nice things. I remember being very tired.

The real pressure began when they started school and I saw parents comparing their child's progress and instead of looking at things sensibly you worried that your child was doing as well as the rest which is silly as they all learn in their own good time.

Years later and I look at my grandchildren and the lives they have and nothing much has changed apart from technology, but the oness on parents to deliver material things seems to be greater and more important than in my time as a mum.

My mum was a non existent grandma. She was not much better as a mother either. I quickly learned that her inability to be a loving parent was her problem and so I expected and got nothing in the way of support or help when my children were little.
As a grandma I am involved with my children and their children because I know that bringing children up is not easy and I would not want them to feel alone as I did.
I think having children and enjoying having them is a state of mind helped enormously by family support.
I hope this made sense :)

My mum definitely thinks she had it easier. She was married at 23, I was born at 25, my little sister at 27. She stopped work (teacher) when I was born and didn’t go back till after my sister was about 3 or 4. She breast fed, but in a schedule and she just let us cry. We were in our own rooms from night one, left outside in a pram during the day. My granny (a nurse) told her it was fine to let us cry (exercising our lungs). She taught me to read early but other than that we were not entertained at all. She did take me to a playgroup (which she ended up running), and I remember playing with other little girls while she smoked and drank coffee with their mums. Mostly we watched telly, drew and read, ran around in the garden.

She was quietly horrified at most things to do with parenting by the time I had my first at 36. She thought I responded far too quickly to him crying, nursed too often, coslept for too long, basically organised my life round DS. But she was also horrified at the proliferation of parenting advice books and websites, recognising the huge pressure they were putting on women, and I’m glad she spoke out - it gave me permission to bin the baby whisperer rather than torture myself any more!

I think there are a lotore "rules" to raising children now. So many people are desperate to do everything right, and read so many books that they have forgotten to use their natural instincts. Too many people telling new parents, especially mothers, what they should and shouldn't be doing. Also, most people didn't worry about babies crying etc as much years ago. In poorer areas you could leave your baby with a neighbour, people would stick them outside in a pram for hours so they could get in with housework etc. There just wasn't the same worry.

My mum said when she was younger, they lived in tenant's in Glasgow, and the women would regularly stick young babies in a pram down in the back courts to watch the other kids playing and go back up to get stuff done.

And for older kids, in both my mum, dad and their extended family, kids were put playing most of the time when not at school, and in all their families the older children were responsible for the younger ones. My mum practically raised her youngest sister. She would also come home from school with her closest in age sister and get the dinner on because my gran was at work.
My dad's family,y granda was in the merchant navy, my gran had 6 kids but would regularly go and join him for days at a time without the children. The youngest were left with and auntie, older ones left at home alone.

I'm agog at some of the ideas people have about how child-rearing was in the 1980s. I raised my dd in the 1980s and did not put her in another room from day one or leave her crying, nor did I know anyone else who left their baby crying. I also worked and didn't come from a big family and had a washing machine. I mean we are talking about the 1980s not the 1880s, aren't we?

They main difference I see now is that children are not allowed out on their own anymore, which is frankly terrible.

Defo too much information out there for new parents now which makes some of my mum friends question everything they do. One thing I can't stand is baby books. Everyone ends up trying to follow them and if they can't they think they've failed! Back in the day they had non of this crap, it was all on instinct. I never read one in my life and so wouldn't compare my parenting or my baby to anyone else's, I wish everyone I knew would do the same because there is no god damn rule book!!!

@MissGendered

I read something somewhere that said we are the last generation to listen to our parents, but the first generation to listen to our kids.

Holy crap, that resonates! I mean, it's a bit arrogant and unfair to think that our parents didn't listen to us as kids (or at least, the good ones did) but while I was raising my two children, who are now young adults, they were always debating and questioning, whereas I would never have questioned or answered back to my own parents.

They were wonderful, kind parents, but they were authority figures, and they made the decisions.

I would change my mind about decisions if my children had a good argument for why it made sense, whereas I feel that parents of my own parents' generation weren't (in general) as open to debate.

That mentality certainly simplifies things. And also, I do feel that parents are bombarded with so much more information now that it's much harder to feel like you're doing the right thing. Far more second guessing and feeling judged (whether that's actually happening, or just down to feeling less confident in your decisions) than ever before.

I think people just expected to suffer back then. Certainly in my world.

My mum suffered depression and just didn’t get out of bed.

My Nan raised 8 kids with a drinker who beat her and the kids.

Life was hard and miserable for most. But problems were ignored not non existent.

What makes life tough for us is our expectation for something better. I think that’s progress.

My mum has made no secret of the fact that she found parenting hard (had us in the 1980s). She even told my sister not to have a second child as it would ruin her life 🤣

Also, I don’t think it is harder now. Anyone read Angela’s Ashes? Sounds brutal and relentless.

Also more pressure on appearance. I've never in my life desired or felt I should have a 6 pack except for 2 wks after having a dc!

I think life is much easier for me than my dm. We both worked, but my dp does half the housework and childcare.

I think becoming a mother is easier if you have been well mother's and there is empathy in the mother daughter relationship from an emotional perspective of course. My grandmother and mother had that and I think my daughter will. I did not and my mother's narcissistic tendencies shaped those early days. It wasn't until ds was in Arms that I understood the cruelty of some of her remarks because in that instant of becoming a mother I knew my role was to love and protect him to best of my ability and do nothing ever to hurt him.

From a practical perspective from great grandmother to me I think the labour was similar - gg had staff living in, grandma coming in daily, mother twice weekly and linens were sent out and delivered wrapped in pink striped paper. I have always had a cleaner and an au-pair at points in the dc's infancy and when I first went back to work.

For my grandmother, I think there was more time in the 20s spent on things like music and sewing as there was little else to do. Farming family and my grandma was an exceptional horse woman and ran the farm almost singlehanded during the war. Mother hated the farm and spent most of her spare time at dance classes. I loved it and was happy to exist next to hay and horse and chicken poo.

I was born in 1960 and even though my father went to university I was however the very last of the girls for whom education was not taken terribly seriously and I think that is the biggest difference for me. It was perfectly acceptable in 1976 to leave school with a few o'levels and do cordon bleu cookery, flower arranging or secretarial work. In two/three short years that all changed.

I recall being far more hands on re my children's education that my mother or grandmother. They were born mid 90s. Both children were reading before school and I spent so much time playing with them rather than expecting them to entertain themselves. We spent hours in the park, examining pebbles, watching insects, naming flowers (and weeds), watching rainbows as I watered the garden (and hosed them down - sending them into shrieking raptures). They had play dates and so many activities. Mostly because we were in London access too to so many museums. Hot sunny afternoons in the cool Natural History Museum and marvellous rainy afternoons kagouled and wellie booted in the park collecting conkers.

I think I enjoyed being a parent more than my grandmother and mother. I appreciate I was very lucky to have 8 years at home with them. I appreciate too with hindsight my mother must have been difficult to parent and never wanted to be a parent so that brought its own frictions.