Are we going to have to adopt the way our grandparents etc lived?

[heartbroken22]

Give me a tip you learnt from your grandparents.

Things I don't recognise
Everyone having stay at home mothers. I'm adopted. The mothers and grandmothers in my birth family and adopted families worked and raised their families

Who raised their children when they were at work?

Drink yourself stupid and blame everyone else, was my "grandparents" attitude to life....wouldn't want to emulate any part of their existence.

The kids went to school and then had a key to the house

The mothers worked jobs like in a store or pub once daddy was home

I suppose it depends on what age the children were, family set ups etc. My grandparents came from large families (11 and 13 children on one side) so my great grandmothers were still raising babies when the older children were at school. Both my grandfathers worked shifts as many did, so my grannies had no childcare if they were doing evening and night shifts.

Well I don't want to live in a badly insulated, single glazed home with no bath or shower and only an outside loo, no CH and no electricity until after all her 8 DC had left home to find work, thanks all the same.

It would sound alien here, leaving the DC to be cared for by grandparents in the north while working in London until they hit school age but in poorer countries with no safety net, that is what is done.

Not just poorer countries; I had a school friend in the nineties who did this. She had an arranged marriage at 16 (willingly, not forced), had a baby the day after we did our maths A-level exam and then went off to university in London with her husband, leaving her baby to be cared for by her mum in the north of England. This was in England in the nineties.

So does gin 😊

Two of my Grandmas worked in service when they were younger and and worked evenings / late evenings when their husbands returned from their own shifts. The other helped her husband run a shop. Babies & children alongside her.

Yes, some were able to - but it wasn’t widespread. Women on the whole were expected to give up work when they got married and had babies - childcare didn’t exist in the way it does now.

Well she was a very young mum so you could argue that she wasn't really 'ready' to be a mum at that age. My grandma was 26 when she married and had her first child at 27 and then 2 subsequent children. Children were raised by mum/distant relatives in the first 6 years so she and grandpa could work long hours to save for a house.

Not in the way it does now, but childcare very much existed. Women on the whole were not expected to give up work, nobody ever really cared if poor women were married or not when they went to work.

People didn’t wash as much. Themselves or their clothes. My mother was taught at school that it was immoral to wash your hair more than once a week and even that was frowned upon as it was considered vain.

Hmm, not sure about that. My grandparents weren’t from wealthy stock at all (think mines, mills, warehouses, farms, that kind of thing) and the women mostly stayed at home to have the babies and raise the families. There were some who had families that helped look after their children but by in large from the 20s onwards women were at home.

I agree. This isn’t about living as our grandparents lived, it’s about thinking how we can live more sustainably in a world that has changed massively and moved on from the days of our grandparents.

I totally agree - its not about living as my grandparents did; its about going back to medieval times; where our life, leisure and work were in our village/town; only consuming what we need, made from local resources; being self sufficient in food, etc. We need to forget about commuting as a way of life; holidays abroad and consumerism where we buy new goods like electronics, clothes, etc, simply because its the latest fashion.

The trouble is the population is too great for a sustainable way of life - the UK is not self sufficient in food for a start, nor does it have the natural resources for what we think we need.

Having a huge house, massive investments, art collection & staff?

I wish! I can only dream of living so comfortably.

(The other set had to make do with just a big house, huge pension & boat rather than art … tough life)

@monkeyupsidedown my grandparents were born 1905 and 1912. They got their council house in 1950 (they were 'older' parents for their era).
I don't think either attended school past age 14 and always worked from then. Granny only stopped working when she had my Dad.

Don' t become addicted to complaining, find a solution instead.

Get up when you wake up. Don't spend half the day in bed. Works for me then you don't waste your life away.

My grandparents house was always like midsummer - they constantly had the heating on. They were clearly not built for an energy crisis!

they would be well over 100 now if they were still alive.

Cook from scratch every day, keep the budget right down and be healthy at the same time. Have one parent in the home to sort that and avoid childcare costs and ensure hands on influence in children's lives to impart the same knowledge, teach them to cook, clean, and keep a home. Encourage them to find a symbiotic relationship and preserve the family and family values.

Long John's, thermals, knitting (I can only do plain stitch reliably at the moment- my 92yo grandma is teaching me), making your own clothes.

One warm room, I remember their hallway was freezing. Shut the doors, stop the draft, use the snake.

My grandad loved the cheap shop, and jumble sales for bits and bobs and clothes.

He always saved parcel string and paper, and kept it neatly folded in the piano stool.

Holidays for one set were extremely rare. Not even UK holidays.
Kitchen, carpets and sofas - if they functioned they were not replaced. In fact their kitchen and bathroom was only replaced in the 90s (after an inheritance) at which point the kitchen was 40 years old and the bathroom 50!

All my grandparents worked, although both grandma's were part time by the time I was born. One a nursing auxiliary, the other an office worker, but they'd both always worked.

Let a dog lick your wounds, they will heal without infection.
Rub a potato on your warts, bury the potato and your warts will disappear.

I have many more, come on, all good advice, It will save us a fortune in future medical bills.

Make sure you have a best room, with your best china for when the priest visits.

Are we going to have to adopt the way our grandparents etc lived?

Well, my grandparents on my father's side lived in Hampstead, one was a heart surgeon and the other a GP. My grandparents on my mother's side were both Stockholm lawyers. I don't think any of them were short of a few Sheckles.

Granny 1 - vests are worth it
Papa 1 - learning to drive will take you places

Granny 2 - cook more potatoes than you need (you can fry the leftovers for lunch with an egg)
Papa 2 - you can never have a good meal without some bread and butter