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

[heartbroken22]

Give me a tip you learnt from your grandparents.

We're talking about our own grandparents, not people that are grandparents now.

My grandparents...
jetted around the world
got pregnant at 17/18
cheated on wife & bullied family
had religious bigotry
drove the other old ladies to church at age 90
weren't great at DIY
drove everywhere actually
got in race riots
Grandma used to sweep every last packet of edibles items off the table to take home, if she went to restaurant. All the salt & pepper sachets, ketchup, mustard, sugar cubes: the lot went in her handbag. With great effort her kids got her to stop that when she was about my age (55).

My mom's mum tatted & crocheted & even quilted, I suppose. My mother chopped chicken heads off for the pot. Mom also made some of our clothes herself until I was 9 or so. My great-grandparents must have had outdoor privies in early part of their lives. DH would love a composting loo...

My maternal grandmother always put on a fresh pair of bloomers before walking down to the postbox to post a letter "because if I get knocked down and have to go to hospital dear, at last my underwear will be clean". She lived in a very rural part of Wales where the chance of being knocked down by any motorised vehicle would be practically none. But I admired her sticking to her standards.

Have NC in case any siblings on here 😁 but realise that in contrast to many pps, I have come down in the world compared with my DGM. She came from humble beginnings but married well (DGF was from a solid MC family) and in her latter years did all food shopping at M&S or Fortnums at Xmas. Had cocktail hour, smoked, wore Dior dresses and advised me to sow my wild oats while I was young. Also had cleaners, gardeners and a chauffeur.

Meanwhile I shop at Aldi, cook fairly frugally, am teetotal, non-smoking, wear jeans and have no outside help. Sorry DGM (although happy to say that I sowed plenty of oats in my younger years 😂).

@Needmorelego
I grew up in the 60s, and in most families I knew, both parents worked. However, in order to be home for school age children, it was often the case that the mother (yes, it was the mother in those days), would work at low paying jobs, such as school patrol crossing ladies, dinner ladies, child minders, home working (sewing jobs, washing jobs). So it was often the case that both parents worked; its just that these secondary jobs somehow don't count as working.
My next door neighbour was a nurse (night time shift); When they moved the new much younger neighbour, took in sewing projects. My DM worked at a factory, evening only.
My DMIL, a teacher, WAS expected to give up her job when she got married, but continued until she had her first child, and returned to work when her youngest (My DH) went to school.

@milveycrohn yes that was quite normal for a lot of families but it was also very normal for a lot of mums to be sahm too. Both was normal.
A lot of mum's who did have jobs the children were often 'latchkey' kids and were home alone after school, making their own tea etc.
These days your average primary school doesn't even let the kids walk home alone until Year 6. One of the biggest expenses parents seem to have these days is after-school and holiday care. That wouldn't have been needed back in those old days.

Cooking from scratch etc, sure. But I know how to do that anyway.

I don't particularly want to go back in time in other ways though, quite like having women rights and technology 😆

@Needmorelego
yes, I was a 'latch key' chid, as my DM worked evenings. If I rushed home from school, she would be there for 30 mins or so. But we used to stay around in the school playground, and she would have left for work.
Then my DF arrived home from work around 7.00pm.
Well aware that this is not acceptable these days, and not even when I had my own DC.
It was how women (Mothers) were able to work, even in the past, and definitely not what I want to return to. It is just that more women actually did work, although it was not always counted a real 'work'. The school term jobs (such as dinner lady, crossing patrol lady, school cook, etc) were like hot cakes and went before they were advertised.

@milveycrohn yes now I remember it we had 'dinner ladies' at primary school - not the ones that cooked and served the food but playground supervisors. They were all someone from school's Mum.
There was also a lot of informal after school babysitting with a Mum collecting and looking after another mum's children - now it has to be all Ofsted registered childminders etc.

My mum was a lunchtime playground supervisor or our primary school in the late 70s. She was absolutely thrilled to have that job, there was no childcare whatsoever available in our village so to have a (very) part time job which fitted into the school day was considered very lucky. She only got it because she was Scottish - the only Scot in the village - and the headmistress was obsessed with Scotland and used to go hillwalking there on the school holidays! Now there would be a formal recruitment process, back then it was very different. She and all the other women went fruit picking in the holidays too to the local fruit farms - v hard work, no health and safety, but great fun for us kids. Again, all fitted around the children because of lack of childcare.

My own grannies didn’t work because of a combination of my grandfathers doing shift work and raising small children for what seemed like most of their adult life.

Not only a vest but a petticoat as well ( until I was old enough to disagree 😂)
I am now 62 and this was from my mum.
I still wear a 'vest' well camisole like yourself 😁

Cleaner at the primary or secondary school was a highly prized position in the village where I lived. Oh my, she was considered SO lucky in a place where jobs of any sort were extremely scarce.

I’m just a couple of years older than you and I still wear a vest (camisoles) and petticoat (underskirt) every day.

My daughters do as well.