Did Women really always work?

[MaggieBroonofGlebeSt]

Genuine question but definitely most interested if possible in actual data not anecdotal. On most threads about SAHMs people will always say that women have always worked apart from the rare recent middle classes who are an outlier.
Is that true? For example I was reading Call the Midwife; none of the women seem to have a job despite being very working class. Reading old books I never read about married women with kids from any background who worked.
In my family I don't know of any married women who worked but fair enough, they were generally wellish off.
All that is anecdotal though!
If women did work, who looked after their kids? I honestly don't see how it would be possible for most women with children.

Such a thick and rude response, showing you had no idea what I was actually asking about.
Thanks to everyone who actually answered with sensible posts though.

I think many worked but it was less formal. My grandmothers did cleaning/cooking etc and farm work, neighbours and extended family looked after their children when needed.

Neither of them ever had a career type job.

Yes, women have always worked, they would leave kids with older siblings, granny or even a neighbour if they couldnt get in-home work. The second kids could mobilise reliably they were also in work. Visit the mining museum in wakefield, kids as young as 4 used to go down the pits with mum and dad and hold doors open. Astonishing and heartbreaking to think of 4 year olds left alone in the dark with coal tubs rumbling past.

But that isn't always true is it? There are people here who talk about working class families who could survive on one wage. Lots of posts say that did happen in their family. Now it's almost impossible again, but apparently that's progress.

Both my grandmothers worked - one as a housekeeper , one as a shopkeeper; they had no choice, my parents were born in the 1930s and both grandfathers were laid off at various times until WWII.

My mum worked until my elder brother was born, and then was forced to stop (teacher -1960s) . She did go back part time after we were all at school.

My grandparents were very much working class; my parents were both well educated and had white collar jobs, owned their own home, 2 cars etc. They were the silent generation, and they worked hard and seized the many post war opportunities on offer.

• *If women did work, who looked after their kids?

Workplace nurseries are not a new thing! And as others said, older siblings, neighbours helped each other out, latchkey kids were a massive thing

It’s more we’ve reverted to the historical norm honestly.

Being able to live a good life on one income (home ownership, holidays, etc) has been traditionally out of reach for a lot of people in the UK over the centuries. It was really only in the post-WW2 era until very recently that changed. Part of that was a concerted effort to rebuild Britain in a way that also benefited the poorest and most vulnerable in society (introducing the NHS, council homes, the benefit system, etc). All of those things stabilised society and allowed the UK to prosper in the post-war period.

(this was in response to OP’s last post)

A lot of the mills in Dundee had workplace nurseries. As you’ve rightly said Dundee was well known for it, as women could be paid a much lower wage than men, with a lot of the men being derogatively known as “kettle bilers”

https://www.thedundeetapestry.com/post/she-town-kettle-bilers-dundee-women-and-the-mills

Further from the Scots Dictionary

KETTLE BILER
The Dictionary of the Scots Language (dsl.ac.uk, DSL) defines a kettle biler as: “A derogatory term for a house-husband”. This entry comes from the 2005 Supplement to DSL but kettle bilers go much further back. In 1920s and 30s Dundee one of the main employers was the jute mills. The jute mills employed mostly women because, of course, they were a cheaper labour force than men. The term came from the fact that, because of lack of work, the men stayed at home and cooked the meals for their wives coming home.
Our first example in DSL comes from David A MacMurchie’s I remember another Princes Street (1986): “…This system persisted in Dundee, that is, work for women but little for men, and gave rise to the charge that Dundee men were ‘kettle boilers’ – a grave libel!”. The implication being that Dundee men were lazy.
The Sunday Times of October 1999 offers the following: “More women worked in Dundee than in any other city, eight out of 10 of them in the mills. Their labour was cheap, relative to male rates…the men fought to find jobs. Husbands who failed stayed at home, earning the sobriquet ‘kettle bilers’”.
Here at Scottish Language Dictionaries we have found earlier examples. The following is from a municipal election campaign recorded by the Dundee Evening Telegraph of November 1928: “The candidate made reference to the unemployed and was met with the rejoinder, ‘kettle bilers, they call us’”. This reply shows clearly that the men were well aware this was an insult.
The Broughty Ferry Guide and Advertiser of August 1959 advertises a play set “in the dark days of the depression” with the title “And they Called us Kettle Bilers”.
The final word goes to historian, Tom Devine, writing in his epic work on Scotland’s history, The Scottish Nation 1700-2000: “Dundee…where women not in paid employment were regarded as lazy and the men who remained at home were referred to as ‘kettle boilers’ who prepared the meals”. Sad times indeed.
-- Scots Word of the Week is written by Pauline Cairns Speitel of Scottish Language Dictionaries and celebrates 2019 as The Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL2019). IYIL2019 raises awareness of indigenous languages, partly for the benefit of the people who speak them and partly so that others may appreciate the important contribution they make to our world’s rich cultural diversity. For more information, see: https://en.iyil2019.org/.

Not my personal experience, but I know from studying Victorian fiction that married women were often directly involved in small family run businesses like grocers,,serving behind the counter and making up orders for delivery. I witnessed the last example of the ‘wife’ working as cashier from a little booth at the front side of the local butcher shop , taking the money and writing down orders for delivery in the Cotswolds in 1982. Thé family employment might have been represented in tax terms as the male ‘head of household’ income, but it was actually earned by the adult couple.

In France, where punitive employment legislation means that businesses are very reluctant to employ anyone outside the family, the married couple as a working unit is very much alive ( at least until I left in 2018). Thé model for bakery is the baker makes bread, the wife runs the shop and serves customers. Tradespeople : man plumbs, electric etc, wife takes calls, makes bookings, issues and chases bills. Restaurant : male chef, wife front of house (very occasionally reversed).

amongst the vignerons , a ‘wife’ is seen as a real necessity in organising both the actual work of pruning and picking ( before automation, this involved feeding and often housing itinerant workers) , and again dealing with suppliers and customers both at the ‘farm gate’ and the catering trade. Most of the vignerons married within the wine trade, my neighbour who had no sons and so was succeeded by daughters made no secret of his vetting of his son in law as a suitable vigneron. Another vigneron friend said that his friend was ready to take over the father’s domain, but he needed to find a ‘good wife’ before he could be entrusted with it.

Fascinating thread, OP. I hope you or someone is recording it.

Dundee has a HUGE shipbuilding history. One of my grandads didn’t go away to WW2 because he worked in Shipbuilding so his was a reserved occupation…

I dont think its quite the historical norm. In that working class women very often remained in work or had short periods of laying in after having a baby where they might be sacked and rehired when ready to return.

But lots of women were pushed out of more career type jobs. My middle class granny was 'let go' on marriage. My MIL was sacked when she had her first miscarriage.

But i think now women are closer to equal pay and have more options to do 9-5 career type work. Plus they get mat leave.

Yes, there was a lot less ‘helicopter parenting’ - e.g. at 6 I got the bus home from school by myself - 3 miles bus plus quite a long walk. Not to mention even before I could read, being sent with a list and the money to a shop a good 15 minute walk away!! V few cars around then, though.

However my younger ‘into everything’ Dbro had already once managed to a) electrocute himself and b) make some dangerously explosive concoction of household chemicals, so until he was 10 and I was ‘in loco parentis’ at 14 she was too much of a worrier to leave him unsupervised.

TBH when I was a younger child I don’t recall that any of my schoolfriends’ mothers worked. And that didn’t mean they wouldn’t have liked to, but in the 50s and 60s the world was a different place.

Bringing it up to date, I lived in an "estate" village until a decade ago and very few of the women worked - even the wives of the lowly paid farm workers and most of them had school aged children rather than pre-schoolers. They were mostly quite broke. We were crying out for staff for our business, easy work, offered totally flexible hours, paid well over minimum wage but nope. It was really weird.

All the women in my family always worked, going back to 1700s.

Childcare wasnt how it is now.

DCs were expected to be quite independent by age 5- taking themselves to school etc.

Older women/siblings/childless aunties cared for young infants whilst mothers worked.

Women only stopped working down mines because they were banned!

DCs were also factory workers alongside their parents.

In farming/fishing communities pre Industrial Revolution everyone chipped into the work. Roles were often sex and age segregated but everyone 'worked'.

Poorer women often worked as wet nurses- something they could only do if they were Mothers themselves!

Families with businesses eg shopkeepers just took their DCs to work with them. DCs were put in prams out the back and left to cry most of the day pre WW2. They were only picked up once every 4 hours for a bottle and happy change. Doing more was considered spoiling a child and poor parenting.

DCs left school at 14 in the early 20th century and were functioning adults- full time jobs & their own income.

Middle class families had staff, you were quite poor if you didnt have at least one maid at the turn of the century. The idea of middle class women doing their own laundry/ hard housework was preposterous! There were millions of domestic service workers pre WW1.

My mum stayed at home and didn't work in the 70s/early 80s, as did a lot of her friends. But my grandmother, born in 1910, worked for M&S. I'm not sure when she stopped that but she once told me she did 12 hour shifts. When she had children she ran a pub with my grandad, but he had another job as well so the daytime running of it was left to her. I don't think there was any staff and she didn't retire until past retirement age.

Women would often take in washing from the gentry or sewing, that could be done in addition to looking after kids. It's not true that women have always had babies and immediately left them to go out to work.

So many interesting stories showing the complexity of women's working lives. Thank you!

My Mum was a children's nanny and had to give up her job when she married in 1951. She got pregnant a year later and made a career of being a housewife. With no washing machines and dishwasher until years later and she cooked everything from scratch everyday and baked twice a week. She had 5 DC so was kept very busy.

Working class women always worked- cleaning, mills, factories, farming, lace making, household domestics like char women etc.

It might not mention it in the call the midwife book but they would have been doing something- finishing garments for factories could be done from home, as could making things for sale at market halls or taking in laundry.

Prostitution was the 4th largest industry for women- people would do it now and again when they were in dire straits.

Children that we would consider need a babysitter would also have worked.

Older children looked after younger but children looked after themselves from much younger and people were also baby minders for their job.

There were also jobs you wouldn’t think of now- knocker uppers could be women for example. Also weird things- my great aunt ran a mink farm in her backyard to supplement her husbands income- it was a franchise set up!

The road to Nab End is an easy read that describes this stuff.

The Mills of New Lanark was ahead of its time with nursery and school for the children, years before compulsory schooling.

The education act of 1870 the MPs wanted kids to start school at 5 so they had 5 years of education before starting work aged 10.
It was also they no longer thought it was appropriate to have children working in Mills, mines or up chimneys. So school needed to provide care to enable women to keep working.

The school term starts in autumn as they thought parents would be more likely to send kids if it meant they had somewhere warm and dry to be, rather than at work with them.

Even as late as the '80s and 90s factories used to operate a twilight shift, sort of 4.30pm to 9.30pm I'm not sure on the exact times but I remember a friends mum doing it and the Dad taking the kids out in pjs to collect her. It suited women once the Dad come home Mum could go to work.

Op see when you see old street photos of families in the 1930s and 40s who have been living in absolute poverty, kids with toes hanging out of boots etc

Do you really think they had the luxury of the women being SAHMs?

Thinking about what you were saying about in the 50s/60s/70s

My grandad and grandma both worked through all that time period. My grandad was a builder after he was demobbed in 1946 but because it was very seasonal with and not bringing in enough money he joined the police.

They were both always very worried about what would happen to the family if either parent died, so for example they didn't take up police housing which they were entitled to because they knew that if grandad died grandma and mum would have been thrown out of the house within days and they'd seen that happen with workers in the 1930s.

They constantly worried about money. Maybe if they'd have had more money grandad would have preferred his wife not to have to work but they just didn't have enough.

She had a breakdown when my mum was 10 so in 1954 because she was working full-time, doing a lot of the housework etc and was really ill as well - needed time in hospital and a hysterectomy.

Why not do some proper research on it if you are curious? I don’t think any of us on here are old enough to tell you what you want to know. Even a quick google will throw up more information than a bunch of randoms guessing on here.