Do you think you could have managed things your Mother did?

[Megsdaughter]

I was just musing, after I looked through some photos from 1961.

I was born in the February, I'm 65 next week.
When I was born my Mother was staying with my Grandparents in Edinburgh, my Dad being in the RAF had been posted to Aden and my Mum being pregnant wasnt allowed to go. At that time I was the youngest of three having a 4 year old and 2 year old brother

When I was 6 weeks old my Mother got on a train just with her 3 children (me strapped to her in a shawl sling) and 2 small suitcases, one full of terry nappies the other enough clothes for an over night stay and travelled to London.

When she got there sge got from Waterloo to Victoria Coach station, I'm not sure if she git a taxi or went on the tube. She got a coach from Victoria to Oxford, and then a bus from Oxford to Brize Norton the RAF airport. We stayed there the night.

The next morning she got us all on the plane and we flew to Aden where my Dad met us.

I had my Son in the late 70's but I couldnt imagine doing all that at just 6 weeks post partum. Could you?

If needed? Yes. I could.

Yes if I needed to

Im not much younger than you op but I would have done what your mother did.

I did plenty on my own with 2 small children, flew to Australia solo when youngest dd was 2.5 and dd was 6, travelled by ferry along from Plymouth to Spain and travelled by car for a month solo. I didn't have sat nav or mobile phone either, for either trip.

I think it depends more on your character and need than timing. Though I think now life travelling is easier than before such gadgets

My mum lost both her parents as a child (12 and 14 years old) and I think that has shaped her world in a really sad way, i don't know how she coped with that.

I was an Army wife and mother. Did it all, including prepping for overseas moves alone.

Spent last 6 months of pregnancy alone in a foreign country because husband was in Afghanistan, I was working full time and running the house/garden with zero help. Then after his post tour leave, off he went again for another three months.

My kids are still in school, it's not a historic thing - plenty of women still do it.

to add to this

your mum was raised by people who had probably lived through one if not two world wars - this shaped character in a different way.

My uncle was in a pow camp and came to uk as a displaced person, this had a lot of influence on how he raised his children. His expectations of them were different to a father today.

my father always said teachers in his youth were different as they had mostly been and fought a war, which gave them a different perspective on life and learning

No. I‘m not saying she found it easy but she is tougher, more generous and more loving than I am.

I think you don’t know what you can do until you have to do it.

No, partly as I had c sections . For the same reason my Mum wouldn’t have been able to manage that . Was she breastfeeding you ? As that would have been difficult logistically in 1961 when feeding in public wasn’t easily done, but managing bottles for such a long journey would have been a nightmare ! I did quite a few long train journeys with a small baby and a toddler, but I had DH with me so he could look after the toddler while I breastfed, or the baby while I took two year old to the loo etc. I think I would have really struggled on my own.
Having said that in 1961 other women would have stepped in to help more readily. I remember women looking after me while my Mum went to the loo in stations etc, when I was tiny, in the later 1960s.

That is so sad. My Mum lost her Dad when she was little and that also affected her whole life.

@FavouriteBlueMug True, i never had to do what my Mum did but I did bring my son up alone from the age of 3 after escaping a DV marriage. Lived through losing 2 children just after birth and a second shirt marraige where he cheated.

Got myself a degree and ran my own business for 20 years. A different sort of coping than Mum but she instilled in all 5 of us children a good strong coping instinct.

With DC1 - not a hope, couldn't even sit down for more than about 30 minutes at 6 weeks after his birth! He was a total nightmare as a toddler and wouldn't have coped with that journey, but DD snd DS2 were very easy. It depends very much on the child.

Things were very different back in the 60s - public transport was much easier to use and far more frequent. People were more inclined to help because everyone was in the same boat. Your mum did really well though, that was some journey with 3 young children!

Absolutely, if required.

Would I have made the decisions my mother made that meant she had to deal with the stuff she did (marrying into an all-male household consisting of my father’s father, my father’s elderly uncle and my father’s brother, having four children she couldn’t afford), absolutely not.

@Christwosheds No I was breast fed. Mum had lost 1st child, her first after bottle feeding on a journey to Singapore via Pakistan. They never found out where the contaminated water came from in his bottle but the doctors were sure that is how he picked up the bug that caused him to have tge D&V that killed him. He was only 6 months old.

After that she breast fed all of us, where ever we needed feeding. She just covered the baby (or babies the last two were twins) with a shawl and fed us. I remember her doing it when we all flew to Singapore again 6 years later.

She did say that people did help a lot. Once she got to Victoria she met two Airmen going to Brize as well and they entertained my brotgers a lot.

I feel like I did a lot more than my mother did, in practical terms. She had a bigger network and a very close family who helped each other. She was eldest and I remember when her siblings had babies we all brought food round, they did the same for her. New mothers fed baby and the family picked up the rest of the slack. She was the first of her friends to have a baby and they were all homemakers or unmarried working girls in low stress jobs, they were free to call round and help her whenever she needed it. I don't think she ever had to drag us around the place because someone would have popped in to mind us so she could go. Sadly she died before I became a Mum.

She had a much harder life in other ways. Had to quit school early to work at home and help raise siblings and a family business, she married young and was passed straight from father to husband. No one ever asked what she wanted from life. That lack of agency takes its toll.

I know full well I couldn't have done that or what my Mum did every day. She was a career sahm with 5 DC. She baked pastry every Tuesday and baked cakes every Friday. She walked everywhere because we didn't have a car and couldn't afford buses. She carried heavy shopping home 3 times a week as could only carry so much each time. She did all our washing by hand for years then later had an old twin tub. All washing pegged out on line as no tumble dryer. She made a cooked dinner every day with dessert always from scratch. She made my Dad a cooked breakfast every day as he worked early morning shifts in a factory. All dishes and drying up done after every meal. She ironed all the washing including sheets, and table clothes. Sh scrubbed the lino floors every day. No idea why as they can't have been that dirty as we had no pets. She always found time to listen to us read every day and supervise our homework. If it wasn't neat enough we had to write it out again. She listened to our French verbs and gently correctly our mistakes. She made sure we always knew our spellings. She always volunteered at Brownies and Girl Guides jumble sales and made cakes for school fayre as well as Brownies and Guides. She went into primary school 2 mornings a week to listen to readers and sometimes stayed to help teacher if class was painting putting on the aprons on DC and setting out paint in the yoghurt pots. She made elaborate costumes for dancing shoes, Majorettes and Easter bonnets. She always found time to help us rehearse. She sewed a lot of our clothes and sewed in little name tags as well as walking us to swimming club and watching us before bringing us home. We were always allowed to bring friends home and we made a mess and she never complained just cleared it all up and sent our friends home with cakes. She was always CV leaning windows, polishing and dusting and everywhere gleamed. If any of our neighbours were in hospital she was the first one around with a casserole for them or fetching them a prescription from the chemist. I think back and I realise she must have been exhausted a lot of the time with a young baby to care for, but she was always smiling and gave me and my sisters such a wonderful childhood. Quite honestly she was like a Super mum and I know I could never do all she did, probably not even half.

Bear in mind that there would have been porters and other people to assist at the stations. There would have been fewer people about generally, so she wouldn't have worried about crowds. Strangers would have been kind to a lone woman with 3 children.
I'm not saying it was easy for her, but I suspect in some ways easier than doing the same thing today.

Yep, I’ve achieved much more than my bullying lazy arse mother.

In my mother’s case, yes I’ve managed so much more than was ever expected of her. She thinks her generation had it very hard, and has no appreciation of the expectations placed on women today. I just roll my eyes. She didn’t work for years, then only part time, and is now retired. From what, I’m not sure.

One really appreciates what your own mother did once you have your own!
Of course you could have done it if needed to. I think they were amazing back then - cloth nappies, no washing machine or dishwasher, no microwaves, all the conveniences we have now they didn’t have then. I had my kids before online shopping and gosh traipsing around the supermarket with three kids - yikes!

Yes, public transport was much more reliable back then and people were more active generally. It would just have been normal. My grandmother was the youngest of 13 children.

My own mum had it a lot harder than me in mutiple ways. I am extremely grateful to have experienced motherhood in a much more supportive and empowered environment. I would have got through it as she did, but I'd probably bear the scars, as she does now.

My mum had 14 (living) children and was widowed young. She had no siblings, had lost her mum at 12, and her dad at 20, just before she got married. She had no one, no aunts or uncles or cousins, and my dad had to work away for a number of years just so they could eat and pay the rent, he was a manual worker. We lived in a small house in a rough estate, if any toys or anything were left out they were stolen, my older siblings were regularly beaten up by the local kids. Her life was very hard and very stressful, no modern conveniences, and constantly worrying about making ends meet. I might have done it if I had too, but no way would my mental health have survived it.

Yes.

but she often says she could not have coped with the things I have coped with - becoming disabled n an accident and being in a wheelchair for many years now and having a daughter with AuDHD.