to think that in many ways, woman of our generation have it alot easier?

[carriedababi]

compared to previous generations

both woah and sahm is on the whole, seen as a vaild choice either way

unlike it was in the 50's or 80"s, when you were proibably either expected to stay at home, in the 50's or go to work in the 80's

clothes and toys are alot cheaper

we can resell things easily on ebay etc

My Gran also thinks life was 'sweeter' back when she was younger.

But, while I think life was possibly better for a women who was happy to SAH a generation back, what about women like me who hate it? It was so hard to work, be respected as a career women.

Life might be more pressured and faster and complicated now, but at least we have choices that weren't available to us a generation ago.

i think the biggest difference is that we now have freedom to 'leave' our partners which i don't think was necessarily true of previous generations. We can now survive on our own with children and are educated as such to be able to work and support them.
To me, freedom is priceless.....

Cheers Unwind!

To correct your assumptions - I have never owned property, still waiting to be able to afford to, probably never will, meanwhile rent privately. Don't qualify for council housing, wouldn't expect to. My salary - 30k, soon to drop to 26k - I have achieved after more than ten years' slow climb up the career path, from retail jobs to receptionist to admin work.

I do think women can exercise some control over their lives today, and because I have done so I remain happy with my life. I suggest other women do the same. Does that make my attitude "I'm alright Jack"? That I don't commiserate with women who complain about their lives but choose not to try to do anything to improve them?

YANBU

One observation I have made is how much family help lots of women get these days. I see loads of grandparents picking up from school/nursery, taking grandchildren to after school activities, getting buggies in and out of cars....looking after grandchildren for whole days while parents work. When I was at primary school in the 70s I don't remember seeing many grandparents picking up.

Dancergirl, in the 70's (where I lived on a council estate in brum) most mothers didn't work...so there was no need for grandparents to pick up kids.

My grandparents were very involved in my life 'cos (a) my grandmother didn't work and (b) my grandfather could afford to retire at 55 due to having paid off a teeny weeny mortgage. My parents can't afford not to work full time and couldn't pick up my kids from school if I asked them to.

Back when I was at school there was no need to have grandparents as childminders as it wasnt as necessary for women to work to help support the family

Yes that's true. I wonder why things have changed then...? If most families could manage on one income then, why not now?

The thing nobody has mentioned on here yet is child mortality. My grandmother had 4 children of whom 2 died before the age of 2 - that, to me, is the biggest way in which we have it easier. My mother and MIL both had 1 child die at or not long after birth. Thank God that side of life has improved for us all.

Whilst I agree that life is often more challenging financially, we also have to appreciate that we have far higher expectations now. My GPs raised 7 children in a 3bed terrace house and suffered huge deprivation when he was unemployed. Our generation would find that, quite rightly, unnaceptable but sometimes we do set our expectations rather too high and put pressure on ourselves in the process.

And in a similar vein - some shameless self-promotion

Facts are money was worth more back in the day and profits were passed on to workers with a salary increase hence the reason you could actually live off one wage...wages have been stagnant for years..we just have different issues and pressures to deal with.

There is absolutely no doubt we have it easier.

In mining times in S Wales it was a
fecking horrendous life.

Life is more challenging financially. I would totally disagree. People
starved if there was no work in the not very distant past. There was no free healthcare and no benefit system.

Depends which previous generations you are talking about. I'm not convinced that cheap toys make our lives much easier. Especially when weighed against impossibly high housing costs.

Certainly washing machines are a good thing.

there are trade-offs. I'm thinking of the one if five women not having children at all, compared with one in 10 as recently as the 70s. I don't think that is all down to choice - I know many women in their mid to late 30s who want marriage and children but the social shift in how we mate has left them out.

Individual women have it easier. Individual women have it harder. Than individual women in the past. I remember my mum telling us that life was so much easier in her youth because you had servants. And my dad muttering: 'the people I knew were the servants'.

As for whether you worry or not about things like children getting kidnapped or hurt or ill, imo it depends partly on your own personality. My grandmother, born in the 19th century, was absolutely paranoid about germs and children falling. I am pretty laidback.

But I have found that as my own parents grow older they get more anxious and more likely to cling to the idea that their own young days were safer and better than the present times. I suppose what they mean is that they felt safer. Because their bodies were younger and they were faster and fitter and had that sense of invincibility that young people sometimes do. But that is not very common in 80yos.

I was at a social occasion yesterday when two women in their seventies were talking about one of them's baby grandchild. The grandmother remarked at how he was so very alert . . . the conversation turned to how newborn babies "these days" were much more alert than when the two ladies in question had had their own children.

They came to the conclusion - rather ruefully - that when their babies were small they had their hands so full trying to wash and dry loads of terry nappies with no automatic washing machine/tumble dryer, cook food from absolute scratch etc, that there wasn't time in their days to talk to the newborns and stimulate them. This wasn't said nastily, more regretfully, with perhaps a tinge of realising that they were not encouraged to interact with newborns when they were young mothers.

I am not sure their theory was correct - I had my first DC 11 years ago and I couldn't tell you how alert he was or wasn't if you held a gun to my head; I just can't remember. I would never be able to compare my DCs with potential grandchildren in 20 years' time. But it made me feel for them.

I am in a strange postion of haveing seen both ways. My parents were part of the back to the land movement here, so I had an unusal upbringing. We built our own cabin, lived with no electricity or running water. We hauled water up from a well, grew our own food, raised and slaughter our animals, traveled on horseback, made our own soap, syrup, and pretty much lived as though it were the 1850's. I was responsable for hauling wood, and spiltting it, milking goats, working in the garden, hauling hay, feeding animals, and caring for younger siblings. There was a lot of joy, but it took so much work. Eventualy, my parents ended up getting electricity and running water. Even they realized it was important!
When I left home, at 15, the first few weeks were spent having hot showers, just because I could
I am a sahm. We don't have much money, but we are just able to make it on my DH's wage (32,000$/year). I am willing to carry debt, in exchange for things like having a vehicle. I also am luck enough to live in a country that has a social net, so that if something terrible happened, I wouldn't be in a poor house, or on the street selling my kids. I can go to a doctor if I am sick, and if my husband morphed into an evil man, I could leave him. There are still times when I think things are hard, but over all, my life is far easier now.

But I have found that as my own parents grow older they get more anxious and more likely to cling to the idea that their own young days were safer and better than the present times. I suppose what they mean is that they felt safer. Because their bodies were younger and they were faster and fitter and had that sense of invincibility that young people sometimes do. But that is not very common in 80yos.

Hear hear!