....to wonder how the hell SAhM's coped 30/40/50 years ago.....?

[mustbeanonymous]

...Just wondering really....have spent the day with my dear grandmother who was telling me how things were for her 50/60 years ago bringing up two children. Dear grandfather at work 60/70 hours a week, semi caring role for her own mother who was ill, no playgroups/other structured acticities and a second child who cried and screamed continuously for 3 years, then has severe separation anxiety for 3 years after this. She said she would read in the papers about mothers who had killed their children and think 'I understand why' and that some days she was theoreticalyy not too far away from that herself..........

Biut really, I 'escape' to my part time job and stilll really struggle with the unrelenting demands of my two age 1 and 5, I love them so so much but its the most difficult job I have ever had........

How the hell did people cope back then, pre all of this structure and acticitiy and monitoring and antidepressants????

I think this has been such a great thread just for the interesting insight into the lives of others, and with no fighting!
Thanks OP!

I think that the book that Portofino mentioned a few pages upthread is called 'Can any mother help me?' www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2007/mar/04/society. My mum gave it to me to read last year when I was struggling with my feelings of isolation after having DD. At the time, we were living in a very rural location in a foreign country. DH was at work all day and I had no friends or relatives nearby. The book is incredible, and really helped me cope with my own situation. The women in it are incredible.

This history of childcare advice is also extremely interesting.

Oh I read that book, I think it was called "Can Any Mother Help Me" and it was a correspondance club set up before WWII. Kind of a non internet MN infact Some of the stories are incredible. I think one family even took in the children as evacuees during the war.

I was talking of Nella Last's war and subsequent Peace. I think this was done as a tv film - Housewife. 49. with Victoria Wood, though I have never seen it. The books are wonderful. She was not particularly poverty stricken, I think, but really did her bit. Much talk of how she coped with rationing, her worries about her sons, her elderly PIL etc. She was one of the Mass Observation subjects, hence her diaries being available.

Oh Porto I have read those books-so fasinating how she really did her bit, struggling through the war with all the worries that entailed, and doing her bit for charity. She would have had a field day on MN regarding her DH I think!

I was also really shocked about the meals she managed to prepare every day. It always sounded like she produced 2 course meals out of virtually nothing. I've just ordered the "House 49" and aim to watch it over the Christmas Hols.

My grandmother had four in 7 years in the 60's...she ignored them. Really. :) She fed them and changed their diapers, read them bedtime stories, and bandaged any cuts, but there was none of this "interacting" business. They played by themselves or together, or outside in the yard. She cleaned the house, cooked, smoked in the basement, and read novels.

my maternal grandmother had 8 children (and 6 miscarriages), they lived on a hill farm in the middle of nowhere so she home educated them all, breeding Persian cats, Fell Ponies and goats to pay for anything that she needed. The children did school work every morning then worked on the farm or hunted (they had a pack of hounds - which my cousin is now master of) in the afternoons. My grandmother was President of the Fell Pony Society, Secretary of the Goat Society.

My paternal grandmother was a single parent of 5 boys after my grandfather was killed by a drink driver when the youngest was very small. She was a tiny little woman, but ferocious - which she needed bringing up 5 sons who ranged from 6ft 2 to 6ft 7!! My eldest uncle joined the merchant navy to help support the family and they had my grandfather's pension.

I personally would love to have the option of being a SAHM - when i first became a single parent i worked bloody hard and farmed my son out to childcare, but after missing much of his first milestones I chose part time work and serious belt tightening so as to be a parent. I mostly work from home so it isn't too bad, but I would love to have the means to appreciate my DS's childhood properly. I personally didn't have a child for other people to look after! I'm more of a brood mare made to have lots of babies and spend my days making dens and exploring!

My auntie was one of ten...they were ages 5 months-12 when her Dad died suddenly of a heart attack.

Her mother kept them together with sheer grit.

My mum had five under 5 (I'm 43) the last pregnancy being twins, and no washing machine or fridge till I was 11 but she did have this contraption which was gas powered and boiled the sheets and towels.
i don't recall her ever playing with us, she didn't have the time. I think about her every day and wondered how the hell she coped.

It's lucky she never had to post on AIBU Cheerful Yank!

I have said it much on here, mostly ignored....but quality time with the under fives is a NEW invention.

I don't play much, honestly. I read stories and like jigsaws and crafts, and snuggling in front of a film on weekends, but I'm really not much of one for I'm-an-alien-you're-a-cowboy business. I send DS out to play on his own with a roll of duct tape all the time. (He likes to make twig sculptures :o) I don't "ignore" him as such, but I don't really do the whole playing thing.

I do quite a lot of chasing and rough play,and daftness, but have no patience at all for the small world games, and now I tell ds those are to play with his friends, not me. [mean emoticon]It's tooo boring!
I feel guilty though because I grew up in a tribe and ds has no siblings, so I probably do more playing with him than I would if he had sibs.
When he has a friend over, they are off playing and I only intervene when the yelling gets too loud!
My mum didn't do rough play, but she did do dressing up and putting on plays with us sometimes, and baking, playdo, that sort of thing, and that was 30 years ago.

I was born in the mid sixties to a fairly poor family. My Mother worked part-time doing the books for a baker and for a dress shop. She then worked from home doing accounts for a herbalist. We were looked after by my great aunt who lived with us. No TV or central heating but we did have a washing machine.
We were very happy though, well fed as my Mother was very good at managing and Dad grew loads of veg. We never went to the Doctor, I first went when I was 19 and needed a sick note for work. It was the first time I had had antibiotics.
My parents were passionate about education though as they saw it as the route out of poverty, my Father continued to go to night school all through his fifties to improve his chances at work and there were always books around even though they couldn't afford a TV.

I was born in the early seventies and we did not have a washing machine until at least 1978/9 and even then it was a twin tub. Our tv was also black and White and all of my friends had the same. Our mums made our clothes mostly. So I do think that many families were living like this even in the mid/late seventies. My mum never played with us or read with us as I recall but I could read and write when I started school so she must have done that with me but I can't really remember. She also worked full time for much of my childhood and my dad was away a lot so she pretty much carried the family.

She was a very, very angry and quite scary person and she hit us a lot. My overriding feeling towards her was fear but as an adult with kids of my own I can look back and see the immense pressure she was under and I do understand to a certain extent. I feel more angry with the circumstances and social expectation that creates this kind of situation than with her. I do feel that my childhood and her parenting has damaged me, as I cannot maintain relationships very well and just prefer to be alone and not depend on anyone emotionally.

I get very angry at how little the SAHM role is recognised now, i agree it was much more respected back then, if not supported very well. My ex H basically saw me and the dc as a complete burden that had been forced upon him and so we should, especially "the wife" be grateful for any crumbs he felt like throwing us. My input was and never has been recognised. I think there are many men like this now who don't see their wives as actual people and equals, almost as something society has foisted upon them, the family unit, hence all the entitled men we read about here on MN.

Have only skimmed the thread, but surely its swings and roundabouts?

Sure, domestic chores such as laundry, shopping etc would have taken longer. And it's true that there were no (or very few) structured activities like playgroups.

On the plus side though, many of todays pressures such as redundancy threads, sky high fuel bills and house prices were absent or not nearly as severe. My Mother used to say she didn't know how I coped with returning to work with a 3 month old baby, having to bf and then be out of the house, dropping dc with a childminder and then doing a days work. She may have had more to do in the ways of physical domestic chores, and was probably more isolated in terms of lack of playgroups, but on the other hand my parents could afford a reasonable house on my fathers income alone, and he had reasonable job security.

So all in all I think its superficial to just say it was 'harder' 50 or whatever years ago. It was different but not necessarily easier or harder.

callmemrs I am not sure I agree with you. I had two DCs in the 70s and one in the 90s. I was a SAHM for DCs 1and2 and a working mother for DC3 (went back to work when he was 7 weeks and DH looked after him because he had been made redundant). Financially we were much worse off in the 70s and for quite a lot of the time couldn't run a car. Fuel bills were always a problem for us, as was food. Holidays were taken with PiL who paid for us, otherwise we didn't go.
We certainly couldn't buy a house until we moved to a much cheaper area after five years of marriage.
You are right though, we aren't comparing like with like.