to wish I was a 1950s middle-upper class housewife?

[cruikshank]

I reckon it would be great. No need to work. The husband does all that, in the city, and maybe bothers you once a year for marital ghastliness. And you have STAFF. Someone to cook, someone to clean, someone to do the gardening. You'd see the kids all washed and ready for bed for a couple of minutes in the evening. Your days could be free for doing embroidery and playing the piano and shit like that. As for nights, well, you'd have to eat dinner with the husband but then he'd go off and smoke his pipe somewhere while you read a book. And you wouldn't have to wash up! Sounds a lot better than trying to fit 48 hrs worth of activity, working, ferrying around, cleaning, cooking, washing etc into 24 and then congratulating yourself that you've 'got it all'. Bah.

And you'd get to wear beautiful dresses and ball gowns and stuff

and smoking would be sophisticated for you, with a lovely cigarette holder and beautiful gloves

YANBU.

"marital ghastliness"

My dream come true! Though I wonder if spinning in yoga pants and eating chocolate is allowed?

Spinning = slobbing

The thing about the kids makes me sad even though I am a wohm. The rest sounds like it would be fun for about a week until my raging feminist took over again and wanted out.

Life without MN though? Are you sure about this? Don't do anything hasty now OP.

Erm... What about making sure your hair isn't in rollers when DH comes home,

And no computer.
And countless much more fundamental bummers

YANBU at all. I'd love that. I could....I dunno...paint watercolours and do Amateur Dramatics on the weekends.

I'd garden...only flowers you understand....no vegetables, I'd have "a man" to do those. In the kitchen garden.

Weren't they all on drugs though? "Mothers little helper"?

Sounds good to me. I've always wanted the stay at home and make cakes idyllic image I have of the 1950s life...

I could just order the Christmas stuff from Fortnum and Mason and Harrods. And send telegrams.

I'd write letters to my friends and we'd all meet up for lunch once a month "in town". We'd buy new hats afterwards and go toe galleries.

That was my granny's life - also she sent her kids to boarding school age 6. Happy days!

Uri No. That was people who couldn't afford staff and so had to use a mangle and peel their own spuds.

Middle class 1950s you would have looked after your own children (unless they were boarding) - upper class probably not. By the 1950s domestic help was too expensive/hard to get for most middle class families and not many still had live in help.

Middle class 1910s had domestic help. My house has 2 servant bedrooms on the original plans. The children have those- they are no help at all and refuse to scrub the floors or sweep the chimneys.

No contraception
Very few rights
Marital rape legal
Girdles

Yeah idyllic

You could host soirees and do tinkly little laughs, and talk in that teddibly, teddibly brittle way.

You're forgetting the gin and sedatives to numb the reality of your miserable existence

Hmmmm no money of your own, no where to LTB if you needed to and no oral sex.....I'm dubious

Happy didn't most upper class Mothers leave their DDs a nest egg...? Ie enough to buy a little flatlet in Chelsea if it all went tits up?

Well mine did. In my fantasy life.

Would be nice. No longer having to do that pesky voting thing. :)

No. I would be insane with boredom and frustration. I love living In the age I do with the freedom and independence that we take for granted. DP is fab and i can't imagine ever wanting to leave him but it is nice to know that, if I ever had to, I could and could support the children as well. I also like using my brain. Minor issues with the staff would get blown up out of all proportion as I would have nothin better to think about. Contraception is pretty handy too.
I think my grandmother would have had so much fun if she had been born when I was rather than in the mid 20s.

Ah, but imagine when you got bored after 3 days. And there was nothing for you to do at all (that was suitable for a lady) that wasn't either playing bridge with the other housewives, going shopping and lunching with the other housewives, or sitting on charity committees....with the other housewives.

I'm imagining that exercise would be out (unless perhaps tennis?), going for walks on your own would be out (unless shopping), travelling or going to many places on your own would be out. You might be permitted some hobbies (art, perhaps?), but I imagine much would depend on your husband- if he didn't approve of you doing something, I guess there would be either overt or subtle pressure to drop it...

There's a reason all those '50s housewives were on Valium!

I could do that too. A bottle of gin hidden behind the soap flakes - just my sort of thing!

Yes, like the parents in Enid Blyton or Just William books Nanny and Cook did all the work while Mother sat reading the newspaper or playing bridge. Good times!

(Apart from the whole marital rape / no financial freedom or right to credit / being ignored as a person in your own right / stuff... but hey this is a light-hearted thread...!)