To not understand how housewives of yesteryear could afford to stay home but being a SAHM is a lifestyle choice now?

[PeachyParisian]

Am I missing something really obvious? Or is it just a case of the cost of living rising and our standards of living increasing too? How could everyone manage to get by on just one wage?
I understand that work wasn't really an option for most women but traditionally families got by on one wage didn't they? When did that stop being possible for so many?

Have skim read some pages, so confess to not having read the whole thread. Has anyone mentioned tax levels?

In 1950s people on average salaries paid little or no tax, unlike today.

TBH I don't understand how BOTH parents can afford to work. The cost of childcare for 3 DCs made one of us staying at home a no brainer.

Magers, they may have fewer children. Or a high salary. My full time salary could put three kids through full time care and still have substantial money left over. I know lots of women who are in a similar position and do exactly that. I don't have kids so I use the money for other things.

I don't recognise this 'frugal yesterday' others are describing.

I grew up in the 80s with 2 patents in skilled wc jobs.

We had a remote controlled tv, a video recorder from 83, a spectrum computer, double glazing in the living room, an extra bedroom, seperate dining room, big garden & garage, car + van, frequent UK holidays including theme parks, big birthday parties, Chinese takeaways, meals out (decent restaurants), hairdressers, horse riding lessons, lots of extra curricular clubs, decorated & well furnished house, to give you an idea.

We couldn't imagine having such a quality of lifestyle now (in better jobs).

Jackie, substitute horse riding for swimming, and you've just described my childhood.

Also in the 80s. With working dad and housewife mum.

Yes, and at the time it felt very average. Their were poorer kids who lived in council flats and richer kids who lived in 5 bed villas but there didn't feel like such a gulf between the ones with most and least money.

In all the groups there was a mix of wohms and sahms.

My Nana used to leave my mother and siblings when they were babies in the pram outside the shop when she was working, she said she often had customers come in telling her they'd chucked out the entire contents of their pram on to the pavement! I think it was only when she had more DC that she got an au-pair/nanny for childcare.

TBH I don't understand how BOTH parents can afford to work. The cost of childcare for 3 DCs made one of us staying at home a no brainer.

It's different though, if you have less than 3 children or have childcare from family.

My grandmother had eight children in a two bed house, who wore clothes she made herself and washed twice weekly in the bath after the kids got out (on a rota, not all children were washed at once). They lived on beef dripping sandwiches a lot. There were about forty books in the house and each child got one toy a year, which replaced the toy given the previous year (farmed out to a neighbour for their present, often). They had very, very little 'stuff'.

All eight went to university, several have high profile public jobs. These days, they would probably be taken into care for a similar lifestyle.

Yes it is different if you have less children or family to help out.
But what if you don't ?

Jackieharris in spite of the fact I have never been on a horse the rest of your childhood sounds very similar to mine except my parents did it with one income and 2 extra children. I think the cost of housing and childcare are our 2 most significant differences compared to them.

That said mortgage interest rates in Ireland in the 80s were in the late teens and the marginal rate of income tax was up to 60% plus so it was not all sweetness and light then. It sometimes makes our love ins with ze troika sound like a picnic.

Well...read London Labour and the London Poor. Back in Victorian times the WORKING CLASS women weren't sahm! THey were all out flogging fish and buttons off a barrow...or out of a basket! Middle classes...you're thinking of them.

I am from WC stock...and ALL my Grandmothers worked....I've looked back to about 1800.

We have 4 kids and both work. We afford to both work by working around each other so no childcare costs. We've always done this. I work nights/ weekends / evenings around my dh's 9-5 hours.

Sell off of council (social) housing
Far more people buying houses
Much higher expectations
Far less 'make do and mend'
I grew up in a working class home in the 1950s . Council house, mum grew a lot of vegetables, made most of our clothes well into secondary school (and long dresses for me when I went to University). They didn't have a car until I was about 15 .( No phone til I was 36!) The only holidays we ever had were to stay for a few days with an aunt who'd 'married well '.(I wore cast- offs from same aunt's daughter-quite happily. Lovely clothes) Social life revolved round chapel and visiting local friends . MY DPs never went abroad (I was 23 the first time I went ) Apart from fish and chips at a cafe , the first meal out I ever had was to celebrate my O levels with friends at a Chinese restaurant..
Paying fees/ living costs at University. I had four years of further education completely free.
My childhood was extremely happy .

PS I'm not saying above was better .Just different
I had hoped to be a SAHM for a while but life doesn't always work out as planned . But we live in a four bedroomed house in a very nice area (paid for by the time we were 50), were able to pay all costs to put two DDs through university, ran two cars (down to one now)have had foreign holidays regularly since eldest was 12 (though not before) , excellent pensions, eat out , go to concerts, theatre etc My life is materially much better than my Mum's. But not necessarily happier .

I haven't read through all this thread, but one thing which stands out is housing - many people are mentioning how the price of housing "has risen", esp. in comparison to "real wages".

Apologies if this has been pointed out before, but house prices, last time I checked, aren't like the tides, to rise and fall naturally, with the turn of the earth and sun. Surely a definite set of policies, a specific set of actions coming from an identifiable ideology, put in action by recognizable people, have led to these price increases and wage gaps. Why? How? Who?

I don't recognise the common sahm lifestyle. I was brought up in the 70's with NO money and my mum worked albeit part time. Most of my friends' parents worked too. One friend whose dad worked in a bank had a sahm but that was the rarity. Middle class Surrey commuter belt.

As muttersdarkly pointed out way way upthread about 11:00ish the main reason is the inflationary pressure of there being more money in the marketplace because two incomes are the norm now. Markets work on supply and demand. When there is more money slashing around prices rise. House prices would not have risen if it weren't for the people willing to pay the higher prices, and they can pay because they have two incomes.

Also I think a lot of the things I consider reasonable expenditure could be avoided if there was someone at home with time on their hands. Meals could be cheaper if made from scratch - my granny used to spend a lot of time on food shopping as she knew exactly which shops sold what product at the best price and would be willing and able to spend an extra 2 hours on the weekly shop by going to multiple places to keep cost down. Mending and making clothes. Growing veg.

I earn more than DH but we theoretically could survive on one income if we got rid of our cable tv, broadband and mobiles, stopped buying so much luxury food, spent less on Christmas and birthdays and furnishing and decorating the house, had less clothing and shoes, kept the heating lower and only had weekly baths, and stopped going out to pubs, restaurants, cinema, theatre etc. I don't want that life, I want this one.

I recognise that for some families it's not a choice and they are doing without all the luxury and still only just surviving on two incomes - where their earning power is lower or living close to London where the supply and demand on the housing market is even more disjointed because of vast numbers of overseas buyers snapping up homes as well as the pressure of too many people and too few properties.

Outside the southeast and once the primary income gets within spitting distance of the higher rate tax band I think it is still a choice theoretically, but the charms of frugal living to pay for the luxury of a SAHP often just don't seem attractive enough.

I was born in 1949 and I have always worked full-time, as did my mother and grandmother before me. My children went to state nursery (we were very, very lucky to live in a town in the North where this was possible) from a young age in the mid-seventies. Our mortgage, with its fluctuating interest rates took most of our income, along with essentials like food and heating. I made most of our clothes, we grew a lot of our own fruit and veg (garden and allotment) and holidays were camping or later on in gites in France.
All of my friends worked though I did know some SAHMs. That wasn't a lifestyle that I would have wanted (I am a seventies feminist), but we couldn't have afforded it anyway. We didn't have a lot of "stuff" because things were relatively more expensive and things like washing machines involved saving or hire purchase schemes. We almost never ate out, our weekends were very focussed on our home. That was how most of our friends lived too. Part lifestyle choice, part necessity.
I loved my job and can't imagine how my life would have been without it. I am very proud of my daughter's career too and the fact that she is combining demanding work with bringing up my wonderful grandchildren.
I never recognise this retrospective view that people have of a time when all women stayed at home with their children. Certainly not my experience.

'Stuff' is relatively cheaper now so having lots of it doesn't necessarily mean it is due to us being relatively richer, more that it is made by dollar a day workers on the cheap.

And people didn't have cars and if they did it often came with the job so wasn't used for ferrying DCs to school etc. So SAHM might have to get DCs to school on foot. And could only work somewhere that was within cycling distance. And remember buses trundled at 30 mph and were much fewer so 'getting a job' was all the harder. Probably school dinner lady or cleaning at the big hoose were about the best options. Unless you lived in a city with factories/ offices.

Can't agree that there were fewer buses, Moniker1. I would say there were more buses, especially on rural routes. Of course they weren't all run by private companies busy making a profit.

My mum was a sahm and I was born in the fifties. I had a lovely childhood. We got a car when I was five but no phone till I was 17 . We had two holidays every year . One was a week in a coastal resort where we met up with other friends and the second week was in autumn in Wales with family.

Dad worked shifts and wanted mum at home. My gran had always been a sahm . She was born when Victoria was on the throne.

There was no sense of lack in my home. When dining out became popular we did that. Aged 5 I was taken to Spain and I can still remember it. Aged 14 I went on my first plane trip.

I was raised in a council house in a nice area and my dad was WC. I had free grammar school education and free college

Mum went to work when I was 18 because she was bored. She got a job in a betting shop and loved it, eventually becoming a manageress before she went back to college to brush up on her secretarial skills. Dad wasnt happy. Yet when he retired at 58 he'd be off fishing on his little boat.

Whenever we needed anything dad saved till he could buy it outright and I'm the same. When he wanted a motorbike, before we got thcar, he went rond cleaning windows. As soon as he got his bike he packed it in. All my aunts with children were sahm. The only one who worked was childless.

Both my daughter and DIL are sahms as I was until the children were much older.

I do feel for mums who desperately want to be at home with their babies but need to go back to work some while they are still breast feeding and not for life's luxuries either but to be able to put the heating on, food on the table an a roof over their heads.

I remember when rent, council tax and water rates were just a small portion of my dads meagre salary when today its more likely to be half.

In 1954 my dm was suffering from depression following the birth of her two dc in her early 20's and the Dr told her to get a job and get out of the house as she needed other interests| She worked ever since.