Parenting - easier now or 'back in the day'?

[Coughandsplutter]

Posting for traffic tbh. Ive got a toddler of 2.5 and a baby of 4 weeks. Yesterday I was chatting to parents about how bringing up kids has changed. Mum was telling me about her silver cross pram with seat fitted on top for me to sit on while sibling was in pram. She was on about terry towelling nappies and having to boil them clean. It wasn't a "we had it tougher" conversation, just a comparison between times. My parents didn't have much money or grandparent support so perhaps their situation is different from most. Mum had no car so everywhere she went was on the bus or walking. We talked about how pubs, supermarkets, shopping centres etc are all now very child friendly with changing facilities etc.

Not really expressing myself well as I'm very tired but what do others think. Was bringing up kids in 70-80s harder? Or 50s? Or was it just different pressures? Was life simpler then in some ways - no Facebook photo 'competitions' of who's having best Easter and check ins to the latest trampoline Park. Or is it easier now?

I have a wonderful memory or driving right through Manhattan and then upstate on a sunny day in the back of an open pickup truck. It was great. This was in 1975.

Our usual car, one of the old VW campers, didn't have any seatbelts at all, except for static belts in the front seats, which were rarely used.

Obviously, it is good that cars are safer now, but I also get fed up with the hysteria surrounding car seats. I really don't think it is a big deal to drive a mile on a quiet slow road with an 8 year old not in a car seat...

I do think that we haven't yet found a good balance between safety precautions, child-centredness, awareness of the many mental health problems we face, etc, and benign neglect/ common sense on the other side.

Sorry posted too soon. I think things were more relaxed in the 80's when I was a kid. There wasn't media relentlessly pushing scare stories at you all the time. So walking home from school was fine for 6 yr olds. Going out to the stream a few fields down to catch frogs etc with a few other kids was fine. Of course awful stuff coukd happen, but people relied more on their own experiences of risk rather than tragedy after tragedy appearing on their news feed. No child ever fell off a turf trailer or got abducted on the road or drowned in a shallow stream in our village. But it seems frightenly common today that these things do happen and it skews our risk perception.

If you say go and play to kids, they'll go and play.

Maybe, but no one does anymore, so they don't. I remember being bored as a child sometimes, and playing alone a lot, but I don't think that's a bad thing. As an adult I am never bored.

Can I just point out, by the by, that a lot of posters have mentioned that mothers were usually home in the 60s/70s/80s..
Women in my family have always worked, either outside the home or in home based businesses, and lots and lots of working class women worked. Also, there were a lot of single mothers around after both world wars, and they always worked.
It was easier for my mum to work in the 80s, as once the youngest child hit 8 or so, no childcare after school was considered necessary.

Just reread starzz post from 8.43 today which I think was the post that caused offence. To be honest all of it rang true from what i remember of growing up in England in the 70s.

The other theme I'm seeing is about how kids should learn to wait, be bored sometimes, not get everything they want etc. I agree to an extent but I also see the world has changed.

All that roaming the streets needs to be replaced with something, and if that's a zoo membership with regular visits is it really so bad? Or gym or football or whatever wholesome team sport where they get fresh air and socialize?

Yes they get a lot of screen time but that's how they do school projects too, and what popular culture revolves around. It will be this way more and more for the foreseeable future. Why put them behind?

Maybe they do get that thing pretty immediately but in a world where things are manufactured to be very cheap it's not that odd. Had things been cheaper/as disposable in the past there may have been a lot less waiting and earning.

I just don't think you can compare how kids will react to this stuff nowadays to how they would have. Being given everything when no one else has it would make a spoiled child. Not being given access to stuff when everyone else has it could make an inexperienced child.

It's like when you were a kid and everyone else got to watch a movie you weren't allowed to. All the conversations and social exclusion associated with that... I think having more is just life now for kids and they shouldn't be denied it chasing after the "good old days".

Interestingly childhood mortality fell dramatically from 1900 - 1950 (despite the Second World War). Since then the decline has been tiny and probably disproportionate to the anxiety and restrictions on childhood that the public campaigns cause. It's terribly sad when any child dies but the campaigns suggest that if you can negate the risk entirely and that is not the case. Most infant deaths now are caused by non attributable factors. We've become neurotic.
At four I went to the beach on my own whilst my mother worked in the beachside cafe, I went to school walking three miles and catching a bus with other children in the care of my seven year old sister. At nine, I could cook a reasonable roast meal - my mother was a widow and worked. We do, I think place control of life unfairly on children and negotiate and excuse every behaviour. The idea we can no longer shout at our children is ridiculous, the idea children get to choose what the eat is ridiculous, the idea anxiety in teen years is abnormal is ridiculous.

I come from a farming background. I do too 7Days and grew up 1960s/70s. I look back on it as a golden time.

The reason I said nothing is despite reading the thread a few times I am genuinely puzzled about what you want facts ABOUT?

here is an NHS article on smoking, from 2006, so immediately before the smoking ban. It explains that around 44% of adults smoked in 1980 (which was actually less than I would have thought, although I don't know if social smokers were included in that) compared to 33% in 2006.

As for car seats this gives an overview. I don't actually think the car seat thing was 'bad parenting' - it really, genuinely did me no harm to travel in the boot sometimes (I thought it was funny!) but I do think things generally were more lax safety wise Then (80s) than Now. And there's no doubt that car seats and laws generally about travel have contributed to increased safety - you didn't even have to wear a seatbelt until 1983 so it's not that people who didn't wear one are inherently bad or wrong, but it just wasn't seen as that important I suppose.

Child murder - horrible subject Obviously, abduction and murder is rare. But there were some really, really sad cases like this little 5 year old who was playing on a park in the evening or this 7 year old boy who vanished from a fairground on a summer evening Both those men had multiple victims and please note I am NOT suggesting those poor parents were responsible! They were doing what was considered fine, okay, no problem. And to be honest it doesn't scratch the surface. How many children, free to roam all day, were actually lonely and bored and were taken under the kindly wing of somebody who had more sinister overtures towards them? Murder is the most extreme form but I reckon numerous children hanging around parks, fairs and beaches had a horrible encounter with somebody.

It's really hard finding news reports about accidents but if you look at the last minute of this video it gives a long list of children injured or killed in grisly deaths some as young as 2. They are just accidents on farms. Children electrocuted or drowned or killed on railways ill have to keep hunting for.

Being smacked in school was legal until 1986. That's not to say every child who attended school before then was smacked (I was, but I was probably naughty!) and only abolished in private schools in 1999. It's still legal to smack your own child but, as of 2004, there are nuances attached to this condition. [[http://www.pressreader.com/newzealand/thepress/20090729/281659661046414
this]] article is about attitude shifts in smacking.]]

So it's not just a fact finding thing. Because sometimes laws are passed and ignored, largely, and other times become more about shifts in societal attitudes and parenting is one of those areas. It's not saying you're wrong - good parents are good parents. But there was a time when the rights of children were largely ignored leading to children being injured, killed, abused and hurt. Thats not a golden age of childhood.

Sorry, threads moved on!

I was born in 1981 too, and I aspire to be the same kind of mother my mum was.

Bullying wasn't rife at my primary school and while we did have lone black and Asian children, they were not picked on as far as I know and had groups of friends and were just like any other members of their classes. Same in secondary. There was more bullying than at primary, but generally not due to race or disability.

More kids had stay at home mums, at least in primary. Mine was a teacher at my school so I saw her every day far more than any other child saw their mums even if they were SAHMs, yet I still remember feeling jealous of friends who could have kids over to play after school as I often couldn't due to Mum needing to stay and do marking etc.

I had a car seat when I was very little, then a booster seat, then a seatbelt, so I don't recognise reports of kids in the 80s never being strapped in. However, my mum's first car, early 90s, didn't have seat belts in the back but I wasn't in there much as we usually went out in my dad's.

I was smacked, but not every day, and only when I was really naughty. I do remember being out and about with my mum and her threatening 'Do you want me to pull your knickers down and smack your bottom?' That threat generally stopped whatever I was doing - as I would have been mortified to have been smacked in public. I was never hit at school though and only sparingly by my parents.

I didn't play out in the street as a child. Sometimes if I was at my best friend's house (in the same street) we would ride our bikes up and down, or round the block once we got past about 9 years old. Never just went knocking for friends to 'play out' with though. Generally, as a young teenager, only the 'rough' kids hung around on street corners. My friends and I only met up with a certain plan in mind - go to the cinema, go ice skating, go to X's house etc. We never just hung about. I know my mum was horrified when teenage relatives, born 12 years after me, were allowed to just 'go out' in the evenings. They usually said they just hung around in a supermarket car park. My mum was amazed their mother knew that and still let them do it!

What I think has changed the most over the last few years is that kids are not expected to 'fit in'with the family's life - the family fits in with the kid. The 'classes' start from birth. Yes, some interesting things that are good for development but lots of babies would develop just as well in just the same way without them. When I was a baby/toddler I went to a 'mums and toddlers' club where the kids just played in a dusty church hall with a few toys, and I think there was a weekly coffee morning at someone's house which the mums rotated. But that was it. Other than that we walked to the shops (me in my big Silver Cross pram and my brother on the toddler seat when we were very little), we went to the library and we went to the park. My mum said things were a lot more 'gentle' for most children back then. Your mum spent a lot of time talking to you and you just pottered about. There was no pressure to be in ballet by a year or to know a dozen baby signs by 6 months or whatever. You were allowed to develop at your own pace and mums didn't worry unless there was anything seriously wrong. My mum was furious 2 years ago when a health visitor said my niece was 'behind' in language development at a couple of months old because she wasn't babbling enough or some rot. Her parents were then unnecessarily worried when in fact by the age of 2 years she was speaking in fluent, full sentences.

Same with primary school - if you were a slow reader you were read with and kept on simple reading books until you were a stronger reader. You weren't pushed onto harder books because the government said that's the stage you should be on at that age. You did work that was appropriate for your level, and most kids did mostly catch up by the end of primary. There was no homework, no SATs, lots of trips and play times and fun. It saddens me that kids these days don't experience the idyllic primary education that I did.

There's labels for everything these days - attachment parenting, baby wearing, tummy time, baby led weaning etc. My mum asked me to explain what baby led weaning was and laughed and said 'that's just been 'giving baby some food and seeing if they will eat it' for the past several centuries!' She calmed down worried parents whose babies hated 'tummy time' by explaining that she only ever put me on my front if I had a cold and she wanted to unblock my nose as it made me cry! Yet somehow I still learned to sit, stand and walk at normal ages!

Years ago mums did what came naturally to them, with a bit of advice from their own mums or other relatives. These days there's so much pressure to do things a certain way, and give that way a name, that I think a lot of people are forgetting to trust their instincts regarding how to raise their own children.

Do you really aspire to be a parent who threatens to humiliate and hurt your child?

I do think parent's have it easier and harder today and I only had my dd in the late 90s.

Even back then I got no maternity pay, I had to go back to work when she was 3 months old because i couldn't afford not too.

She didn't start walking until she was nearly 2, no HV batted an eyelid.

If I was having a bad day I couldn't stick a screen in front of her (we didn't even own a computer until 2006)

However, I also got to raise my dc in a relatively social media free world (only became mainstream when she was already a teen).

Tbh, I do agree with people that parents give their kids far too many activities. Dd got a choice activity (hockey) and one swimming lesson per week, however that turned into rep hockey and competitive swimming

I remember asking my MIL how parents used to cope with having really large families when it can be hard having even just one child nowadays.. even with all the things at our disposal that make life easier, e.g. Disposable nappies etc. My FIL was one of 12 children! She just said they'd have kids and the older ones would look after the young ones and they'd all be sent off to entertain themselves from age 3. So mum would be alone most of the day cleaning and cooking. Now we're much more involved in our childrens lives in general, more protective, entertain them etc.

I was an extremely well behaved child starzzzz. People always commented how I could be taken anywhere and know how to behave. So I don't think the odd threat when I was very little, and the odd actual smack that occurred, did me any harm at all. I'm not in therapy, I'm not depressed, I'm not no contact with my mother. I have a husband, I have friends, I have a job, I have a home. If that very rare threat damaged me I really don't know how.

Times have changed and I wouldn't smack a child now because society deems it wrong and as an adult I've learned other ways of dealing with children's behaviour. But in those days it was normal and in my experience at least, for me personally it wasn't harmful.

I think it's far easier now.

I'm sure you were a well behaved child, kits, which I think is probably why it was a rarity and why it didn't affect you.

But genuinely, what if you hadn't been? What if you'd had ASD or ADHD? What if you just were not naturally compliant?

My point is that HAD your mother made good her threat on a few occasions, in all honesty it does affect you and it does do you harm. Especially the removing clothes to do it. I think that's really - well, fucked up if I'm honest

And you make the salient point that you wouldn't do it because society deems it wrong and that's the point I was making - that societal attitudes have meant on the whole it's a more pleasant experience to be a child now.

In all honesty starzz, unlike most people on the thread, who are comparing their own generation as children (me in the 70s for example) with their own generation as parents (me in the noughties) you seem to be making huge generalisations (of the anecdotal variety ) without being clear what exactly you are trying to say.

So all those murdered (nay, vanished) children you were on about, were 2? Even I can remember more than that, and I haven't been googling.

Just because smacking in schools was legal, doesn't mean we were all walloped and think it was good.

You are probably one of the youngest on the thread tbf, so probably have the same opinions of being around in the 70s and 80s (not just as a very small child) in the same way the rest of us see the workhouses. I know shit about them, but imagine life was grim up the chimneys etc.

But there were some really, really sad cases like this little 5 year old who was playing on a park in the evening or this 7 year old boy who vanished from a fairground on a summer evening 'Really really sad' doesn't quite cut it though does it...these were utterly horrific cases and tbf you possibly ought to put a warning of how awful the links are to the stories that you have posted

Squills, calm down. We're talking generalizations here

I'm perfectly calm, thank you. I was unaware that to challenge someone's views was disallowed here.

The point is that it is not a generalisation when specific age groups are targeted. To say that a certain generation mistreated and even encouraged abuse of children with no evidence to back it up is not on in my opinion. I don't feel inclined to let such views go unchallenged, particularly as I am in the generation being accused.

h0rsewithn0name
I am one of the weird people who thrives on nostalgia, the more I live in the modern day - the more I yearn for the 'old days'.
Your post made me happy 😊

I think some things are better/safer/easier/more convenient for sure.
But agree with pps saying life is too child centric now. It definitely wasn't when I was growing up (late 70s and 80s).
My mum doesn't understand why motherhood is considered so tiring these days because in those days babies who were well fed with a clean nappy were left to yell themselves to sleep in a pram in the garden because they were "just overtired" and soon slept through the night because they got used to settling themselves to sleep.
My mum worked but usually around school hours but she didn't really spend time doing stuff with us and in the holidays she ran her surgery (podiatrist) downstairs and we stayed upstairs with instructions to be quiet. We were expected to amuse ourselves and usually did so very well. We generally fitted in with our parents lives and interests rather than the other way around. I read a LOT of books and our favourite games were "made up games" where we pretended to be the Famous Five etc. We lived by the seaside and spent hours in the beach alone (though weren't allowed to swim workout an adult present).
You "got what you were given" for dinner and if you didn't eat it you were hungry until the next meal. There was no constant snacking and less fussy eating and overweight kids. Sweets were a treat on Saturdays only.
We did an average of two activities a week (brownies, swimming etc). My mum said that was enough "ferrying about" as she had other things to do and we didn't object.
We pretty much did as we were told as it was clear our parents were in charge. We would not have dared be rude to them.
Proper child-centred days out were rare, maybe one in the school holidays.
We'd have one main birthday present, maybe a couple of other small buts, not a huge pile. Birthday parties were not every year.
We got in with our own homework and projects without help. It was a grammar school area and I passed the 11+ and went to grammar school - no tutoring/hothousing etc.
I work full time now but probably spend more time actively engaged with my kids than my mum did and my husband a million times me than my dad did.

My theory (willing to be corrected or challenged) is that our generation of girls grew up being told we could/ should "have it all" and that mothers, especially well educated ones who become SAHM now feel they have to justify their decision by making motherhood into a child centric career of its own. Then if course working mothers don't want to give the impression their children are deprived so they follow suit. Everything has become child centred as a result and not always in a good way IMO.
I sleep trained my children (not CIO) because I felt they needed a good night's sleep (and so did I!). When I hear people saying they have 3 kids who don't sleep and are on their knees with exhaustion but won't do anything about it because they believe in leaving a child to find its own sleep routine, I think fuck that, more fool you.
Children seem to have to be entertained and pandered too all the time. They cannot be bored or hungry or disappointed for a single moment and I don't think it's good for them (or us). God knows how they will cope with adult life after being used to being so cosseted. (When is it meant to stop?) Although I'm stricter / less indulgent than most parents I admit that I have ended up buying into the same lifestyle to some extent because I don't want my kids to be left out of what their pals are doing!
Not everything was perfect or better about my childhood though. Everything revolved around the man of the house which I hated.
We weren't expected to challenge adults even if they were obviously wrong. My sister and I were often spanked for "answering back" when we'd actually been trying to explain why something wasn't fair or we didn't understand why we were being punished etc. I did feel our views and feelings were marginalised or belittled. I have never felt able to confide in my parents and I'd hate my children to feel like that. I try and spoil them with cuddles and love and quality time rather than stuff (though as noted above they do get a fair bit of "stuff" too!)

These threads always end up with the same generalisations , those of us that were born in the 60s/ early 70s apparently all had parents that smoked , smacked and took us to the pub every night where they left us sitting outside with a bottle of coke and a pack of crisps whilst they got plastered inside . The fact is many of us had wonderful parents who are more or less exactly the same as people now , don't smoke , didn't drink and were interested in their children's education and didn't smack either . I had my dc between 1993-1999 and of course it's easier than it was for my mum , disposable nappies , ready made formula ( if you don't bf) , sterilising machines , easier prams / pushchairs and better access to childcare . Lots of the things said on this thread still go on , like small children playing out without adult supervision but it depends on what type of area / community you live in - April Jones was playing out with an equally small friend - no judgement from me it's probably the norm where they live . I was born in 1966 and my mum never let us play out without supervision until we were about 7/8 and then we had to stay within earshot unless she knew where we were going to be , was she an abnormal parent for those days ,I don't think so , it was just the norm for the area we lived in .

Sorry Vintage, I'm a bit lost as to how you extrapolated the fact that all vanished children totalled to two! I mean, I haven't got the time (or the inclination!) to root though news articles.

But those cases I linked to were very young children (I think with children in the 8-11 bracket it's harder, as sometimes it is appropriate for them to be out unsupervised) who were out in the evening without adult supervision. Utterly tragic, but we just wouldn't do it nowadays (AIBU to let my 7 year old go to the fair on his own? It's at night but in June so still light ... :))

Thegoat did I actually need to say 'these stories are about murdered children, they will be sad' coz it's kind of obvious isn't it?

I have given you evidence squills, I think past attitudes to parenting - or actually, not so much to parenting but to children - led to cruelty and abuse.

Squills, well, yes, we're generalising about specific age groups. That's kind of required to discuss general parenting in the past and now.

I think just about everyone on this thread agrees that smacking children was more common in the past and is frowned upon these days. Of course you won't find statistics of people hitting their kids because no one kept tabs on it because it was seen was OK. Nowadays if you do that in France you can be arrested. Isn't that a pretty clear indicator that the abuse of children (which is what it is) was condoned in the past but isn't now?

The point about being able to hit children in schools is the same. An adult hitting a child in an educational setting was seen as totally ok! This would be absolutely shocking if it happened these days. No way would it be legal. Just another indicator that abuse of children was more acceptable.

It's not about specific people because of course most people loved and took good care of their children, but society in general was more inclined to tolerate children getting hurt.

Flora that's the point really. In thirty years I'm sure 2040s mumsnet users will be pouring scorn over widespread use of screens and I might be getting antsy and saying 'well my children didn't!'

But the fact that I don't allow excessive screen use doesn't mean it's not a '2010s parenting' thing just as 'being chucked out at breakfast and not coming back until supper' was a 1980s thing. Its just some people think that was wonderful - I don't.