to ask how most of our mothers coped?

[ItalianScallion]

I was born in the 70's. My mother was a SAHM and there were three of us kids. My father worked night shifts.

The youngest of us was born when I was four and the oldest was 7. My mother got us up, took us to school, took us to after school activities and sports whilst maintaining a ridiculously clean home, and doing all the laundry etc with no help or family support.

My DH has a similar upbringing except his mother and father were living abroad and travelled to several different countries to live because of the nature of FIL's work. My MIL worked nights and so they would literally hand over the kids to each other as one came home and the other went to work.

I feel that we were all raised pretty decently and I have a huge amount of respect for my parents and PIL.

Which brings me to my AIBU to think that we are getting softer? My mother and MIL shake their heads in disbelief when they hear of mothers who SAHM, have a nanny/au pair and a weekly cleaner and still talk about how they're not coping.

Don't get me wrong, parenting is a hard job but it seems that popular parenting ideas and methods are allowing us to make rods for our own backs.

Please understand I'm not referring to women with PND or any MH issues. This is MN so I know I'll be flamed by people with their anecdotes of difficult babies and their specific struggles, and I agree that there will always be exceptions to the rule. Still, I can't help but feel that we don't 'just get on with it' the way our mothers did.

Mine coped by having a cleaner, gardener and paying for sitters. Then she had 3 nights a week when I stayed at my DD. She conveniently forgets these facts and continually tells me "well I managed"......I find getting all the garden, house etc upto date with 2 kids (one at home all the time) including all school runs, activities and working part time is exhausting. This is her incentive to compare and deminish

Brilliant thread. MN at it's best. And I know, I know, we're a pit of vipers or whatever the phrase is but I do feel like I probably "cope" better than my mum ever could because I can outline my failings to strangers online who will offer a bit of perspective then life continues in a sunnier light.

I wonder how my mum coped with the following:

The role of women generally. To my mind the 80s were awful. I mean my dad is a great guy but if he was a tyrant my mum would have had no choice but to put up with him, for both social and financial reasons. Now, when complimented on the length of their marriage, she'll often joke that if she had wanted to leave where would she go with 3 kids, 3 rabbits and a cat. I know that means she probably did want to leave at times but couldn't, there was nowhere to go and people would have thought since my dad was nice enough she was being ridiculous.

Her and my dad still have very traditional roles. Me and DH not so much, we just do the grunt work as and when it needs done, he'll cook, I'll paint a wall etc.

Financially every penny was accounted for by my mum. We had a nice (but not naice) life, Butlins holidays, one car etc. But it was very carefully planned for. I'm slightly more frivolous with spending, but in a way that I deem to be in context with my life for example 2 cars, holidays abroad, don't tot up prices going round the supermarket.

In comparison my mum wonders how I/my DSIL cope with working and parenting. She never worked until we were in high school. She seems acutely aware that my DSIL and I are at work during the early years. She's very cautious when she mentions this, she knows we're missing out on the wee things like funny phrases the DC pick up, nice things they do with her or at nursery. However, bigger picture, financial security bla bla bla is probably what my DSIL and I tell ourselves. As per her situation regarding nowhere to go if she wanted to leave, I'll probably make bitter jokes about needing to work when my DC is grown up. For now I don't really think about it, I'm just doing it/coping/plugging away.

Now my gran, there's a tale of coping. We were in one of those baby rooms in Boots with the breastfeeding chair and free nappies. She couldn't comprehend this luxury. Shops in her day had signs saying, "no dogs, no prams".

I suppose the point of this thread is that regardless of era, we are all just doing the best we can. But that being said, an awful lot of groundwork was done by the sisters which us millenials are now benefitting from.

Rinky, thats sad to hear, i know that people forget a lot about babies and toddlers and the work involved as their ones grow up, but its not fair to diminish you because your life is different to their one- your working and that puts a huge pressure on you when you have children. i have also worked full time with children and been a stay at home parent so i can see both sides ( and didnt receive any family help) it was hard going and you need encouragement, not criticism. Life is different today for many women - i am sure your doing a wonderful job too. ( i was criticised by my peers for working, told i wasnt 'committed enough/' and that hurt, so i know how you feel and this was in the 90s!)

Also environmental guilt is a new drain of small but regular amounts of energy and time - sorting out recycling, running to charity shops, finding suitable outlets for outgrown toys,

Rubbish. What do you think people used to do?

My mum didn't work. She didn't find parenting and looking after a home hard.

She says she doesn't know how I cope with parenting, home and FT work and she massively admires me. MIl says the same! They're supportive, not dismissive.

Mum was a SAHM until Dsis and I went to secondary school. And then she only worked 10-2. We were kids in the early 80s . We had a nice childhood, but expectations were lower. Dinner was often Fish Fingers, mash, baked beans and artic roll for pudding. Now if you dared serve up a dinner like that once a week or more you would be judged and seen as not providing a nutritionally balanced meals for your children.

Also we were not "pampered" as MIL likes to put it. We were expected to entertain ourselves after school (usually playing outside) and for most of the weekend. Mum or Dad never played with us - that would never have crossed their minds. There was no negioated parenting - we were told to do something by our parents not asked like many kids are today. We were smacked on ocassion. Clubs after school, except brownies or swimming lessons did not happen.

At weekends we were expected to fit in with adult routines there was no family time really like there is now where you spend at least one day of the weekend doing things and going places that the kids want to do. Trips out involved a picnic in the local park or the twice yearly outing to somewhere further a field.

Mum cannot understand why my children went to baby classes and that the youngest is in nursery FT. To her that is madness. As in the early 80s play group was where a child went from 09.30-12 twice a week!

Both Mum and MIL do not get why I work FT and have a cleaner and send ironing out to help. Think if I gave up work I could be content cleaning and ironing all day.

Traditional roles as I was growing up Dad lovely though he is, just did gardening and DIY. He was never expected to change a nappy!

Put everything in a metal bin with a lid? Certainly cans, tubs, foodstuffs. Toys all in my parents' attic still. I prefer to pass things on in the spirit of reusing them. A bag of party bag toys and comic toys is my current project. Incidental consumerism creates work and stress.

Am not competing it to being in an Anderson shelter btw.

Just a small daily task which can add to your guilt/mental burden if you don't make time for it - I know a fair few who don't bother.

My GMIL made my MIL so all the running around looking after her older and little brothers and going to the shop to buy her parent's cigarettes and their dad's dinner.

Maybe it's that we don't expect our daughters to get on with the housework too nowadays? My 10 year old will wash up for cash but I can't imagine her ever agreeing to scrub the front step like my own mum used to have to do.

I absolutely agree with effiels- when you're busy recycling is a terrible drag. I spend loads of time on rubbish removal. Hate it.

They were managing, but were they as happy? I can't imagine dealing with PND at a time where I would have to hand wash clothes, nappies, boil glass bottles on the cooker, deal with the kids 24/7 because they're not DH's job instead of him helping out once he's home.

Also, the rich have always had nannies and such. That's just a class thing.

In the 60s and 70s full time meant 9-5, or 8.30-6 if you were unlucky. Now, full time is those core hours plus whatever unpaid overtime your boss and/or the company culture demands to stop you being labelled a slacker. God help any woman who tries to leave work on time so she can actually see the kids she gave birth to before the nanny/childminder/nursery gives them their supper.

My mum is a staunch feminist and was/is a single parent. She went out to work for financial reasons and because she wanted a career which I totally respect. I'm an only child and was on my own a lot as a child/ young adult. She did what she thought was right for me.
My own family is very different, I have 4 dc and I'm a sahm. She often says she has no idea how I do it. We couldn't be more different really, I used to worry that she was disappointed in me for not focussing on a career but I'm happy and I love being at home with the kids.

Do you think employer's attitudes towards working mothers has changed, in that they are less sympathetic to a mother taking time off to look after a sick child now than in the 70s/80s?

I was born in 81. My mum worked full time, we had a cleaner who doubled up as a kind of nanny, plus a student who picked us up and looked after us after school.

God no, I think attitudes were much worse in the 70s. If you worked you got lots of prejudice and it was very much your choice get on with it.

I had a group of mums who all helped each other. My teenage brother lived with me and took six kids to school, one of the mums picked them up, she worked for her husband and had some flexibility, and then some days she kept them till I got home some days the other mum in our group had them. I took my two and two of the others to swimming on Saturdays. One summer the kids were at the seaside for six weeks, each family took them all away for 2 weeks and we worked it out so I think I had the first two weeks of the holiday and went to Devon, brought them back on the Friday night and quick sort out of clothes and my friend took them all to Wales for two weeks on the Saturday, two weeks later they all went off to Cornwall for 2 weeks. They had a great summer and we all had 4 weeks with no childcare worries.

I had a job where I could get called into work at short notice, I worked for a large police force and if a child was missing or there had just been a murder I could find a policecar at my door at 7 am to go into work, I didn't have a phone. My colleagues saw me in a nightie with my hair on end far too often.

I was born in the 70s, and I don't really recognise your description as being a 'typical mother' of the time, because such a thing didn't exist. Most of my friend's mums were just normal in most respects. Some worked, some kept their houses remarkably tidy, some had lots of children, some were dysfunctional to varying degrees, some had close ties to their families and had support from them, most probably winged it from time to time. Which is exactly like the mothers of younger children I know today.

I think you're saying all mothers were alike then, and now some mothers do things that weren't an option in the 70s (and you don't like those things). That's a bit of a weird thing to just put out there.

The reason we spend so much time on recycling, rubbish disposal is because we have so too much. As a child in the 1970s I wore clothes until they wore out, as did my parents, then they were cut up and used as rags for cleaning, painting etc, some were remade into clothes for my dolls, any non worn out clothes of mine were given to a neighbour with 3 DDs all younger than me.

I got presents at Xmas and birthday, any other time was unheard of. Whereas now I see many kids getting tat bought for them almost daily. Not to mention the obscenity that is Xmas, with 100s of presents (I got about 10 on average from my parents, nothing from other family, most of my peers were the same, unlike now).

Italian my parents just left us on our own at home with a sick bowl, a choice of 3 betamax videos and a blanket on the sofa if we were ill. Not as tiny children but from age 9 or 10. We were only allowed the bare minimum of time off sick - if you didn't have a "Proper" fever or an identifiable rash/ diagnosed illness (so actually identified as chickenpox or mumps or measils) or a very virulent D&V virus that couldn't be dismissed as something you ate then you went to school. There was no 48 hour rule so you went straight back if you seemed to have stopped vomiting.

I remember repeatedly being in the secretary's office at primary with unbearably painful ear infections but being told they couldn't reach my parents to pick me up despite my mother seeing fit to lecture me once I had my own kids on how her own hearing was damaged by an untreated ear infection as a child so I must be vigilant about ear infections

I don't think employers were sympathetic to parents taking time off, I think kids were mostly left home alone if they were sick and over 8 or so.

When we were small my mum definitely took us into work and expected her secretary to watch us in school holidays when the nanny called in sick more than once though - that wouldn't fly now Once I was 13 or so and she no longer had a nanny I babysat with the cleaning lady as rather grudging backup, and my dad was usually able to come home for lunch then. I also cooked dinner, for which I was paid oddly, but not for childcare.

Child of the late '50s/early '60s (US). I think housework was harder but childcare was easier. I think mums cooperated with each other a bit more than we do with child-watching, shopping, etc. And they didn't try to do it all and do it better. There were less labour saving devices, but mums could also let their children loose in the neighbourhood knowing that they knew all their neighbours and that wherever we landed, the mum would give us a sammie for lunch and send us back out to play. AND that all the mums and dads would snitch if they saw us up to no good! Plus in the school year, once the littlest started school the house was empty from 8 - 3. In the summer they did housework whilst we were out and about playing all morning, have lunch, then the mums took us to the pool on our street for the afternoon. We'd stay there until it was time to start dinner.

I know it wasn't that way for everyone.

What we did not have back in the 70s were disposable nappies - I remember the buckets of soaking crap - horrible. I had two buckets on the go when my two youngest were in nappies together and I used to wash one lot one day and the other the other. I vividly remember when I got the buckets mixed up and finished up with one not getting washed for several days - when I opened the lid there were maggots crawling about!!

Simple. They weren't expected to do it all. They didn't work, didn't dress their kids in trendy matchy outfits, didn't do Pinterest worthy birthday parties and bedroom decor.
I'd kill to have my Mums lifestyle!!

drinkingtea - you've just reminded me of our neighbours who had five children and the youngest two girls would have to cook dinner for the whole family at ages 11 and 12. We had lots of chores around the house and garden but cooking dinner was never one of them, although we were encouraged to bake because we wanted biscuits and mum wouldn't buy them.

TBH I think my Mum had it easier than I had. My Dad worked in a 9-5 job Monday to Friday with very little overtime. My Mum was a Pharmacist and got offered jobs without having to actively seek work. She was able to suit herself a lot with her hours and could work a Saturday morning cause my Dad was always at home. Whilst they weren't on the doorstep, both sets of Grandparents were alive and offered help at different times. We also had a good childminder for a few hours a week. My Mum maintained a very clean house, but tbh she was quite strict and we didn't dare make much mess. I never remember her being without a washing machine, although she never had a dryer. On the other hand, my DH works shifts which change every week, sometimes his shifts allow him to help out with school runs and extra cirricular activities, but it is ususally just me and the kids at the weekend. I am self-employed and have at times struggled with work, I like my work but there are times where there is a lot of scrapping around for not much money. We also have no Grandparents around to help. That said, I do have a dryer, we have at times had some financial help from my Dad (he is rarely able to actually see us cause of his difficult partner) . After typing this I have changed my mind and decided it is more likely swings and roundabouts, although my Mum did seem to have an easier time.

zeeboo lots of us worked, we did do parties for our kids not at a softplay or something but at home where we did the food, the entertainment the lot. You might not think much of how we dressed our kids but funnily enough we cared just as much as you although we didn't have the money to spend. Also most working women in the 70s didn't have cars so when I took my kids to swimming lessons, football, cubs, tennis lessons I did it by bus, well not the tennis I could walk to those but the rest I got home from work, did a quick meal and straight out to activities and then did housework when they were in bed.

It was actually hardwork nothing simple about it.

blossom

My mum selotaped me into my nappies

It would be good to think she was ahead of her time...

But she just couldnt get the hang of the pins