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.

I wonder this all the time. My mum died before I realised how fucking hard it was had children so I will never know the answer.

I think life was a lot simpler in the 70's when I was growing up. My Mum was a SAHM until I was about 10 and my brother 7, then she worked school hours. When we were small there weren't all the activities there are now and the pressure to be somewhere all the time. We used to go to friends house occasionally or to the park, but apart from playschool that was it really. Also there were no distractions really - no internet, no daytime tv. And although all the information there is available now about parenting is good in some ways, in other ways it adds all of pressure.

I have to say though, I do struggle to understand why SAHM can't cope (unless they're struggle with mental/physical illness obviously) I've always worked ft, went back to work when each of mine were 3 months old, and been a single parent for 12 years and I managed ok.

Life is always quite hard when you have small babies who are up in the night. My generation back at work after 2 weeks off for a baby or 3 months if you were lucky probably had less sexist men actually comparing with the awful sexist men women write about on mumsnet/ 1970s feminism, the Equal Pay Act 1970, specifc children's books making sure they showed men at home and women work, were all part and parcel of 1970s and 80s life. There was much less gendered clothing around too. Let us hope we can return to those more gender neutral days of the 1970s women's liberation movement.

Violet to be fair though, some sahm don't have the choice to work. You can't ebf if you work when they're 3 months old for a start, and without lots of support it can be difficult.
Not everyone has help with childcare costs and not everyone has a job which pays well enough to also pay for childcare,

If you're In a position where you have the ability to go to work ft when your baby is 3 months then you're pretty lucky.
I haven't been able to work ft for over 4 years because my daughter is disabled
Being a sahm is hard work mentally, because you don't get a break from the kids and the housework, which is often doubled because the children are in the house more, not to mention the fact that society in general care are very ungrateful of sahm and their role in life (which is extremely important.)

I think I work just as hard as my mum did to be honest. I think most mums out there now would be pretty offended at the insinuation that they just aren't trying as hard as their mums did.

Somethings are easier now than 30/40/50 years ago and some are much harder.

Anon don't get me wrong, I don't think being a SAHM is easy at all, but maybe just not as difficult as some make out. I understand your situation, with a child with disabilities, it must be incredibly hard.

When I had my children, smp was only £50 per week so staying at home after 3 months just wasn't an option financially.

Sure it was hard on our mothers, but I (and most of the mums I know ) do everything she did and I have a full time job.

The 70s sounds like another planet on here. We had lots of clubs for kids, baby swimming, mother and baby groups, playgroup, all sorts of sport, music. Not everyone did them but lots of us did. For me the big differences were

1. No automatic washing machine until the mid 70s, they were just too expensive.
2. No central heating and a very cold house in the morning, think we got it in 78 or 79.
3. Far fewer cars and far far fewer 2 car families so mums did it all on foot or by bus so everything took longer.
4. No disposable nappies so all houses with babies/toddlers would have a bucket of smelly nappies in the bathroom. On the other hand most children got toilet trained earlier.

We got central heating in 1966.
My mother learned to drive in about 1967 when we got 2 cars- before that for a year she walked me to school pushing the pram adn then walked back and then did the same at lunch time and the same at the end of school (we came home for lunch until I was 10 as did my father all his life).

We and indeed I for the first 3 chdilren used cloth nappies which tended to leak. We have a photo from 1988 of the new baby, the 1 year old and the 3 year old lying side by side in their cloth nappies. Luckily their father did 100% of the washing of nappies and everything else.

My father did the house cleaning and night waking of children in the 1960s by the way.

I knew women who could drive in the 70s but only one who had a car. We didn't have a car at all until the 80s. I suppose we should be talking about the difference for working/middle class families. I think it is easier for working class women now as we always worked and did all the other stuff as well.

I didn't know any children still in nappies at 3 back in the 70s. Not only did women want to get rid of the washing but they actually aren't that comfortable so children seemed more receptive to getting rid of them as well. I can't think exactly how old my children were but certainly they were out of day nappies before 2nd birthday, nights I really can't remember.

thirdload

My mum died when ds1 was 17 months old, before i had dd and ds2

Its not fair, i am sorry for your loss

hmmm swings and roundabouts.
My mom worked but she didnt bring it home with her like I do.
She didnt have to make a zillion and one costumes for school or attend countless activities
everythin was on doorstep
nobody had any money. no competition
They went out every sat evening and didnt have their lives ruled by kids. we followed their rules not vice versa
my mom reckons its harder now than 70s/80s. she finds perfect yummy mummies annoying. as do I.

The worst thing about being a mum in the 70s must have been the sheer boredom of it. No car and leaky nappies so couldn't go far. Every day was the same routine. It actually makes for a very secure childhood. I work part time but on my days off take the kids to all sort of different places and activities. It's for my benefit more than theirs and I do wonder if it's all too much and that they'd be happier with a quieter life. I just think I'd go crazy.

In our mothers' generation it was not unusual to hire a 'mothers help', even if you were quite hard up, and also the grandparents tended to be much younger and so more physically helpful. And the breadwinners tended to work much shorter hours and not have to be contactable for work 100% of the time. Not saying it was easier then, but I think it's a myth they all coped marvellously on their own. I know several of that generation who talk complete nonsense like 'my children never had tantrums and were always in bed by seven' - not how I remember it!

Something that has definitely changed though is that, back then, it was fashionable and expected to Cope Fine. Now it's the opposite, we're encouraged to moan and deluded with blogs about how hard it is to be a mum and how we should all grab the wine as soon as the kids are in bed. At playgroups all the talk is about how hard it is - I got filthy looks if I ever dared mention how much I love being a mum and how fun my son is, etc, and that despite the hideous lack of sleep I loved the nighttime cuddles. So I think there's a weird fashion change to the conversations around it.

I am in my mid 50s. My mum was a mum in the 60's and 70s. She was a SAHM until we went to school, but only because there was no childcare. We were with her all the time until then, and my dad worked long hours. She had no support at all.
Once we went to school, she went back to work, and still did all the housework and childcare. I do think it was physically harder then. But the expectations were lower and so she was considered a good mum because she did not neglect us. But her life was totally taken up with the house, kids and work.

Years ago a lot of women stayed at home with the kids. Today, I only know one woman who gave up working after having kids

Working class women always worked. Not when kids were very young unless they had grandparents to support them. As there was no paid childcare for most kids.
I remember kids being in the playground from 8 am - we lived next to the school - because their mum had to get to work.

Haven't read thread but I agree with your original post.

And our parents didn't need to blog about every ducking detail and wine about how much they hate their kids!!

A lot of mums in those days were SAHM. And they didnt' feel they needed to put their children first all the time and take them to loads of activities. They had it easy, it seems to me.
Oh, and the new mums spent 10 days in hospital when they had a baby.

The middle class was small then, and so those with middle class backgrounds generally had quite a privileged upbringing.
By the way I knew no one who had a mothers help. That was for posh people.

It's interesting reading current MN threads bearing this one in mind. The pp who asked whether there was much to do a Bicester shopping village for her 7yo DC, for example - 70s MNers wouldn't even have thought to query this, as children fitted into adults lives and went where they went.

Why does is it have to be a competition though?

They managed... Life was more tricky in some ways and easier in others.

I don't want to "manage" .... I work and I have a very demanding 3yo and due to circumstances have very very little help or time for myself. However, my approach is not look how hard life is and aren't I a martyr- if I could afford a cleaner and a chef and a babysitter to make my life easier if bloody pay it!

You don't get a medal for having a hard life. i wouldn't want to live how my mother or grandmother did.

I was robbed, 2 babies in the 70s and didn't get 10 days in hospital with either of them.

I always say I would never, ever want to live without an automatic washing machine. It is the one thing I would be willing go into debt for and even more so if I had babies/children at home. I think second would be central heating but I got rid of the dishwasher as I didn't think it was worth it.

My mum washed all our clothes in the bath until she got a twin tub. I remember having to wash clothes by hand when I first left home and could not afford a launderette. Bloody hard work.

Also my mum has birth injuries that only now are being corrected. Back in the 60s Drs were awful for ignoring these issues.