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'm the same vintage as the OP. I had an interesting chat with my mum a good few years ago.
She conversationally told me how excellent our village GP used to be, every so often things would, you know, get a bit on top of you, and Dr Fowler gave you these marvellous little pills. They really worked and she never got addicted or anything, all her friends did it at one time or another. Of course they can't do that now because everybody is so worked up about people getting addicted.

I conclude that the women in my village coped with the aid of what I assume was Valium. I think they had the nickname "mother's little helpers"? Perhaps someone can confirm. My mum didn't use that term.

My mum was a young married mum, no money worries (quite well off in fact) and coped by feeding us all ready meals, having a cleaner and doing literally nothing with her two children- no clubs, no encouragement, no trips.

My father as a psychiatrist prescribed Valium and also therapy as part of his work with the seriously mentally ill. My parents didn't take any pills like I don't. My mother was even offered the pill in 1961 when pregnant with me which caused thalidomide and thankfully because she tended to believe in the natural way she avoided it.

Most stay at home mothers (and indeed working parents) in 2017 don't have cleaners or nannies or help with children.

I don't think most young women understood how it was then. If you had a happy marriage and were well off, you could have an easy life.

BUT many jobs were not open to married women and women were routinely paid less than men for the same job. This is why generally only working class women worked, because the wages were so low. If you had an abusive Husband, there were few refuges. Rape in marriage was legal. Getting your own cheque book or a loan in your own name without the permission of your Husband, was nearly impossible. Support for SEN children was almost nil,. with parents routinely advised to commit children to horrendous institutions. If your child had dyslexia they were just seen as thick. If they had ADHD they were just naughty children, and you were a bad mother.
A large proportion of families still had outside loos and no baths. Nappies were all cloth ones, over crowding for working class people was the norm. And god help you if you were lesbian or gay.

If you fitted into the middle class ideal, you were fine., anyone outside of that had it much worse.

I don't think it's especially unusual to have a cleaner as a sahm with very young children. My DM was a SAHM until we went to school and she had a cleaner. I am a SAHM with a 2 and 4yo, I have a cleaner once a week too.

I don't think most young women understood how it was then

I don't think you do if you think there wasn't the same variety then as there is now.

Talking to my MIL (aged 50) she is very much of the opinion that I have it harder because I also have a career whereas she was a SAHM. She also admits that it was normal to leave your child crying while you got in with housework and children were by and large expected to entertain themselves although MIL did play a lot with her children

I find this statement incredible, I am the same age as your MIL, yet her experiences sound like my granny's generation. It was all NCT, breastfeeding, baby led weaning and playing your child Mozart in the womb for me and most women went back to work at least past time after maternity leave. No one would have left their child to cry unless they were following the Gina Ford method. Honestly, most 50 year old woman will have had children in the 80s and 90s and yet this MIL makes it sound like the 1950s

In fact, may 50 year old women had their children in the 90s and 00s. Children were not left to cry and women did go back to work. This is very recent stuff.

I was wondering this recently, I come from a large family but I have just one child and am in a very (quite!) fortunate position yet still find it all a struggle!

I am in my mid 50s. Of course that may have been normal for your MIL, what I remember was the era of superwoman.
My mum is in her 70s, she had kids in the 60s and 70s.

My DM is 58, she BF me and DB until 18 months, never left us to cry etc. DB didn't sleep through until 3.5 (obviously hereditary, DD1 is 3.5 and hasn't cracked it yet!) and my dad used to drive him around in the car for hours at night so my mum could get some rest. She says she walked up to 10 miles a day with him in the pushchair trying to get him to nap! We went to bath groups and I remember my mum doing loads of craft activities with us.

I was born in the 70's, I don't think my mother had a hard life in any way- she had a very charmed life. This was spent mainly lunching, riding or shopping.

We had a series of "mothers helps " who doubled as cleaners and nannies. She spent as little time as possible with us, didn't play or entertain us. We entertained ourselves - taking ourselves off for hours on the countryside.

When I was about 10 I cooked our evening meal for 5 most evenings while she messed with her horses. I also did most of the families washing, ironing and cleaning.

I now work f/t and have two teenage children. As well As working I ferry kids to after school and weekend activities, attend school events etc etc. Yes I have a cleaner and a gardener but so what. Because of my upbringing I ask my children to do very little as I want them to be children. They both do help out when asked but I don't expect them to cook dinner.

My mother regularly says I don't know how you do it, that isn't because she is in awe it's because she genuinely doesn't know because she never did it herself

I think they left kids to themselves a lot more or let them play out in the street or park etc on their own more which must have helped.

We both had 2 children and worked full time, her 35 hours per week me 45 hours per week. I work after the kids have gone to bed and while they're up we play, bath and have stories. At weekends we have adventures. My mum takes her hat off to us for the 'quality' time we spend with our kids but her house was cleaner, her whites were definitely whiter and we always had a selection of home baking for Sunday tea. It all depends how you choose to spend your time.

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

In my '70s childhood, we collected newspapers for playschool (to cover the tables) and for firelight in. Any veg peelins and teabags went in the compost. Other rubbish was split between burnable, which was cardboard and stuff and went on the bonfire (and the ashes into the garden eventually), and the only things in the dustbin rubbish was plastics and metal and occasionally broken mugs. Plus there was always an Oxfam bag on the go (which wasn't always sent to Oxfam, but various other charity shops and jumble sales,) which had clothes we'd grown out of. Anything beyond wearing was torn up for rags. We didn't often have brand new clothes till we were secondary school age - there were a lot of hand-me-downs in our childhood wardrobe.

Admittedly it was unusual to separate rubbish, going by the number of guests who got confused about which bin to use. But it made life pretty easy once the council brought in recycling collections.

Environmentalso guilt has replaced religious guilt in a lot of cases - OK, in mine. Rules to follow,guilt when you breach the rules,a higher purpose, a vision of hell.

The only thing that's clear is that things were different, but how different depends on family circumstances then and now. My grandmother was born in the early part of the 20th century. The day before she married her employer sacked her as it was not their policy to employ married women. She became a mum just before the outbreak of ww2 and not only had to bring up her baby effectively as a single parent, but was also expected to look after her own parents and her husband's bedridden mother. No benefits then, just whatever she got from my grandad's wages as a soldier. No other family either-she was an only child and all grandad's brothers were in the services and unmarried. She didn't get a fridge, washing machine or central heating until the 70's when she came into a small inheritance. She was also expected to have grandad's dinner on the table when he returned from work at 5:30each day.
My mum was of the next generation - one where there was no maternity leave so employers could, and did, force you to leave when you had your baby. In our case, still no Labour saving devices - our first washing machine was purchased when my younger sister was about 3years old. Shopping had to be done almost daily as large fridge freezers were not available (or not for us, anyway). I don't think my mum was ever bored - she was always busy doing housework, cooking etc. She worked part time once I was around 10.
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My experience as a mum is different again. I was a sign for a while but then had to return for financial reasons. We still don't have a lot of the material things I see younger parents have, we don't have the same expectations as my dcs in terms of equipment and holidays etc. Butlike my mum and grandma, they will not be able to have the luxury of choice about whether or not to work when they have children. Unlike my mum and grandma, whose jobs did not exist after marriage or children, dcs choice is taken away by the need to work to survive. I think my generation was probably the luckiest because we really could choose, for a while at least, whether to be sahm or wohm.

That is what she told me luminaries but she is quite old fashioned and I think got most of her parenting advice from her mum so I guess did parent in the way of the generation before. She has said she didn't go to any classes etc and definitely didn't do BLW as she was shocked when I did it and hasn't mentioned ever doing baby wearing.

And she says SIL was left to scream in her cot every morning as they wouldn't have any contact with the children until 7.

Oh and I slept on a different floor to my parents so they couldn't hear me cry so I thought it was normal for that generation.

My mother was one of the first members of the NCT in 1961 by the way - that is not a new thing. I read her NCT leaflets about giving birth standing up rather than on your back when I was a teenager in the 1970s. My mother would never leave babies to cry for long in the early 60s. I don't think mothers who love their children ever had nor ever will to be honest.

The only thing that's clear is that things were different

It really isn't. My life as a parent is practically identical to my MIL's as a parent. Neither are probably as you imagine.

In fact, may 50 year old women had their children in the 90s and 00s. Children were not left to cry and women did go back to work. This is very recent stuff

Lots didn't go back to work, same as NOW. Children have always been left to cry, by some people.
Stop the daft generalising!

My mum was a young married mum, no money worries (quite well off in fact) and coped by feeding us all ready meals, having a cleaner and doing literally nothing with her two children- no clubs, no encouragement, no trips.

I had to laugh at this, as a WOHM in the 70s this is what we always used to say about SAHM. The clubs and activities all seemed to be working mums. Not that we were jealous/judgemental/generalising you understand.

My mum was/is lovely and was a sahm until I went to school and v v v part time after that. She also had an au pair, cleaner, gardner and we went to play group. My mother in law was similar. They both did lots of lovely fun bits but the boring bits got farmed out. I would too if we had the money!