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.

Valium.

A bonfire has a certain sense of occasion about it.

Trying to get meat packaging clean enough to recycle without causing food poisoning is a task I'd happily farm out to some kind of robot.

Interesting point about similarity with religious guilt - I have both!

The environmental thing was an afterthought to my earlier points - lots of small parts of the day which can add up.

Cbeebies your MIL sounds like she isn't from a completely different generation to me & my friends, although we are the same age. She sounds incredibly old fashioned in her approach and don't think it is really representative of child rearing in the 90s or 00s - all the baby led weaning, extended breastfeeding, reusable nappies, attachment parenting and slings were going hot and strong when I had my babies. If you didn't do that, it was in reaction to that being so prevelant - i.e. Gina Ford. 50 really isnt that old (she meeps, pathetically )

My mum had 7 of us, my dad worked night shifts, she worked days, she made all our clothes, cooked everything from scratch, didn't have a washing machine or a car and we lived in a two bed flat with a coal fire and no other heating.

She still says it was the best of times and says it's different now but no less hard. Back then we had less things so tidying was quicker, we had less clothes and wore them for longer, we didn't do as many outside activities and those we did we went by ourselves. People weren't as driven (in her arena anyway) and there was more of a community - people looked out for each others children with no money passing hands and we were happy with picnics in the park in summer instead of foreign holidays.

50 definitely isn't old luminaries! MIL behaves more like someone in their 60s or 70s however. To be fair when she had her children I think she was poor and quite isolated so was reliant on advice from her mum and MIL which I guess was pretty old-fashioned.

Actually that's unfair on older people! She is just old fashioned

I think back then they just did it because they didn't feel that they were being watched and judged all the time. No internet fora to snark away in, no plethora of "family" mags telling you you're doing it wrong.

That, and day drinking was somehow more accepted then.

I'm your mom in the now. No support, no outside help. It's freaking exhausting. My middle son has ASD. So he's a lot of work on his own, plus two more! My house is super clean. Cooked dinners from Monday to Sunday. Washing up to date. It's all about time management.

Needsagreencard I think women felt more watched and judged in the 70s, just in different ways. My mother was endlessly concerned about what an audience of ever changing watchers would think of her - she was very concerned indeed with what "people" (our teachers, neighbors, the church congregation, the vicar, her colleagues, my dad's colleagues, her wider family, her old school friends) would think...

Interestingly (to me) she mocked her own MIL for the same type of concern about what the neighbors and random strangers thought of her and her child...

One of my 75 year old father's main gripes about his upbringing is his mother's conviction he was constantly "showing her up"

Valium

Ha, I knew someone would've got there before me in 15 pages.

I grew up in the 70s. My mum didnt work and didn't drive until I was in my teens. School was at the end of the road and the only clubs my sister and I did were brownies/guides and swimming. Other than that mum was at home all day. Maybe it's nostalgia but my childhood seemed much more relaxed than our pace of life today. Maybe we'd be happier if our lives were quieter and less frantic.

Don't beat yourself up OP, I can really see where you're coming from.

When my grandmother was alive she used to say how women coped better in her day. I used to shush her with reminding her that women were also regularly prescribed amphetimines back in her day.

Crikey, so many posters saying their mothers had cleaners, gardeners etc. Mumsnet is quite a specific demographic! I'm from a working class background, people did not (and many still do not have) all mod cons and conveniences (simple things like microwaves weren't even common in my circles when I was a kid in the 80s). I marvel at how my grandmother/mother managed without a washing machine/TV/car etc. And not much going in the way of contraception, poor fuckers.

Mine took a cushion into the under stairs cupboard to scream into and then went into valium, also in the seventies. HTH.

My Dh and I work full time and have four children. The house is decent and children well cared for, despite no help.

My mum was a sahm had family help, my dad only worked 18 hours a week and there was only two of us.

It's already been said, but the breadwinners wage was generally sufficient. The material expectations were lower too.

Studies have shown modern parenting to be isolated and much more hands on then theirs ever were they were also able to throw us out for great swathes of time to entertain ourselves

So soft is a crap terminology they'd struggle just as much as we do now a days

And let's not forget a 40 hour week gave a pretty decent standard of living and food and utility costs were 10% of household income they are now in excess of 25%

My mum cleaned, washed, ironed
and cooked from scratch. No tumble dryer, no dish washer. However, what she didn't do is entertain us all day long, take us on hundreds of play dates and extra curricular activities. Once we were at school we pretty much entertained ourselves and from aged 7/8 she didn't even do the school run. We walked on our own. This left her with plenty of time for coffee (and wine) with the neighbours whilst we played outside for hours!!

I have some really lovely books upstairs about the history of women - one is about real average women in about 1900 to 1950, their lives their pregnancies, in poor area, East End - it might have been a book written by a lady who rang a contraceptive clinic. Another is the history of childcare - the different trends from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. In fact I used to look at jumble sales for very old books about how to bring up children when mine were young - it is very interesting.

What never changes is the love mothers have for their chldren and the fact they feed, clothe and cuddle them, sing and talk to them and love them. The essence of being a mother nor and then and always remains the same. It binds us all together rather than divides us in my view. Wherever I am on this planet and even if I were in a different time that connection between women who are mothers will always be there.

In a sense it's the reason mumsnet has succeeded as a website.

I haven't read all the thread ( just seen it).
We have 4 children, all born in the '60s. When the youngest was 3 I went back to work, part-time. ie 25 hrs pw. Then when the oldest was 12 I went fulltime (35hrs pw.) The only help I had in the house was a lady 3 hrs pw to do a bit of ironing, cleaning etc.
All the children were allocated their jobs, according to their ages. To earn their pocket money.
I was one of that generation who thought, "we can have it all - parenthood, profession etc." But it did take its toll - always weary! My husband worked long hours too.
One big reward is that all 4 children have a strong work ethic, TG.
I couldn't have been a sahm anyway, too restless. But chacun à son goût.

My mother certainly had it easier than me as she only worked part time and had the help of her mother for childcare. I don't know how she coped without a mobile phone though but they didn't know any different back then. I am amazed at how many SAHM's have cleaners and nannies these days and claim to be hard done by!

I don't know how my mum did it, my parents had their own business, a shop, that was the shop at the front and then our house behind, and when I was born she had me to look after, my older disabled brother and her sock PIL. Granted they had people to help out in the shop but still must have been really difficult.

My mother stayed home with 4 kids, all 4 years apart. She never worked, never learned to drive, only 2 friendly neighbours for company but, this was the 60s and she got through with black and white westerns and Crossroads on TV, 40 cigarettes a day, regular valium and sleeping pills. How awful!

StoatofDissary & KatherineI was just going to comment Mothers Little Helper. Great minds

My mother got us up, took us to school, took us to after school activities and sports whilst maintaining aridiculouslyclean home, and doing all the laundry etc with no help or family support.

I'm sorry OP, but I don't understand what is difficult about any of this if you are a SAHM, either now or then. I, (and countless others) , somehow manage to do all this stuff plus a FT job outside the home. In the 70s and 80s my mum did this too. (Not afterschool clubs right enough). No cleaners, gardeners, nannies. Such luxury is a completely alien experience for most mums I'm sure and is relevant to a tiny proportion of well off families. ...I would gladly trade being a FT working mum now with being a 70s housewife..I don't think going without a couple of mod cons adds on 35 hours a week labour to the housework. ( Although I really don't fancy washing nappies!)