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.

OP, I have one unmarried son. I already love you, are you free?

I was a latchkey kid with 2 working parents. We spent a lot of time playing out or helping with chores.

Slight deviation but I can't work out how my Dads salary paid for so much. 4 kids at top notch public (private) schools, nanny, cleaner, cook, gardener, grooms, horses etc.

He was a director and then the chairman and we lived on a farm. But I'm sure the farm and the horses did not pay for themselves or get anywhere close to it. So something in our current financial dynamic has changed dramatically.

They just did. I think there was a lot more of the just get on with it outlook on life. I'm older than lots on here and we didn't live in a house with a bath in it until I was about 7. We lived in a 3rd floor one bedroomed flat. My mum had 2 of us and my dad worked long hours. We had no washing machine, it was all done by hand. No phone. I had no after school clubs, if I went to brownies I got myself there and back. We were left to entertain ourselves going out for hours from a very young age, my mum had no idea where we were. But she had no one to compare herself with other than immediate family or neighbours. No pictures of perfect houses on Instagram, no fb friends detailing every moment. A life that was harder physically but easier in many ways.

I have 4 kids, 10, 7, 6 and 4. Hubby works away Mon-Fri every week. I have no family support, in-laws are elderly and my mum has early onset dementia. I have no au pair, cleaner etc etc, I just "get on with it", I think we all do what we can to get through and make life any easier, I don't think we're necessarily any better or worse than our parents generation.

My parents had 4 girls from 1937 -1944. Dad worked and mom stayed at home. We have a three bedroomed house and garden. Mom was always cheerful and shopped every day - she did a lot of home cooking/baking. Dad lit the coal fire before he went to work at 6.30 am and his dinner was always ready when he returned at 6.30 pm.

We had a weeks holiday every year to Wales on the coach. Other than that we amused ourselves - played outside for hours and no ferrying us about (no car) and as for playdates what a notion! I had a very happy childhood - not a lot of money but we had bikes and a garden to play in. I think washing was a trial - I remember mom telling me that she used to bring the wicker washing basket down with stuff to wash but then got so tired she had to take half of it back!

They lived into their 90s...........

My kids were born in the 60s and I had no fridge or washing machine - the nappies were a right pain, put in a bucket of Napisan (and the poo would float on the top!) then boiled on the stove in a big saucepan - drying them for another pain and I remember going to the launderette with washing in the pram to dry there. My weekly shop was £6.00 -can you imagine ................

We disappeared for hours at a time & had aunts & cousins & neighbours looking out for each other & each other's kids. Kids had more independence & less stressful for mums.

I'd like to see my mother try to cope with my life. She didn't work and she didn't bother with her children much. Most of her friends were the same.
I work more than FT, have 3 dc and no help. My mother has no idea why I don't just spend all day wandering round garden centres.

When I grew up, nearly all mums were at home during the day, and when we weren't at school we were all sent out to play - even toddlers, and the eldest kids in the group had to look after them.

All the mums kept an eye out for everybody's children round and about, it really was a case of 'it takes a village to raise a child', -
although for us it was a massive new town estate - but it worked the same way.

Woe betide any kid who misbehaved - word would get back to their parents and they'd get a telling-off. (contrast that with today, when you'd get a right mouthful from a parent if you told their kid off or complained about their precious offspring).

We made up our own games and occupied ourselves - hardly anybody did extra-curricular activities - if you said you were bored you got given chores to do, so you would make yourself scarce!

No such things as mobiles, laptops, computer games or DVDs, and there were no children's programmes on the TV until mid-afternoon, and they finished with 'The Magic Roundabout' just before the teatime news. In the school holidays they'd show Champion the Wonder Horse' for a while in the mornings, and that was that.

My mum basically did housework, cleaning and cooking all day, every day, and most other mums were doing the same. Us kids were playing outside and didn't need constant attention. The only attention we got would be a biscuit and squash at elevenses (if we were lucky and timed it to arrive at someone's house at the right time).

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% When was that? I think food was relatively more expensive in the 70s, and clothes. My gas bills were a nightmare but that might have been linked to the draughty windows. Water rates were tiny, a bit of a joke bill you didn't even think about but I think my water and gas are about the same now.

The other thing about the 70s was rampant inflation so comparing 1970 with 1979 would show a massive difference I think.

Totally agree op and often wonder how my mum did it (and still does while working full time) when I, 21 yrs younger than her don't even come close to her standards of housekeeping and child rearing.

Thought it was just me.

We can only do our best, no point beating ourselves up.

(Just thought, maybe if I only had 4 channels on the TV and a phone that could only make calls I might get far more done? Might try it for a week! 😨😨)

My mum was an amazing mum. She didn't work after the age of 27 when she had my older brother. By the time I was born (second child), we were living in a three bedroom house in the city centre with a good sized garden and two cars, two foreign holidays a year, private healthcare and private education for my older brother, all on my dad's wage. My dad had a good job, commuted and worked long hours in the office and went away on business trips but when he was home, he was home, there was no laptop or mobile so there was no working from home. Ever.

I may be very short sighted and not know much about politics but I feel the main difference for family life now compared to back in the 1970s and 1980s is economic.

Single parent here, 2 DC and absolutely no help from anyone.. What with clubs, school, nursery i walk anywhere between 8 and 20 km per day which takes up a massive chunk of it especially with a 3 year old. I don't have a freezer or a large fridge so have to shop regularly and cook most things from scratch. I have finally given in and purchased a tumble dryer though so that's one less thing even if it is parked in the middle of my kitchen floor due to lack of space. I'm not sure my life is that much easier .. I'm pretty exhausted but don't complain!

My DM worked part-time, had a cleaner twice a week and a gardener and we sometimes went to a childminder. Think she found that quite tough still especially as DF worked long hours.

MIL was similar. PIL travelled a lot for work and she found those years horrendous.

The GP generation on one side had nannies, housekeepers, maids, no one worked. They think we have it very hard juggling 2 high pressure careers with no live in help.

Well they didn't all cope. My mother had five kids, a terrible relationship with my dad who didn't work, both smoked 40 a day, didn't bother buying food or clothes for us and spent all their dole money at the bingo. We raised ourselves.

I think it's easy to look back to days gone by with a sense of awe, but actually, they were no 'better' than us. There were mums who coped, and mums who didn't and parents who didn't give a shit. Just like now.

My mum coped with four kids, two part time jobs, and a useless, endlessly-violent husband by drinking scotch. It killed her in the end.

I'm glad my life is nothing like my mum's, and that my kid's life is nothing like my own childhood.

My mum was a SAHM and had a cleaner - we all went to private school. She spent a lot of time running us around but had time to do courses and pursue hobbies when we were at school.

I work and can't afford a cleaner right now. So I don't think she had it that hard!

Totally agree, people need to get a grip, sorry?!!

I had my children in the seventies. I did everything, all DIY, gardening, housework, shopping and cooking, with no help ever. We had no phone, no washing machine, no disposable nappies and I didn't drive or have much money.

It was a bloody doddle, the best days of my life. Lots of friends, lots of fun, lots of walking and no social media or MN to waste hours on. 'Woman's Own' was my weekly treat.

Working full time and juggling a young family now seems horribly stressful, wouldn't fancy it at all.

My mum coped by not doing anything with us, ever.
All her time seemed to be taken up with washing, cleaning etc
We were expected to play outside and not bother her.
And in summer that could mean being out of the house from 9-7 with a brief stop for orange squash and an iced bun!
She didn't have the labour Saving devices I have now but she seemed to spend a lot of time smoking, drinking tea and chatting to her neighbours....

Still, I can't help but feel that we don't 'just get on with it' the way our mothers did.

What aren't we getting on with? Please enlighten me. I don't know anyone with a nanny or cleaner. If someone wants or needs one, fucking good for them.

If you feel you're not living up to your mother standards, have you considered getting off mumsnet and doing more offline? Then you can be just as much of a wonderful saint as your amazing mother and mil.

Hth.

Walmo...my mum has said the same...she has told me more than once she would hate to be a mum to young kids now.

My mum looked after all 5 of her kids with the help of me the eldest. Had I not had that experience then I would have been a clueless mother myself. All my resilience comes from my mother. I am sure they struggled, they just didn't have platforms like mums net to complain about how hard it all was.

My mum was a SAHM in the 70's. we had au-pairs until I was about 10 and a "daily help' who was an older lady who came in very day and who I guess was a housekeeper and she also babysat for us. My mum had her hair done every week, went out every Saturday night so I don't think her life was too onerous. She thinks it's ridiculous that I only have a cleaner 4 hours a week as she still has 8 hours cleaning and 2 hours ironing a week and it's just her and my dad around

I get what you are saying. OP. They didn't know any different though. Part of it is the relative simplicity of few mothers having ft work outside the home. In many ways my mum did very well, had no automatic washing machine for years, till the early 80s. She did a ft teacher training course when I went to high school (mid 70s) and washed clothes by hand - and boiled up cloth hankies in a big cauldron . But I also recall her bitching about a neighbour who allegedly had a
filthy house and shock horror sat and read novels after the children were in school.