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.

They had Valium - these days it's wine !

I never had Valium and neither did any of my friends,.

They just got on with it, mostly. On the other hand it was acceptable to leave the kids to amuse themselves, send them out to play in the street, have a cuppa with other mums, send a 6 year old on an errand to the corner shop, expect the kids to do chores (and older children to look after little ones) and to smack any child who wouldn't do as they were told.

My mum lived abroad and couldn't work formally. At one point she had 3 under 4, one of whom had Stage 3 cancer. We didn't have a tv.

On the other hand, we had a nice big garden we were turfed out into to play. We did a lot of housework - I remember standing on a stool to do the dishes, and not just as a one off but every night, as it was my chore. I also cleaned my father's shoes, ironed his shirts, and helped with laundry and sibling care. I started doing babysitting for money from age 12. We also had tons of homework - my first memory of being shouted at about HW is from age 5

My grannies' lives were harder. One died in her 40s of lung cancer. The other was married to a feckless wastrel who raped his own daughter (my aunt) and it meant Granny had to work. She cleaned houses and took in laundry. When one of my uncles was born, she had to keep doing laundry after the birth as she had to get the clothes back to her customer. She used to lock my dad, the youngest, in a cupboard, so she could go out to work. One of her babies, little Joy, died at only a few weeks old of an infection becauss they could not afford a doctor (late 1930s, no NHS). Granny once told me about begging some ointment, might have been olive oil, from the chemist as charity, then wrapping up her baby on cloths soaked in it and sitting up with her all night by the fire - unheard of luxury to have going all night - trying to keep the baby warm and alive. She fell asleep just before dawn and her baby had died in her arms when she woke.

Nobody in Britain today has to live like that. We have different challenges but not that raw struggle for existence.

I think everyone is different and the situations aren't really comparable. My parents were together when I was a kid (1990 born). My mum didn't have to work and had 3 kids. Was obviously stressful for her as she used to beat my older sister and I. Not my youngest sister though. Their house cost 80k and looking it up now would cost 300k. My sisters and I also went to grandparents every Sunday so mum and dad had plenty of child free time. My dad earned a very modest amount but it was enough to support us all. That wouldn't be the case now.

Otoh I am a working single parent but only have one child. I don't have a dishwasher or tumble dryer and think this is normal for a working class household. I have no childfree time. Any time my son is looked after by my family (rare) it is because I have no other childcare option (I work 12 hour shifts including weekends). I do absolutely everything for my son and I on my own. Because I have to! No one else to do it and I will never ever rely on a man as long as I live. So I do think I have it harder than my mum. But I have it loads easier than single mums a few years ago.

I suppose life was just more of a drudge then and people expected it and got on with it rather than expecting more and being disappointed?

Also, they didn't have wifi enabled phones in the 70s to distract them from housework which is what happens here.

JonnyMcGrath's point about how much life has changed since the 1930s is well made. Eighty years ago, life in the (rural/impoverished areas) UK was not very different to the developing world.

There is way more expected of us nowadays. I don't think parents really played with their children before - they sent them out to play while they did the housework/cooking. Now we're supposed to be playing with our kids all the time and letting the rest go to pot or outsourcing it, i.e cleaner/nanny.

I have thought about this and I feel that our expectations now are far higher. We expect to be able to have it all, do it all and love it all. My mum said she made her choice to have kids and that was the end of it.
I think I'd be a better mum had I not been brought up to want more for myself. I had a good career, travelled loads and did well financially. I couldn't keep it all up with kids.

Exactly, missymayhemsmum!

Mine?
20 Benson & Hedges during the day and a bottle of wine at night.

No job for years so shit pension now. No effort to go out and be with people so no friends now.

I'm not 'filled with admiration' by any stretch...

what misymeyhem said

yes my mum and her peers had crap washing machines etc but from the age of 6 we went to school by ourself and at 7 were off down the park with a 'come back at tea time.'

it was great to have so much freedom. its hard work managing the kids every minute like we do these days. tbh I feel a bit sorry for our cloistered kids trapped to our apron strings.

In my case dull was just dull. I might of had imagination as a kid but it's not led me to any great discovery further than a very conformist admin job as an adult so whilst I won't sweat my kids entertaining themselves now and again; I'm not remotely buying the it's good to be ignored bored all the time notion!

And our houses are messier because we have WAY MORE STUFF than they ever had black in the 70s!

I have way less stuff than my mother did- or most people that I remember.

Most houses were jammed with ornaments, brasses, clutter, tablecloths, lace doilies, china display cabinets,everything needing polished and dusted.

Most of us have none of that crap.

My grandmothers were incredible women in my opinion. One had 8 kids, the other had 5. Every night a meal from scratch, no washing machine, dishwasher, tumble dryer and married at a time where child rearing was seen as women's work. My families were very working class and poor and my grandparents with 8 children slept in the living room because there was no room for them. The grandparents with 5 kids rented out their front room to my aunt, uncle and cousin.

We all have our challenges and my grandparents didn't have to deal with house prices that look like telephone numbers, they didn't have the same level of scrutiny over how they reared children but being working class they were judged by how well kept their house was, how well fed their children were and how scandal free their lives were. I am in full admiration for my grandmothers.

As a few people have said, I don't really think this is an era difference - firstly I know nobody who has a cleaner or a nanny. And I myself am a single mum of a 9 month old, and have been from day 1. My family all live minimum 6 hour drive away, none of my friends have kids (at least those I knew from before I had my daughter). I don't have a tumble dryer or dishwasher (although my baby doesn't exactly use a lot of kitchen utensils!) and obviously i don't employ any help. And life's great! I love the rush, I love always having something to do! Oh and a shout out to a charity called Homestart, because I do have an incredible volunteer who helps me out two hours a week so that is something I'm very grateful for. But other than that it's just us two and whatever life throws at us and It's fantastic. PS absolutely true people cope cos they have to, that's life.

I agree that there was the butcher's and baker's vans. Plus, the few brand new clothes we had that weren't hand-me-downs or homemade or from jumble sales were mostly out of the catalogue (Littlewoods, John Moores and the like.) We didn't go out to the shops for clothes, except school uniform. A new catalogue was exciting, even if we weren't allowed most of the clothes we wanted, and none of the toys.

So there's always been home shopping in one form or another.

Lots of differences,. On both sides of the families there were families of about 10 of the women born about 1970 ish. Then my family at least in the next generation conceiving children around 1910 - 1930s did use it and families were suddenly smaller - were condoms suddely easier to get? My mother was one of 1 (due to a death of her father) but all her 52 first cousins were from small families too,. my father was one of 3 (a 4th died right after birth). In the 50s/60s my uncle and then my parents had just 2 and 3 (4 including a death) respectively. Then our next generation had 2 /2 and my unusual 5 in the 1980s to 90s.

My parents didn't have home deliveries of goods to the house in the 1960s. They went to the shops and by the way I remember going with my father to buy food not just my mother - they weren't sexist. Some families were then and are now but not mine.

My great grandmother never owned a house nor most of that generation. My grandfather and one of his brothers managed it (that house where my father grew up costs about £100k today in the NE so we are not talking about a mansion even by today's standards). My mother saw that as the richer side of the family as they owned that place/ any place.

Actually what the thread shows is some of us are from less well fof backgrounds than others. My grandmother took a ship to Indai in her 20s as a young woman in the 1920s to be a servant in an English household looking after a child. She caught malaria and had yellow skin for the rest of her life and was never very well. They did not seem to have the tablets they have now although she came back and married and then had my mother.

I think in some ways my mum had it a lot easier. She had a whole street full of nosey neighbours to help out in a fix. She never had to ferry us around to activities because we amused ourselves with the other 30 children in the street. She had her sister and mother to help her out. She didn't have to worry about me walking to the shop to get a loaf. She literally did have a whole village helping to raise her children.

I on the other hand have to pay someone a massive hourly rate to help me out if I get stuck and I have no support network whatsoever. I have more money than she did but have to pay someone loads to babysit if I get stuck. If I added up all the help I have had from family over 10 years I could fit it in one day.

Bitter......not me...

Children were left to play on their own in the garden/street/local park. You were allowed to walk to your friend's house unexpectedly to ask if they could cone out to play. Much less kids TV so it was valued when it was on. Smacked bottoms or just the threat of.

I was let loose to play from the ae of 4, as were most kids on my estate. We would come home when we were hungry.
Most days i would wander the estates/parks/woods.

Italian scallion - I totally get where u r coming from.

All hats to my mum. Although we had a fridge, tv & vacuum. Clothes sent out to the laundrette and a car. Also grandparents to help on both sides.

There was no spoilt rotten - I want it now generation of kids.

No social media to keep up with perfect life. There was less greed in the world I believe as people were happy and content with what they had. We were happy to play on the streets, worn out clothes and so on. Now you see a queue of parents outside the shop once a new gadget, phone or designer outfit comes out. SMH

Thanks for starting the thread. Typical Mumsnet posters have to derail from point of thread, guess another factor of having so much useless time to waste. Picking a fight on thread that won't add or take away from personal life. Lawd.

Got me thinking.

I think the problem with these threads is the assumption the experience of a poster's family is somehow representative of the whole population at the time.
My mother (born 1910) worked full time. She made all our clothes, shopped without a car, did all the decorating. My father was disabled and unable to do much more than potter in the garden after he had to give up work. Money was very tight. Her life was hard.
I was born in 1949, went to university, worked full-time from when the children (born in early 70s) were tiny. We shared all the house jobs, cooking, cleaning, shopping apart, from when DH was away abroad for work. We both had demanding jobs and took the children to after-school activities. My friends all worked full-time. My life was not as grindingly hard as my mother's because we shared the work of running the home and bringing up the children.
I don't think you can make any generalisations about which generation had it harder or easier, it all depends on circumstances.

I must say I agree. Ok mum had 2 kids whilst I have 4 but she worked part time, cooked everyone from scratch, produced great food, our home was immaculate and we were well turned out.
My kids live amongst a pile of ironing and messy bedrooms, midweek meals are dull and I would never dream of baking from scratch!
My home is pretty chaotic and I can never get on top of the work despite being a SAHM and having an Ito img lady.
I also grew up in the 70's and I think
Iit's because the last generation were made of stronger stuff, were war or post war babies and grew up with resilience and I think a biggie is that my kids through my own fault have not been trained to do enough chores and also we have much much much more 'stuff'.
Also in the 70's we were out all day playing so we did give mum a lot if space. Mine are either underfoot or our with me.
God - I LOVED the 70's - a childhood of love and power-cuts😄

I think the problem with these threads is the assumption the experience of a poster's family is somehow representative of the whole population at the time

Agreed. My mum was a SAHM, she played with us/did crafts/took us to activities but hated housework, didn't iron, hated cooking. MIL had a full time housekeeper. The experiences of the OP aren't the same as mine.