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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to wish I could be a 50s style housewife?!

98 replies

bigchanges · 05/03/2018 18:06

Might just be that the past few shifts at work have been awful (think violent) and that I am stuck because the hours fit round my life and there are few jobs here.

BUT! I wish I could be a full on 50s, twee, stepford style housewife!

Pretty apron, spending my days baking and cleaning, wearing pretty dresses and pearls. No more stressful decisions. No more getting punched in the face at work. Gardening and embroidery all the way.

OP posts:
LostInShoebiz · 05/03/2018 18:08

No more stressful decisions unless you want something different to him and then you have no choice? Sounds super.

halfwitpicker · 05/03/2018 18:10

YANBU.

Especially if I could be married to Don Draper.

Idontdowindows · 05/03/2018 18:12

Getting legally raped, having to birth whatever babies get conceived, getting legally beaten up, not allowed to own property, in most places not allowed to have your own bank account.....

sounds like great fun Hmm

Pittcuecothecookbook · 05/03/2018 18:12

Yeah, cos that worked out so well for Don's wives!

Brokenbiscuit · 05/03/2018 18:12

YANBU to want whatever you want, but I can't think of anything worse.

In your situation, I would be wanting a new job...

DelphiniumBlue · 05/03/2018 18:13

Getting punched in the face at work? That sounds awful.

LemonsLemonsLemonsLemons · 05/03/2018 18:13

Meh, they were all on tranquilizers to try to numb their feelings of boredom and discontent. Read ‘The Feminine Mystique’ by Betty Friedan!

LemonsLemonsLemonsLemons · 05/03/2018 18:14

(Oh, but also - I’m sorry you had a bad day at work. Getting punched in the face sounds awful.)

Original poster
bigchanges · 05/03/2018 18:15

BrokenBiscuit - a new job would be great. But I have been looking for 3 months - everything is temporary, zero hours, or the hours just won't fit in.

I just want a job that I can actually do around kids / commitments where I don't come home battered.

OP posts:
Orlandointhewilderness · 05/03/2018 18:15

YANBU. Lovely!

Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar · 05/03/2018 18:17

Where do you work, op; that getting punched in the face is a normal part of your day? I'm assuming some sort of caring profession?
Flowers

Viviennemary · 05/03/2018 18:17

YANBU. I love the fashions and the aprons. Some of them had the life of riley I bet. Of course women were allowed their own property. We're talking about 1950 not 1450.

redfairy · 05/03/2018 18:17

YANBU. I reckon if I had made a good choice of husband I'd be happy as Larry as a 50s housewife! Tra-la-la-ing round the house like Doris Day sounds great to me.

NotLinkedInSnowedIn · 05/03/2018 18:18

Don Draper was very disconnected emotionally from his wives! He had relationships with women he wasn't married to. The real Don Draper's widow for example. Even Meghan, they had a good relationship only up until she tried to assert her right to a career.

NotLinkedInSnowedIn · 05/03/2018 18:18

OP, the mum from the Wonder Years maybe!?

HopeClearwater · 05/03/2018 18:19

Yeah, having to ask your husband for every penny!

QueenAravisOfArchenland · 05/03/2018 18:20

Half of the housewives of the 50s were off their faces on tranquillisers for anxiety and depression. It might look cute and kitsch on TV, but it was no fun to live.

eddiemairswife · 05/03/2018 18:22

Not all husbands were monsters in the 1950s. Not all women were on tranquillisers.

IveGotStupidHair · 05/03/2018 18:23

I quite like the idea of wearing a nice dress, a full face of makeup, hair all did proper, shagging Don Draper and being off my face on tranquillisers. It would be great for a few days. Then I would come back to 2018 an appreciate things a bit more. Maybe.

FlyingElbows · 05/03/2018 18:23

I totally hear what you're saying, op, but will you please have a go at rephrased it. The term "1950s housewife" is used for no other purpose than to insult women you (plural, society, women in paid employment) consider economically and intellectually inferior. The bizarre need of women to insult other women is unnecessary and does nothing to advance anyone.

I still hear you though. Wink

1ndig0 · 05/03/2018 18:25

Do you work in MH OP?

I used to and never went back after DC.

Being a "housewife" in the 2000s is way prefereable to the 50s. If you don't feel like cooking, there's Deliveroo. Send the ironing out get a cleaner and nobody's any the wiser.

Whatthefoxgoingon · 05/03/2018 18:25

There are plenty of housewives married to men who provide financially for them in 2018. No need to go back to 1950 with the attendant tranquillisers and boredom.

SilverySurfer · 05/03/2018 18:28

It's obvious you weren't around in the 1950s. Think of all the gadgets available today which were non existent back then. No automatic washing machines, they had to boil up the washing and feed it through a mangle to remove the excess water. I remember my DM one time managed to get her arm caught in the mangle up to her elbow which was bloody painful. No dishwashers, freezers, microwaves, or anything much in the way of kitchen appliances, the vacuum cleaner weighed a ton, it was bloody hard work and your last paragraph made me laugh out loud.

Original poster
bigchanges · 05/03/2018 18:29

I don't mind the minimum wage. The long shifts. The responsibility for giving medication. All that is job stuff to me. But the violence is getting to me more and more. I like to earn and contribute and (for now) care work fits. But I have trapped myself in care.

I would love to just have someone make the decisions for me. I am so drained all the time - caring over and over while getting attacked and threatened.

Floating around and having what to cook for tea as the biggest decision I have to make sounds like bliss right now.

OP posts:
Idontdowindows · 05/03/2018 18:29

No, a married woman was not allowed to have a mortgage or to sign a hire purchase agreement in her own name, and virtually no woman had her own bank account. Joint accounts did not exist. A husband’s earnings could be kept secret, and often were, a working wife had to declare all her income and assets on the joint income tax form, which was filled in by her husband.