AIBU to wonder how some people coped in former times?

[Flyingfish2019]

When they had 12 children, husband was working down the mines 16 hours a day, no transportation, no frozen/canned food, no fridge, constantly pregnant. No help if somebody suffered a disability (and I think this was likely working down the mines those days).

I just wondered because I have far less then 12 children and dh does not work down the mines and still we are often soooooo tired. Children keeping us awake play a role in this... how would we cope if there was 12 of them and we had to live under the conditions described above?

The day my great grandmother announced she was pregnant with number 19 (and potentially number 20 given twins ran in the family, and she’d already birthed two sets), my great grandfather walked down the back of the farm, filled his pockets with rocks and jumped in the small lake. He couldn’t cope with more mouths to feed. My grandfather, not so lucky number 19, never met his dad and never got over the guilt.

My point is, I’m not sure they did cope. I think they just kept more to themselves, or that there’s fewer records of the crap they went through. Imagine our great grandparents/ grandparents reading into the future and seeing what troubles upset us. They’d be disappointed.

That said, I like to believe that our ancestors had better morals / standards than many people do now. Too often you hear more about people’s entitlements than their responsibilities.

My Mum was born at start of WW2 and was one of 8 kids.
One died age 2 of scarlet fever, the rest have lived to be pensioners today. Mum says they were "poor but happy". Her parents - my grandparents lived to their 90s in good health.

No tv, car, central heating etc. Just one radio. Boys room/girls room/parents room. Slept with Dad's work coat on the bed at night for warmth. My mum was oldest girl so did lots of housework and looking after younger kids. They ran ferrel most of the time in the neighbourhood but had fine fun! Lots more interaction with other people - the rest of the extended family who all lived in same city and local friends and neighbours. People sat out on their front steps in the warmer evenings and chatted and laughed with neighbours - no tv or computers!
Very few possessions - one doll, one pair of shool socks and school pants that she washed herself each eve and dried by the fire for next morning. Weekly bath. She said poor kids in school (ie poorer than them!) had 'tide marks' - this was when they had clean hands and faces wiped with a flannel but grubby everywhere else.
Life was frugal but Mum says they got great pleasure from simple things as a result. They weren't hungry but appreciated things. Probably a much healthier diet as far less indulgent and loads of excercise as walked loads. A bag of oranges a treat, or apples scrumped from local estate or some rare sweets. A sunday joint. My grandad told me he didn't have shoes when HE was a young boy (about 1910) and had cold feet from the cobbles in winter. His family were poor and his Mum died young - TB. I love my Mum telling me stories about 'the olden days' - so interesting and she still has new ones after 80 years. Sometimes she has me in stiches!

Offwith the pixies thats such a sad story. 19 kids - bloody hell.

Well said EsitsaBooman (8 posts up) in answer to +CertainlyMerry* and that rather uninformed post.

Universal credit is a political solution to a social and economic question and it shows. Just the fact that you can only apply online says enough. My learning difficulties NDN gets no help, does not have a computer and could not use one if he had. There must be others like him.

He also pays the bedroom tax because he inherited the tenancy on his mum's council house when she died. He lives on 45 pounds a week after rent/council/bedroom tax. That's for all his food, clothes, bills, transport. Everything.

So if the welfare state is failing people like him what's it for?

I would rather have a private insurance than put up with the literally sanctimonious Job Centre and it's huge inadequacies and failures as it judges who is the deserving poor.
It'll be the return of the work house next.

matroid - sorry if I sounded insensitive upthread. I am well aware of the failings of the benefits system through a close family member. There is a difference though between literally starving , having no shoes on your feet, no hot water, no inside toilet and absolutely no net whatsoever to having a roof over your head and a small amount to live on. Health care that is free. Of course our expectations are very different now, but I suspect our forebears would just laugh at us for whinging these days.
There are too many people and not enough resources in this country, and whatever money is in the coffers is not being spent in a fair way.
I'm not sure what you mean about private insurance? Presumably your relative can't afford private insurance .

There is a difference though between literally starving , having no shoes on your feet, no hot water, no inside toilet and absolutely no net whatsoever to having a roof over your head and a small amount to live on.

That's the difference between absolute and relative poverty. But there are still people in this country living in absolute poverty, and I don't think our ancestors would be laughing at us, more bemused that it happens in this day and age when we have got the resources to deal with it, if we had a government which was in the slightest bit competent.

there are still people in this country living in absolute poverty, and I don't think our ancestors would be laughing at us, more bemused that it happens in this day and age when we have got the resources to deal with it, if we had a government which was in the slightest bit competent.

Agreed. Did anyone here see Skint Britain on C4 recently? There were people on there who were living close to/in absolute poverty.