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?

My mother was one of many who had teeth removed as a 21st birthday present as a result of replacement by false teeth becoming affordable with the advent of NHS dentistry. She just had her front teeth replaced - many people had the whole lot replaced.

This is such as interesting thread.

I always think about how much medical intervention both me and my friends have had during labour and I just think most of us would have died not that long ago.

I know my ds wouldn't have made it and by the sound of it even if he had the Dr would have finished him off (he has a syndrome). I had a retained placenta both times, I'm not sure if there was a treatment for that 100 years ago so I probably wouldn't have made it either.

Life seemed to be very hard and dangerous for women. I also wonder about fertility problems. That didn't seem to be as much of as issue but is that because of the whole survival of the fittist thing or because men had more potent sperm due to healthier lifestyles, or because of extra marital affairs.

FadedRed I didn't know that statistic about TB. Sobering to think that the main causes of death today in that age group are suicide or road traffic accidents. Just that one piece of information indicates what a huge shift there has been in relatively recent times.

I genuinely have not seen too much rose tinted glasses stuff on this thread. We have talked about women having 11 children, babies dying, husbands and sons down the mines. It was no bed of roses. Hoever some things were better than now just as many things now are better than then and also families differed a lot. My mother's granny was widowed twice so it was basically a home with a single mother for at least 20 years and with 8 daughters so basically a matriarchy where women were in charge and worked and I suspect that have ended up being a good thing.

My dad came from a mining community, his dad was considered posh because he had TB, couldn’t work down the pit and was a dustman. Dad’s grandma had 15 pregnancies, seven of her children made it to adulthood. My mum’s mum was the oldest of 12, that family only lost one child - the family were relatively well off farmers.

The difference between now and then was they took physical hard work for granted, were more resilient and had far lower expectations. Both my parents had endless stories about their childhoods which they remembered with equal affection, despite their very different circumstances.

A relative of mine was ill as a young child. They stayed in hospital for 2 years. They were not allowed any visitors into the ward due to scare of infections. Relatives used to come once a week and leave a fresh egg and look through the ward window. The relative survived, but their education suffered due to being in hospital for so long. Look how the NHS has changed now ! I also know a couple of people who had polio and you can read about amazing people who lived in iron lungs

I do think a few families (eg DGGF tally man) he came from a large family was determined to better himself and moved from West Country to London at 14 with not much money. His DB was apparently a famous poet but wrote about washerwomen etc - said to be a book of his in British library.

DGGF’s wife my DGGM was illigitemate born in Ireland and moved to England and met DGGF, they both chose to only have 2 DC my nana and her DSis. No idea if they couldn’t have any more...

My DGGF was apparently married twice and widowed and then married again his second wife my DGGM in his 50s. But he was dual nationality french English and worked in Germany for nobility as private secretary. Come WW1 and 2 though they lost everything due to him being English. My DGF (his son) recalls eating food not usually eaten like certain meats and lots of lentils, chickpeas or foods used to pad out meals (Ike the famous MN make a chicken lady gif a week for 10 people etc) but also being given food by kind farmers wives etc.

Both my grandparents had 12 kids each...they obviously needed a hobby!

Backwards facing? The poverty by dps grew up in made me appreciate everything we have now and value hard work. It also gives you historical perspective. The talk of austerity nowadays seems ridiculous compared to how my families had to cope in the 20s and 30s when there was no unemployment or sickness benefits. It makes you appreciate how far we've come and how we must fight to protect those advances.

There was some help for sick people between the wars, but it didn’t amount to much. After my mum died, I found a document she’d written of her memories of her childhood, which included this bit about her parents:

“My father was always ill in the winter, as a result of the 1914-18 war. He had enlisted under age, & was gassed in one of the first attacks. This left him susceptible to chest complaints, & every autumn he caught a cold, which developed into pneumonia & pleurisy. He would be “on the Panel” for six weeks, then the payments would stop, & Mother had to manage as best she could. She took in washing, for which the payment was very low, but it could be done at home where she could keep an eye on the children.
Mother was one of nine children & her brothers & some of her brothers in law worked for her father who ran a fish & chip business. Their weekly half-day was on Monday, & on that day Mother looked after all their children, in return for gifts in kind, which helped with the food problem. Monday at our house was a noisy affair!”

I know ‘the Panel’ was an early form of health insurance, but I don’t know who paid (employers or employers or both?) and how much it cost.

I have been buying every ancestor's birth, m arriage and death cert back to about 1838 (not quite finished yet) but am seeing how and where they died. Some died in an infirmary attached to to work house in the 1800s. They weren't in the work house itelf as they had family but was presumably a basic hospital set up (and plenty died at home too)

My grandfather born 1880 had I think it was TB and was off school sick for a year and never went back aged 12 although he read a lot all his life and set up his own estate agency business. he and most of his brothers seemed to manage to avoid serving in WWI although my mother's grandfather certainly did esrve (he was released in 1916 due to illness and still managed that last childn in 1917 before dying of the injuries that year). I think my grandfather was pretty wise to avoid WWI as otherwise he and most of his brothers might wel have died in that awful war.

My Grandad was born in 1904 in the South Wales valleys. We were very close and he told me lots of stories about his life.

My Grandad was one of 12; one died as a baby, one in the colliery. There was 20 years between the oldest and the youngest, so not loads of little kids at one time and the big ones helped with the little ones.

My Great Grandad and all the boys were miners, my great grandma stayed at home. All the kids lived at home until they married there was lots of money coming in by the time a couple of them were working. They actually had a very nice bay windowed house, built to plans they’d had drawn up.

My Grandad was very very bright but became a Collier because there was no money for him to go to university. He refused to become a clerk, considering it a poorly paid job for weaklings. He worked underground from 14 to 65.

In the early part of the 20th century the valleys were a bit like a gold rush town. There was a very big social scene; tons of music and drama and sporting societies, political and philosophical debating groups. My grandad’s sister brought home a friend from the north of England who mistook my Grandad and his friends coming home from work for a group of educated young students and was amazed they were working men. There were baths (showers) at the colliery so my Grandad was always clean. There was a big culture of self improvement. My great Grandad was the secretary of the first union in the colliery and they were a very political household.

The strikes were very bad times. Grandad was a young man and went off to the seaside camping with his mates for a few weeks; catching fish and rabbits and labouring for a farmer for veg. I think it was the best time of his life.

The three girls in the family were the youngest and because there was more money then, they were sent to college to do nursing and teaching. My Grandad was a bit bitter about that.

All his life my Grandad read loads and loads of books, a broadsheet paper and kept up with current affairs. He kept an immaculate vegetable garden. When he was 88 he took his usual two mile round trip walk to the shop to buy the bread, came home complaining of feeling a bit poorly and had a massive heart attack. I rushed home from the north of England and saw him in hospital the next day. He asked me to bring him a decent newspaper. I went back to my parents house and as I got in the phone was ringing to say my Grandad had died. I think he waited for me.

I have my g grandad's WW1 war record. He was described as 'normal' build - he was 5 foot 2 and 8 stone.

Life seemed to be very hard and dangerous for women. I also wonder about fertility problems. That didn't seem to be as much of as issue but is that because of the whole survival of the fittist thing or because men had more potent sperm due to healthier lifestyles, or because of extra marital affairs.

My GF was born in 1897 and came from a family of six children and half of them never had children. People who don't have children don't get remembered much because it's mostly tge children who do the remembering, I think that is why it seens that there weren't any fertility problems

Marriages (and children) were disposable - if somebody changed their mind, they would just up and leave, male or female. Nobody would be able to find them - if they were prepared to leave the children behind, that is. Alcoholism wasn't just the preserve of men, plenty of women got through the drudgery via the medium of Gin. Post WWI, a lot of men in particular would decide that life was too short to remain in their old life and would simply fuck off and start a new life, sometimes only a few miles away from the first. If a wife left or died, if there were no female relatives to pass the children onto, it was imperative that the father should find a replacement as soon as possible and, if the children were young enough to be convinced by 'don't be silly', they would never know that the new 'wife' wasn't their biological mother.

Sometimes, there would be a common story used in particular areas to explain why a woman was a single parent - largely that the husband died in a particularly remarkable circumstance that couldn't be checked. In my town, it's amazing how many women had The First Man Who Was Killed in a Bizarre Motorcycling Accident as their husband - he must have been married to at least 20 different women at once whilst using different names. And died on five successive years, apparently.

You were dirty, cold, hungry and miserable.

Women who had PND or couldn't cope with having children in quick succession either 'went away' or they sent the toddler to Barnado's, particularly if they had fallen pregnant to another man - or the husband decided he didn't want another and she was forced to choose between giving away her baby or her toddler. This still happened post WWII.

Many people claimed to be married, but weren't, because divorce wasn't easily available. There's lots of false surnames of fathers on birth certificates up til the 1950s, as a previously married woman with children wasn't able to change her name when her existing children knew their own names.

It was expected to punish children and animals physically - those who didn't were seen as weird.

Regarding babies with disabilities, I've also heard direct stories of how the midwife/doctor would take the baby to the other side of the room or to another one and 'the kindest thing' would happen. Same with people dying slowly of cancer. If a baby survived/the mother desperately wanted to try, it was most likely taken away whilst she was sleeping a few months later and placed in a home - she would be told to never mention it again.

Right up to the mid 1980s, children were still dying of diseases we can vaccinate against - a school friend nearly died of whooping cough, but her baby brother wasn't so lucky, another friend's brother spent months in hospital with tetanus, an older friend nearly died of Scarlet Fever when I was at High School. Teenage mental health care was almost unheard of (resulting in two suicides in my year).

We didn't get heating or doubleglazing until 1990 - before then, I'd look forward to ice on the inside of the windows because it blocked the gaps and meant the rooms were warm.

Chilblains were a feature of every winter, despite having a pair of gloves, and having a proper coat was something the wealthier kids had, not the poor ones. Proper warm socks were unheard of and umbrellas for kids, along with wellies, were an amazing new luxury - it was expected that you'd get in from school soaked to the skin if it rained. No bath or shower to warm you up - that was once a week on Sunday and a shower was a weird, continental thing that rich people did.

I remember my childhood in the 1970s and 80s as a time of being hungry, cold and sick. The TB I caught is still a potential problem, as I'm going to have to be treated for it before starting other medication. And the whole area was covered in broken glass, rubbish, white dog shit and National Front graffiti.

In short, life was bollocks a generation ago, it was bollocks for the previous one and it was historically bollocks for all the previous generations unless there was Money.

It's like all those people 'Well, in the 70s, we didn't . . . ' Well no shit you didn't have eat microwaved food or wash your clothes frequently, shit wasn't invented that made that easy to do.

I alwa6scthink this when older people moan on about young people using technology. And how "they were outside, not staring at screens" like that makes then superior. They just weren't on screens because they weren't an option, not because they had some sort of amazing self control.

My Indian grandmother lost four children in infancy. My grandparents were very poor. My dad came home from school to an empty house (in India) and would have a piece of roti left over from lunch as a snack after school. He'd soak it in water to soften it.

My grandmother would take clothes to the well to wash on the rocks nearby and give my dad a bath standing up by the well. It's what everyone did.

My dad played barefoot in the village with the other village children.

My grandmother seemed not to remember the hardships once she'd come to Britain. She missed the camaraderie of village life. She was always content with her lot.

mit I am not belittling your suffering but as a child of the 70s/80s in a middle class family, it was very good. Lovely in fact.

We had a warm-ish house. We had enough home cooked food but ready meals hasn’t been invented. We played out. Our lives were unstructured - no one did ballet or endless classes. No one had a computer. Vaccines existed for the worst diseases but the rest were usually unproblematic.

I think my mum’s generation has it pretty good too - both mid 1940s and a working class family.
Before that, yes, it was very tough.

I think the last two generations have had it way better than the current kids who are dealing with obesity, shit food, a lack of welfare state, growing inequality, worsening educational standards, and a terrifying climate change crisis.

I feel sorry for my kids and their friends. We had it way better

My grandad was one of 13. Out of the 6 girls one older one was kept home from school each day to help his mother. So you’d miss a day or two each week. Food was stews and soup and anything that could be made in big batches. Hand me downs were the fashion, amazingly all the sons (including grandpa) came home from war. All 15 lived in ‘a room and kitchen’

My GF maintained that the washing machine was the greatest invention during his lifetime as it liberated women from the drudgery of washing.

I think many children were mostly born due to ignorance of or lack of contraception rather than being wanted or planned. They weren't the priority in a family like they are now and were practically disposable. My dad was one of seven, two of which lived a few doors up with their childless aunt. My mother's mother died in childbirth (with my mum) and my mum was literally shipped over (unaccompanied!!) aged 10 from Australia to live with her maiden aunt in England.

My nan was one of 9. Born in the 1930s in NW England, her family were Irish immigrants. Her dad was an alcoholic and rarely home, many of the children were the result of rape. I don't understand how they afforded to pay for rent and food. Apparently great gran got some help from her siblings and took in washing and did a but of childminding but still, they must have been SO poor.

@missnevermind.
We had a bucket in the bedroom too. And it wasn't cleaned out every day either. It was discusting looking back.

People who don't have children don't get remembered much because it's mostly tge children who do the remembering, I think that is why it seens that there weren't any fertility problems

I think this is a big part of it, along with simply not knowing the causes and heavy stigma around it. My maternal grandmother's mother is said to have hit menopause when she was 25 - for a Catholic farmer family, it was really obvious and she faced so much stigma for that, for not having boys, to the point she ended up leaving the area and just not talking about it. She died when I was 15 and I only found out after that from other family members.

My maternal grandmother also had fertility issues, we don't know the whole story but she had multiple endocrine issues which got progressively worse throughout her life and it is suspected there was a rhesus issue with her younger two children having been born very poorly, it's said that only because they lived in a city and something that was seen as experimental at the time that they survived. My mother was referred to as the doctor in charge's "miracle baby" as most prior to that who were like her died.

I started getting symptoms of menopause when I was 27, I was scanned, had blood tests and monitored over a while, before being diagnosed. I know what's wrong and most of why & can discuss with those who are going through similar. There is still some stigma, but I don't think it's anything like what my great grandmother or grandmother went through where women were so often blamed & shamed and even when not by others, felt guilty themselves.

The coping, at least in the family stories I know, involved a lot of self-medication, not talking about it and keeping hopes as short term as possible.

I'm from Scotland and both my dps grew up in tenement buildings. Behind the buildings would be a 'steamie' (washouse). Every woman would have her day in the steamie to wash the family's laundry for the week. (In my dgm's case four dcs and a dh who worked in a quarry so very dirty clothes). It sounded awful - mangles etc. Other women from the building would bring cups of tea to the lady having her day in the steamie. I learned all this from my dgm and dm but sadly those who remember how tough life was are now passing away and our dc's generation will have no idea how tough it was.