Back in my day...

[Littleloafofbread]

Currently muddling through with a toddler and a newborn, and have been receiving quite a lot of advice from DM and MIL.

They are both of the same 'back in my day...' school of thought. Basically it seems that I need to keep a spotless house (don't forget to dust the plants Littleloaf!), try delicious new recipes and have a good home cooked meal on the table every evening, be freshly washed and in smart clothes and makeup by the time DH is home from work, and never ever become even slightly frustrated with a toddler who changes their mind every 2.3 seconds on average (you've got no patience, Littleloaf!)

AIBU to say they are both remembering the early days through slightly rose-tinted specs?

Hoping this as DM is coming round for the day and I can't use the fact that I've only had about 4 hours broken sleep per night this week as a reason to be less than chirpy and efficient all day.

I dunno. I kinda think they managed it with less appliances and convenience things than we have today.

I certainly think standards have dropped when I look at how I and my friends were brought up compared to our own houses etc are now. My mum certainly didn't bring me up to be as slovenly as I am and neither did any of my friends', we grew up as described in the op. Like sometimes I don't open the curtains or make the bed, we get back in the unmade bed. My mum can't even comprehend that lol.

But now we've got our own one on the way, I'm sure I'll probably end up just like my mum hoovering 20 times a day

In my experience nothing good ever follows the words "in my day"

Good thing that marriage and relationships have evolved, along with domestic appliances and ready meals. I went back to work when mine were very small and had a SAHH. He never bothered his pretty little head about any of that. Baby happy, fed and clean both ends was what I came home to.

My DM certainly has a selective memory about the past. She is constantly contradicting herself, changing her story to suit the context of whatever we're talking about at the time. She doesn't do it on purpose, it's completely unconsciously done. I think they just remember what they want to as they get older. Smile and nod, then ignore everything and do your own thing!

It may be rose tinted spectacles, but who knows?
Certainly when I read of the amount of work a Victorian domestic servant did with limited hours even for sleep, then I wonder how on earth they managed. Especially as most were younger teenagers.
Kind of irrelevant to your scenario I know. But the principle is that if you totally ignore your own needs for sleep and relaxation,then maybe you could do all that? Maybe sleep even less hours to do the housework for example?

Postedtoo soon.
But buggerthat for a game of soldiers.

My parents used to make comments like this. I remember my Dad telling me I was just lazy because they’d decided my bathroom needed decorating immediately - it was fine! And I had said that being the single parent of a 4 year old (autistic) and an 18 month old didn’t leave me much time for decorating rooms. They didn’t understand why I couldn’t manage when my Mum supposedly always had. They forgot that from age seven onwards I was doing most of the basic housework - hoovering, polishing, cleaning bathrooms, changing beds, preparing veg, washing and drying dishes AND looking after my younger sister after school and all day every day on school holidays. Perhaps I might have felt like decorating in the evening after my kids were in bed if I had had a seven year old servant picking up the slack all day for me too?

In all seriousness, I think that a lot of it was because children were bundled out of the way as much as possible. The rose tinted specs people have about being chucked out from dawn and returning at dusk playing all day (neglect basically) stem from this. It was also quite common for annoying kids to be smacked.

How old are they Littleloaf? This sounds suspiciously like my DMiL who was a typical 50s housewife.
I would estimate that your DM and DMiL are more likely to have been parents in the seventies, so maybe the rose tinted specs are on - or they were struggling to follow the advice of their 50s mothers.

Different time then. I think we are the extreme of child centered parenting now in the UK. Back in their day this was not the case. Kids had strict routines and bed times. Slept through the night or cried out. It was much more adult focused with babies and kids expected to fit round them. And the generation before them even more so.

Also some parents have easier kids than others. My friend had a baby who basically fed and then slept a lot. She used to phone me bored because her baby was sleeping so much.
That is an extreme example I know, but all kids are different.

Definitely rose tinted spectacles. My dm can’t understand why I don’t work 45 hours a week, come home do 2 hours work on the house, go to the 24 hr supermarket at 6 on Saturday and run a well balanced weekend of hearty activities like she did while I was growing up.
Somehow forgets that I grew up in that house and remembered making my own breakfast packed lunch and tea. She certainly did go to the supermarket at 6 but that was more due to insomnia that efficiency. I also remember her going off on anyone who dared to mention women could have it all because housework was totally beyond her.

Different now she’s retired, she has an upstairs and a down stairs hoover and is forever “just catching this or that before it needs doing” but that’s cause she has an entire week to fill.
You’ve definitely just got to get on with it. Comparison is the thief of joy and all that.

I think times were different my mum kept the house spotless my entire childhood... But we were not allowed toys downstairs only in our bedrooms which now is frowned upon even my health visitor said they'd worry if their weren't toys in the living room in response to my apologies about the mess. My mam would get up and clean leaving me or DB on her bed if we were there, my DS Co sleeps from about 10 pm and no way would I get up and leave him on my bed at 18 months so the most I do is straighten the bedroom on the rare occasion I wake before him.
Also mam would think nothing of being upstairs for hours cleaning and leaving myself and DB alone downstairs in front of the TV. Or if she needed to pop to the corner shop she'd just go and leave us in the house for a few minutes instead of it being an hour long epic journey, or if she had to take the car no annoying car seats and we'd wait in the car while she went in. So yes I think they probably did manage everything they say but that was what the pressure of the day was on them doing. Now the pressure is to be stimulating your child's development every minute of the day so the day is taken up by sensory play and building blocks and nursery rhymes and don't for get you must attend baby and toddler groups or your child will be a social outcast.

Are your Mum and MIL particularly elderly? All the Mums and MILs I know were young in the 60s and 70s and too busy burning their bras to worry about cooking and housekeeping.

How old are they? I’m 61 and when I was young the mothers of young children were exhausted, touched out, desperate women ... or maybe that was just me.

I think you should quote every word, every expectation back to your mum when she arrives, and ask her for help in bringing this to fruition.

First, she needs to change your bed linen, then
Run a bath for you
Watch grandchildren while you soak
Bring them to you as you snuggle in your clean cosy bed
Use the time when you are cosying to make significant headway with the housework including laundry and prepping lunch and supper.

If it’s too much for her, she should phone MIL to come round and help. They should work in ‘house elf’ mode and not disturb your happy day with your baby/babies.
At 3pm all work should be completed and coffee and cakes should be shared by everyone.

:).

My mum kept a very clean house, but she did this by leaving me to scream myself to sleep, and I only stopped screaming because I eventually worked out no one was going to come and comfort me, she used to turn the vacuum on to drown out the noise. She also never used to play with me, I had to entertain myself.

She has now said she regrets using those parenting methods that were popular 30 years ago but thought she was doing the right thing at the time. Times have changed.

Nothing good ever comes out of a convo thats starts with back in my day. Smile and promply ignore!

Back in "their day" it wasn't as easy as they're making out. Also, valium was regularly prescribed and nicknamed "mother's little helper"

My Grannie raised her voice for the only time in my life when my XH made a comment about housework when DS1 was tiny and recovering from sepsis. So my focus was on the areas he was in, and keeping him close. He'd said something about proper Mums in the past and she told him he was talking rubbish, that proper Mums don't abandon their babies to appease petulant husbands and that if he wanted a cleaner house he knew where the cleaning cupboard was!

I should clarify my valium comment. There is nothing at all wrong with taking prescription medications, I take meds daily. But it was prescribed willy nilly in large doses. That's my issue.

It was, I can think if several women prescribed it.

Easy to have a spotless house if you have no kids/pets and your retired.

Fucking Hell how old are your DM’s
I am mid fifties and ‘back in my day’ aside from no longer smacking we used to be just the same as you are now. We had less baby stuff available, the pramsbwere nowhere near as mice, but basically not a lot has changed.
I think your DM’s have selective memory.
Just smile and do as you please anyway.

Easy to have a spotless house if you have no kids/pets and your retired

This! When it was just me and DS1 my house was always immaculate. Now there are 3 bairns, a dog and DP. Not so bloody easy!

I was a Mum in the seventies. Vast amounts of time were taken up with washing, using my trusty twin tub. I used to do chores in the morning, so if the chore was washing I didn't get much else done.
After lunch I spent my time with the children. Daily walks to the nearby park or visiting friends with children, or them visiting us. I can't say my house was spotless, it was just ok.
I did cook 'proper' meals, but that was because I wanted to.
We also had no television, so I used to spend a lot of time reading stories to the children.
Incidentally I have never held this up to my DiL as the way to go!

Just wondering - how old is your DH?

Because although those sorts of stereotypes were pervasive in the 1950s (when 'housewife porn' was pushed in order to get pesky women out if the workplace) they have been very much unravelled since and were dead and buried by the 1980s in a general sense.

Though if course they a how some people see the world. And the effects similar upbringings might be one factor why you and DH decided on each other. You are each products of mothers with those views.

I think the answer to this one is the perennial 'smile and nod'. U're not going to change their views, you probably can't make them shut up, so let it wash over you and change the subject. (but if they happen to say something useful in a household sense, nick the idea - sometimes people to like or are good at housework don't even really they know stuff which other people don't, and slatterns like me can sometimes pick up really good idea, that are new to us even if everyone else has always done it like that)

One day you will open your mouths and hear your mother pop out. I remember categorically stating that I would never ever ask my children to turn down their music for example but when you are listening to the same shite song at full volume for the 10th time guess what you do.