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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Back in my day...

72 replies

Littleloafofbread · 27/04/2019 05:16

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.

OP posts:

nagynolonger · 27/04/2019 09:49

That first bit was supposed to be in bold. Why can't I make it work?

wonkylegs · 27/04/2019 11:37

My mum never kept a clean house or cooked a home cooked meal (we grew up in 80's) , we had a cleaner, a nanny or the kids did it. My mum worked full time through choice and we ate a lot of shite because our parents and 19yo nanny were just about capable of putting frozen stuff in the oven. They had a lot more disposable income than we do, I think some things were easier but other things were harder. I think it's daft to make comparisons they are just different.
My mum grew up in SA with servants so she didn't have anything to learn from and frankly wasn't interested in it.
She has dementia now and it was quite hard to explain to her social worker and carers that having a messy house and not being able to cook food or even be that interested in it or personal care was just her personality and normal not a symptom of the dementia.

TreadingThePrimrosePath · 27/04/2019 12:28

As an aside, Wonkylegs, my mum reminisces about cooking and complains that because of age and infirmity, she no longer can.
No mum, you were always a crap and indifferent cook who provided basic stuff so your children didn’t actually starve. Anything that took longer than 15 minutes didn’t happen and you thought Smash and fish fingers was a home-cooked meal.
That was in the 60s/70s.

ShirleyAvenue · 27/04/2019 12:42

She must have just left her children in a playpen all day or parked them outside in the garden in their pram for hours.

Holidayshopping · 27/04/2019 12:49

My mum is lovely so would never criticise like that anyway, but she didn’t work and neither did my friends parents, so they didn’t have that pressure.

Aprillygirl · 27/04/2019 12:50

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
Your mum and mil must be at least 90yrs old are they?

hipslikecinderella · 27/04/2019 12:56

My mil apparently was up making a cooked breakfast for fil the first morning back from hospital with her first (my dh and she'd had a mega caesarean where they used to do a vertical and horizontal cut).
Good for her I said.

PlasmaRain · 27/04/2019 12:56

Another who can’t quite get to grips with the time line here. I’m guessing you were born in the 80s OP, so maybe same age or a little older than my dc? So this would put your mum and mil roughly in my generation of parents and, while I’ll allow there may have been a few hangers on with 50s ideas, this whole perfect home/perfectly groomed Stepford wife scenario was nowhere near the norm among my peers, it just doesn’t ring true of that era. Plus while there were no smart devices or computers we definitely had pretty much the same modern labour saving devices in the 80s that we have now - microwaves, washing machines, driers, fridge-freezers etc - as I recall, we even had them when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s.

FlyingElbows · 27/04/2019 13:06

My granny, who would be in her late nineties if she we're still with us, used to worry about me getting home to make sure Mr Elbows' dinner was on the table. My own mother would be enraged at the thought!

My mother is of the generation who were left screaming in the garden. She's also the generation of women who popped Valium like sweeties and became hideously depressed by being sahm. Ironically, she embraced feminism with both hands and pretty much gave up being a mother. It was all about liberating herself while paying another woman to do everything she now considered beneath her! She loved to wring her hands about what a terrible mother and housekeeper I am (apparently) all while forgetting she had a housekeeper and we spent every weekend with our grandparents. Her memory is selective at best.

TreadingThePrimrosePath · 27/04/2019 13:19

It probably depended on your income level, PlasmaRain.
In the 60s, we had a fridge with a freezer section, a twin tub, electric cooker, Hoover and a b&w tv.
When I got married in 1983, I had a fridge, freezer, automatic washer, colour tv, Hoover, double oven with a fan.
Didn’t acquire a microwave or a dishwasher until after 2000.

amandacarnet · 27/04/2019 16:19

There was a time when lots of mothers did cooking from scratch, but that was because the ready made meals you could buy were awful processed rubbish. Many western countries still have few ready meals.

BogglesGoggles · 27/04/2019 16:22

Well you were there for your DM at least. Did she Live up to any of yg we ridiculous expectations?

TheDailyCarbuncle · 27/04/2019 16:37

From my own experience, I think having babies is so exhausting that you don't really form clear memories and then you sort of 'fill in the blanks' at a later stage so when older people talk about how things were when they had small children, most of it is nonsense -they are either making it up or what they're actually talking about is memories of when their children were older and easier. My two are only 6 and 8 and I've already forgotten what having a baby is really like - mine are very manageable now and I can't quite put myself back into the relentless chaos of when they were tiny. I'm sure I might think the house was reasonable tidy but I'm sure it was in fact and absolute pit of filth - I don't really know tbh! If I look at pictures there certainly seems to be a lot of mess about.
It's only when you actually look after a baby for an extended period of time that you suddenly start to have flashbacks to what it was really like (maybe it's not just the exhaustion, maybe it's a matter of blocking it all out!).

My MIL used to go on and on about how DH and I should get on with decorating our house when our DS was a baby. They looked after DS when he was about 14 months while DH and I went away for the weekend and they said they'd get loads of decorating done for us while were away. Fill your boots I said. Came back and they had done diddly squat. I have to admit to being rather smug when MIL started saying how hard it was and how full on it is looking after a toddler. I did restrain myself from asking them what decorating they had done though. MIL didn't breathe a word about the decorating after that.

amandacarnet · 27/04/2019 16:46

My memory, which of course may be wrong, was that neighbours used to help each other out more.

JuniorAsparagus · 27/04/2019 16:50

Not where I lived!

Original poster

Littleloafofbread · 27/04/2019 17:11

We're both 38 (born early 80s), DM born late 40s, MIL born early 50s I think.

It was DM who assumed I would put on make up to welcome DH home, but then she also thought the way to deal with my cheating ex was to make myself more attractive and agreeable to try to win him back over. No idea if these ideas are common among her friends.

OP posts:

Knittedfairies · 27/04/2019 17:15

I remember my late MIL saying I was 'lucky' to have an automatic washing machine, because she didn't have one when her children were small. My husband guffawed when I related this to him, as she'd somehow forgotten to mention that she sent all the washing out to a woman in the village.

amandacarnet · 27/04/2019 17:18

I do think 50, 60, 70 years ago, that life was harder for many working class mums. Especially for those who still worked. Lots of mums who were poorer did home working, machine sewing things for example while looking after babies and toddlers.
Middle class mums probably had it easier than mums now.

NoonAim · 27/04/2019 17:35

Fluffycloudland77 my mother insisted I was out of nappies at nine months too, she said I gave very clear indications when I needed the toilet. When you had to wash nappies by hand and didn't have a tumble dryer, good elimination communication must have been a godsend. (She began by holding me over a potty at 6 weeks old which must have been a lot of work in itself)

amandacarnet · 27/04/2019 17:38

Yes this is elimination communication and some mums still do it.

Fluffycloudland77 · 27/04/2019 17:50

I think I’d rather send washing out than have a wm! Just bag it up and get it delivered back. Sounds brilliant.

wonkylegs · 27/04/2019 19:21

I am thankful that my MIL leans the other way
My ILs love having the kids but always comment on how they never stop when they do and they find it truly exhausting and they can't work out how I manage with a disability, 2 kids and my own practice and looking after my mum (Alzheimer's) and a DH who works stupid stressful shifts.
I always say I don't know how either - but we always muddle through. I think life is often about muddling through just some people put on a better face than others!

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