To think raising a child was much easier for previous generations?

[wondering7777]

For my parents and certainly my grandparents’ generation, bringing up children must have been so much easier.

Mortgages were a hell of a lot cheaper for starters, but now the average home costs something like ten times the average salary. As a result, in most cases both parents have to go out to work whether they want to or not, and pay extortionate childcare costs to keep a roof over their heads. In the “old days” mothers were far more likely to be able to take time off work and the family could pay the mortgage on one salary.

In addition, my grandparents’ generation were much more likely to have family living nearby and a more close-knit community to help raise the child.

Judging from what I read on Mumsnet, there’s also a lot of competitive parenting these days, and a lot of parents feel they have to put their child at the centre of their universe, which causes stress. Children from my grandparents’ era were left to their own devices and would play out for hours.

There was no technology then so no angst about children accessing the internet and the reams of inappropriate content that is readily available at the click of a button.

Uni was free so parents didn’t have to save up to send those kids who did go, and jobs were far more readily available when children left school.

Also, the cartoons were better

AIBU?

Where do you get the idea that mortgages were cheaper! Interest rates of 15% ( now about 2 )and our first colour TV in 1970s cost £250. Food is now cheaper relative to earnings. We were earning £75 and £50 a month. Women couldn't get a mortgage or a loan - even if not married. Secondhand or third hand cars that regularly broke down. I could go on eg Terry nappies, no cheap shops such as Primark for children's clothes, readymade meals etc.

I think it was much easier to raise kids in past.
Mine are adult now.
There was much less pressure to conform, no on-line bullying.
Less trash on TV ( particularly American Trash )
We didn’t run down to school to attack the teachers if they looked at our kids the wrong way.
We were poorer, but I do not envy ANYONE trying to raise kids in this highly competitive, materialistic world of today.

It’s all very well to romanticise about a time when mortgages were cheaper and more affordable. Oh hang on - that only applied if you happened to possess a penis, until late 1970s in the UK

Goodness! When my grandparents were raising my parents, the country was at war, so YABVVVU...

Mortgage? What mortgage? My parents could never afford to buy a house and lived in two up, two down rented property where they raised my three sisters and me. My dad worked long hours in the steel works and my poor old mum went out cleaning for the typical 'ladies who lunch'. Not one if us could go to university- our parents couldn't afford to keep us once we hit school leaving age, even though we were all academically able. We all went to a girls grammar school having passed the eleven plus exam but our uniforms were bought second hand and passed down the line to each of us in turn.

My feet are still totally wrecked from having to wear my older sister's passed down shoes - with the toes padded out with cotton wool.

My mum did all kinds of jobs on top of her cleaning like taking in washing and doing some decorating for people to scrape up enough money for week's holiday in a caravan at Bridlington every summer.

Sorry OP but our lives are a walk in the park by comparison. I can see my mum now so tired in the evening she hadn't even got the energy to read her book.

That was in the late sixties, not the dark ages!

No online bullying but plenty bullying outside, corporal punishment in schools. Homosexuality was considered a mental illness...locked institutions where people never had a chance to leave for infractions such as teen pregnancy.
Those saying my parents managed fine, I suspect the parents did manage but it wasn’t easy but not worth the negative space. Just like miscarriages decades ago, happened but not dwelt on.

I'd say the levels of comfort and affluence define any era as 'easier' , but would say the 70s, when these levels were more equal meant there weren't the huge disparities in attainment materially and educationally that leave some people feeling like 'failures' because they have to work five times as hard just to keep their heads above water. My uni was free, our house was affordable on one salary but our children did not have or demand stuff that today makes life both more comfortable and more fun. We really did have no central heating , a second hand bed and furniture for the first 10 years of marriage and we only survived without feeling too deprived because most people were in the same boat, and society hadn't hit it's materialistic peak or at least the ways to be bombarded by stuff you didn't have were limited . Bringing up children now is either harder or easier .... depending on your affluence , support system and circumstance .

Practically yes. Financially no.

Finances/house prices etc per generation are all relative.

Personally I blame girl power: women everywhere said .... "we can do it ALL!"

So men everywhere said "go on then" and now they fully expect us to work, cook, clean, raise kids and take responsibility for absolutely everything whilst somehow retaining the right to complain about our decision making.

Equality my arse.

No it wasn't easier. It was a different set of challenges. I have 4 adult grown up youngsters with one having children of their own. Some things are much easier. Others harder. It's all relative

YABU
I can't comment as so many other munsnetters have already given so many sets of circumstances that disprove your theory.

"Mortgages were a hell of a lot cheaper for starters, but now the average home costs something like ten times the average salary."
What do you thing the average salary was then: Unskilled jobs - about £7.25 per week - Yes - really!! So ten times that annual salary would have been £3,842 .

I don't want to say anything else but Clueless springs to mind!!!

Bit goady OP? Don't you think?

You make the 80s sound Victorian!!!!!!

So my youngest is 6 and my oldest is 26..with a 25 and 22 year old brother.. pretty sure that makes me a 'previous generation' and current mother.. so in my honest opinion, you really have no idea how easy parenting is now compared to 26 years ago...that's not to say it's 'easy'..but the world has become 1000% more kiddy/family friendly. Also how many generations are you going back?...I have worked fulltime since I was 18...when childcare was mainly reliant on friends and family...competitive parents are certainly not exclusive to your generation..and as for technology.... there's a switch you can click.. unless of course it's 'easier' not to...

YABU

There are only 3 things i would like from previous generations

• family living close by
• no internet trolls
• smoking in ignorance to its harmful side effects (it just looked cooler back then)

This is relevant to the 50s tho. I do not envy my mum who was of the boomer generation. It was v hard at times!

Maybe it was just my parents, but there didn’t seem to be the same pressure to have it all. They grew a lot of veg, so we ate healthily; we camped almost every weekend (Dad worked during the week); Mum walked for miles with us and we played on the beach and had picnic lunches. She didn’t train as a nurse until she was 40, and she seemed really happy as a SAHM. Dad was really hands on, so we had it great all ways.

It’s actually pretty similar to my own experience of having a family, second time round- I worked when my eldest was small and I hated it. I left it until the two younger ones had started school before working the second time.

When young people were looking for places to buy in anticipation of marriage they did not even consider a 4 bed detached house as a first home, mostly it was 1 bed flats. These tiny flats were bought with 12 per cent rate mortgages. Young people today seemed to have high desires.
No-one had dishwashers, some had twin tubs, some had a fridge with a tiny box for a freezer. There was only b & w tv with 2 channels. Not everyone had a house phone. There were no mobile phones, no computers, no internet.

Contraception such as the pill was a newish thing. Help with conception was dreadfully primitive. Any children born around that time had very little chance of their own room, the children were lucky if the only had to share with other children and not parents as well.
While I realise that the internet issues are very worrying. I worry about them too. I am concerned that there are children who are so stressed out when they should be having fun. There are children with eating issues and even under 10s committing suicide.

I think if younger people lowered their house and car and household goods expectations they could spend more time with their children which may reduce the number of stressed children and life might be happier for all

I could not have coped with night feeds without my favourite shows on demand at stupid o’clock

My parents brought up 3 kids - me and 2 boys - in a 2 up, 2 down rented house with no bathroom, no inside toilet, no central heating and no sockets upstairs, so no heat source. We moved when I was 16 (try imagining managing your periods when you're a teenage girl sharing a bedroom with your younger brother and no bathroom) to a council house. So yes, I think considering the situation many working class families were in, yabu.

There are different challenges now I think, not necessarily harder or easier. Many women want to go out and work- a lot of stay at home mothers in the past were talented ambitious women forced into a subservient domesticity that they didn’t relish at all. Birth control allows women to limit their children to what they actually want. Medical care is much better now. Even simple things like paracetamol weren’t available to my parents. Safeguarding may sometimes feel a bit over the top nowadays but we know now that sexual abuse was rife and hopefully our children are actually safer now. Based on my experience of growing up in 1970s Ireland and what I now understand of my mother and other women I knew, my experiences in school etc I would say some aspects of parenting are much easier now, some more challenging.

I wouldn't last 5 minutes in anything below the 90's. Mortgages were high interest, most people lived in poverty but it wasn't really considered it at the time. Lots of mums didn't work because they just scrimped, made do and mended and lived within their means. The technology we have available to us simplifies life so much. Don't get me started on housework, the appliances we have these days take away the necessity to spend all day running a house. I could go on but I think you get the gist.

We could never have even thought about buying a house, no matter how "cheaper" they were supposed to be ! People who worked and had no children or dumped them on parents got to buy the houses. My DH worked for the AA and I was teaching, still not quite enough even though we had not yet started a family.
I do think you have much more to think about nowadays and are pressurised into house buying due to the lack of houses to rent at reasonable rates.
Children seem to be more fragile nowadays and have a lot less common sense to keep themselves out of trouble.

I think so much is location dependent, my mil bought a 2 bed flat around the corner from me in the late 70s. She was earning about 3k as a teacher & the flat was 10k. The same flat is now 650k.

Well, your living proof of that.

Oh dear, hope your foot feels better.

It’s all very well to romanticise about a time when mortgages were cheaper and more affordable. Oh hang on - that only applied if you happened to possess a penis, until late 1970s in the UK

Rubbush. Mortgages now are the cheapest they've ever been, the capital sums are higher though.
Vinegar with the rest of your chips?