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?

wondering I can't even really remember but I think in 1989 my mortgage payments hit about £600 or £700 pcm. My mortgage was £54,000. Even when dh and I moved in 1992 and increased the mortgage to £90k I don't think it was much more than that

It's chicken and egg. When I boughtmy first property in 1982 the mortgage multiplier was 2.5 times for a single purchaser. For a couple it was 2.5 times the higher income and 1 x the lower income - so couples could manage when they had a baby and the wife stayed at home. A bank manager actually told me that. And we genuinely wonder why prices have increased.

Marshmallow I'm sorry your parents aren't helping you. We had some of the good years - hence we are able to help our dc (24 and 21).

Interesting thread - we have been looking at photos from my DH's childhood and I can say that our DD has way more stuff and opportunities than we did at that or any age! She does so much more than we did.

We are older parents though so more financially secure, which helps.

I was born in 1979 and wouldn't swap with my DM for all the tea in China! I didn't sleep so she would be up with me all night with no TV/mobile/internet, she said it was so boring she felt like she was going insane. She also had PND but because of the stigma got no help and my DF didn't even believe depression existed!

So on the early 90s when the interest rate shot up to over 15% overnight they were more affordable? I can remember the look on my mother's face when she heard that. The colour drained from her face and my parents had a decent income as well.

I guess compared to now pre and post war was a bike ride too.

@Maz54 that's just the young people you know. I'm in London so loads of the young people I know live at home with their parents well into their 30s and don't have cars.

Yes my dd has a home and uses gumtree and goes to the charity shop. She likes recycling and re using.

No shelters for domestic violence. Men encouraged by girls father to give her a slap if she didn't behave.
Police not interested in domestics, neighbours, friends and family turning a blind eye.

I'm not saying there's marvellous support now but I think we are more aware and more people are helped.

Your Dad must have had a very good income marshmellow . We had 2 average incomes ( think nurse and policeman salaries) and certainly couldn't afford to live at that standard, particularly when the interest on the mortgage went so high

drabarni I have no recollection of that but I do recall my grandmother refusing to handover grown pay packets to the married men and making sure they went straight to the wives because of men who drank their wages. I think there was more care forpeople 50 odd years ago whennpeople still onew right feom wromg and there were fewer excuses.

Allow me to put in a good word for mangles. They were great for getting excess water out of clothes and, unlike tumble driers, didn't use loads of electricity.
I married and had my first child in the mid 1970s. We had no washing machine until she was 9 months old. Did ALL the washing by hand, not just the terry nappies! Then I got a working-from-home job so I bought a washing machine!
I don't envy my daughters. I think their lives as young mothers are much more complicated than mine was. They have too much stuff to look after and protecting their children on electronic devices and social media is very difficult. They all have jobs, whereas I stayed at home (no available childcare) and got involved in school and village life.
I think we just make the best of what life throws at us. No choice really!

Grandparent here, born in the 1950s. It wasn't a lot easier and if mortgages were cheaper, salaries/wages were lower and there was normally only one income in the family so, overall, I don't think it was easier. Different, yes, but not easier.

Where I think there is a real difference is where you say "a lot of parents feel they have to put their child at the centre of their universe". That was a rare concept back in the day. Children were loved, of course (exceptions obviously, the NSPCC has been going for years), but parents' lives did not seem to revolve around their offspring the way they do today.

So on the early 90s when the interest rate shot up to over 15% overnight they were more affordable?

Houses on my street in the early 90s were worth around £40k. They now sell for over £500k. Have wages risen in line with that? Of course they haven’t! If I wanted to buy in my area now I couldn’t afford it - which shows how much prices have gone up in the last 10 years alone. My parents readily admit they had it much easier than this generation on the housing front even with the higher interest rates. Most people accept that buying a house now is more out of reach for young people than it has been for decades.

Yes wondering but back in 1990 there wasn't property wealth to inherit. Back in the day we all still had to move out a bit to be able to afford to buy. Example: 1982 my salary got me a £23,000 mortgage. I had £32k to spend. Fulham got me one bed, five years earlier it would have got me two rather than moaning I moved on a few miles. Had I not had a good deposit I'd have had to shift myself to Raynes Park.

Oh and I cleared about £440, ortgage 245. Add another 100 for bills plus fares and essentials. It was oh ever so easy.

My grandparents had a council house as a bomb dropped on their street .A lot of new ones built around then so when my grandfather returned after the war they were comfortable.
I was born 1960,a great time to be a child.I remember all the power cuts,heat in one room only in winter(no insulation or double glazing then.
I had 1school uniform and shoes.My grandparents bought us winter coats.
My mum was sacked when she got pregnant and within 3 years had 3of us,there was no childcare,maternity pay.
Both parents left school at 16 but my dad went to night school and then uni and worked nights to keep the family.
When my mum went back to work we got the bus home from school and let ourselves in.I was 8.
I had a much easier life than my mum.I could study for A levels,trained as a nurse and as we didn't have much 'stuff' life was cheaper,especially food and clothes.
I married and had my DD late so she has had a secure childhood and being a mother is so much easier than for my mum,also I didn't have to look after children with measles,chicken pox that she did.
If you want a tiny taste of my childhood then this winter turn off the central heating and don't use your tumble drier and do all the washing one day a week.We didn't know any different and all houses had ice on the inside of windows in winter.

Forgot,mental illness was rife but not talked about.Many,many women were given gallium and stayed addicted to it for years.Domestic abuse was rife and most women had little option but to stay.
And being groped or worse for my generation was normalised.

Maybe if the older generation stopped giving stupid advice about how they raised their babies then people wouldn't think it was easier
Although I don't believe my mum and MIL according to them it was a piece of piss lol
They were potty trained at 16 months at the latest and they ate anything they were given they are could take them anywhere and they behaved never any bother lol
Kids are only as difficult as u let them be!

So if you believe stuff like that then I can understand why lol
But so u know it's bullshit
Kids are kids doesn't matter when they were born some difficult some kinda easy. Some people have money worries some don't. Every generation/family/individuals have their own struggles and your very lucky of you dont

I was born in 1980 and thanks to severe childhood asthma I am lucky to be alive! I nearly died age 4. Thanks to modern medicine and the NHS I didn't. Had I been born when my mum was, I wouldn't have stood a chance. So there's that!
Even in the 1980s just generally living was harder. Not as bad as my grandparents generation, but still. My mum regularly accidentally bought food that made me ill as it was harder to tell exactly what was in things. Oddly enough the strongest reaction I had was to the posh squash she bought from Waitrose!
I don't look back at the 80s with much nostalgia. I know my parents were very stressed about the interest rates. I read a lot, but due to my stupid asthma I couldn't go out and play much so I was usually very bored. I did use my imagination a lot and probably came close to maladaptive daydreaming at times.
Nowadays - me, DH and ds1 sit and play together regularly. Minecraft. Tis great fun and not long winded and boring like family games of Monopoly. Ugh those were tedious.

I think if housing in the 50s and 60s were so easy to come by with just one wage then why was there so much poverty.

I grew up on one of the worse council estates in the UK.
My mother worked, my father worked, my uncle's and aunts all worked, even my grandfather and grandmother worked. They worked for at least 10 years to afford enough money to afford one house between them.

Being immigrants I think made life much much harder and i think the wages they earned were probably less than an average Brit.

1982 my salary got me a £23,000 mortgage. I had £32k to spend. Fulham got me one bed, five years earlier it would have got me two rather than moaning I moved on a few miles

I was a couple of years later but was able to buy a London property (2 bed flat in mansion block) in a decent area in zone 3 for just over 20K. That reflects a property price approx 2.5 times my graduate starting salary.

The problem now is that same property is 18 times the graduate starting salary in the same job. Moving a few miles out doesn't help - a few hundred miles might but that is a long way to commute

Interest rates were higher but we had MIRAS (double MIRAS if a couple were not married) on all the interest of our mortgage.

At the same time tenants have lost all security of tenure and even families with children who have been good tenants over years can be given a month's notice without needing any reason.

The removal of security for tenants makes the need to buy greater as its the only way many people see of achieving security.

Selling off public sector housing created a slightly larger group of owners and potential bank of Mum&Dad but the majority of the younger generation don't have that available.

Many things are better now but housing is a bigger problem now than then simply because of the lack of housing security for those who don't start out with a generous starter fund.

That reflects a property price approx 2.5 times my graduate starting salary.The problem now is that same property is 18 times the graduate starting salary in the same job.

Exactly-that’s a huge problem.

What caused this??!

It’s just different.

Most kids didn’t go to uni before 1997 so fees not an issue. The kids who would now be considered very academic and expected to go back then were expected to leave at school leaving age of 14 and work and provide for the family.

Women couldn’t get mortgages until recently. Most people lived in council houses. There was no childcare and women got sacked when they got pregnant so forced to stay at home. Also no birth control. So lots of unwanted dcs who were likely emotionally neglected.

Depression era high unemployment, high infant mortality and maternal mortality.

Forced adoption of ‘bastards’.

Yes there are screens now but dcs are more protected from predatory paedophiles on the streets.

I’d rather have now overall. Not all parts of the U.K. have unaffordable housing!

The kids who would now be considered very academic and expected to go back then were expected to leave at school leaving age of 14 and work and provide for the family.

Yes but 14/15/16 yr old school leavers could get regular work which paid a regular wage, some sick and holiday pay and possibly pension contribution but not there was SERPs.

Unskilled or low skilled work these days is generally on zero hours contracts, no regular wage, no sick pay and no holiday pay.

Profressional women and women working in large organisations may have better maternity and other rights but many women in small orgs still face significant discrimination. It may be illegal discriminnnation but it is not uncommon and finding the money and the energy to fight it at such a time renders the law moot for many women.

but if not there was SERPs.

Sorry - missed that error