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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

362 replies

wondering7777 · 19/09/2019 22:50

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 Grin

AIBU?

OP posts:
Teateaandmoretea · 20/09/2019 07:41

We are very pampered these days by comparison, but there are different challenges and what I do think is being so pampered we've lost our ability to just get on with things.

Maybe you are but that doesn't apply to the homeless families living in one room and eating from the food bank. Life in 2019 is very very hard for a lot of people.

There are also no jobs for life any more, to be successful you absolutely have to just get on with things. pampered my arse.

Jeveuxunchaton · 20/09/2019 07:41

" Our parents" Maybe this is relevant to white british women but definitely not for me... My grandparents were treated like sh*t by the colonisers , farming for free and being deprived of basic human rights. Women were babies factories , and 2 in your 6 children would die. Or 6 children would be motherless when number 6 arrives. Your husband would beat you up ; after a day of work for free and being humiliated. I would have never married the man I love in my grandmother's era ( 30/40's) because I'd never be allowed to be marry a white man but he sure could have raped me whenever wherever he wants (Who knows his him version in the 30's lol). My parents , the immigrants , being treated unfairly ; given cleaning jobs ONLY. I will stay in 2019. And in 2019 many women ( and in European countries , won't specify which ones) are still treated lower than humans. So do not tell me " All women struggle and are discriminated worldwide". It's true , but no on the same level. I am glad I am in a country where I can have access to health care , marry who the hell I want , use birth control , and have human rights. And no house or money will convince me otherwise. There are still obstacles to overcome ; but I am grateful if I compare myself to poor women ; women in very religious countries ; women in certain parts of the world.

GingersAreLush · 20/09/2019 07:41

I dunno. My mother was a single mum in the 80s and 90s, with mental health difficulties which made it impossible to get a job. She (and we) struggled for money all the time and tbh if it wasn’t for my grandparents we might have starved.

My grandparents fought and worked their way out of the poverty they were raised in to afford a nicer life for themselves and their children. But the kind of poverty there was when they were young seems to leave a terrible mark, mentally and physically.

ThriftyMcThrifty · 20/09/2019 07:42

I really can’t believe this op. My grandmothers mother died in childbirth, as her own mother did before her. She was 18. My grandmother had four kids by the time she turned 22, and she worked as a nurse to support them. Took a month off with each kid, no maternity leave then. My own mother had me as a single mum in 1980, then went to college and eventually worked to support us as a teacher so no benefits. She struggled with money, used cloth nappies, no washing machine, no central heating, no car. Maybe in certain classes you are correct, but working class families I think not. In my family mums have always worked, and worked hard.

userabcname · 20/09/2019 07:43

No way!!!! We definitely have it easier today. No question. Everything from modern appliances and medicine to society's expectations of wives and mothers.

Venger · 20/09/2019 07:44

Domestic abuse was rife and to be expected.

Yup.

My auntie was in an abusive relationship and the attitude was very much that she knew his triggers so if she set him off she was as much to blame as him for not being more careful about avoiding those triggers. If he got a bit too heavy handed, like the time he kicked her down the stairs, then some of the men of the family would go around and "have a word" (aka, kick the shit out of him) to remind him that a slap here and there is one thing but you dont actually beat women.

Marital rape was also legal until 1991.

Ijustwanttoretire · 20/09/2019 07:47

I would prefer my life than my mother's TBH. Having to give up work if you got married or pregnant I don't know how old you are by my mother is in her 80s and never had to give up work when she got married - that went out with (I think) the war!
And v poor in the 80's...getting dressed in front of a gas heater as central heating too expensive. 1 pair of shoes. 1 good outfit. High unemployment. I think you mean in the 70's - I was married in the 80s and although we were skint it wasn't this bad - even with 15% mortgage interest!

Many people had no central heating, freezer, automatic washing machine, food was very basic, clothing very few outfits and hand-me-downs, we had no house phone til mid-70's, one small TV and you would only get new toys at Christmas or birthday and then not many, sometimes home made But NO ONE (OK, very very few) had these things! It can't be poverty if no one had them, I remember my dad buying a freezer in 1971 - blimey the neighbours thought we were posh! All the rest was true but that was the same for everyone.

Ijustwanttoretire · 20/09/2019 07:50

I wouldn't want to be young now for all the money in China - even my son (in his 20s) wishes he was born in my generation - not because it was 'better' but because it was easier. I genuinely think my generation (I am nearly 60) had it the best - a childhood that was innocent (in the main) and still young enough to 'get' technology. In fact I started using computers in the company i worked for in the very very early 80s. A and B drives anyone?

wondering7777 · 20/09/2019 07:52

@LemonPrism What a nasty comment - reported!

Thanks to everyone else for the insights.

In response to one PP - I live in London so kids playing out on their own definitely isn’t an option.

I just remember my grandmas talking about how much better/easier things were in “their day”, and neither of them had much money - although they did manage to buy their own homes for about £3K in the 1960s.

OP posts:
CycleWoman · 20/09/2019 07:53

YABU massively.

Easier for our parents? My single Mum had if far from easy in the 80s (although it’s not easy for single parents at any time).

Easier for our grandparents? Perhaps child rearing was easier for our Grandfathers but Grandmothers? No. When my grandmother was bringing up children she had no bodily autonomy (as in no access to contraception or abortion) and had 13 pregnancies and 9 live births, all kids brought up on the breadline, experienced DV which was considered totally unremarkable, had to wash everything including god knows how many nappies by hand, had no chance of financial independence so no chance of escaping her situation.....the list goes on.

I don’t find parenting easy but I think my experience of being a parent is a walk in the park compared to previous generations of women in my family.

Benes · 20/09/2019 07:53

No purely because of the misogyny.....I enjoy having a career and husband that contributes his fair share in terms of housework and childcare.

wondering7777 · 20/09/2019 07:54

A and B drives anyone?

Haha yes! And floppy discs. That’s a blast from the past Grin

OP posts:
woodhill · 20/09/2019 07:56

I think my dm and df could afford property more easily and there wasn't such a jump up to buy a larger house but they had both been born in the war. Both managed to pass the 11+ etc

I think there were more jobs and opportunities for non graduates then and wage inflation in the 70s made it easier to pay the mortgage.

Their generation seem to be well off as pensioners too

wondering7777 · 20/09/2019 07:57

The impression I’m getting from a lot of posts is that it depends on specific family circumstances. Like I say, my grandparents weren’t well off but would look back and say they had a wonderful life and things were so much easier/better then - both sets had happy marriages which obviously helps.

OP posts:
EssentialHummus · 20/09/2019 07:58

YABU. I work from home with clients from all over the world using the internet, have a lot of labour-saving equipment at home (washing machine, microwave etc) and can get the weekly shop delivered if I'm short on time. I have access to good, cheap supermarkets - if things are tight I can feed us for ÂŁ30 a week. If I have concerns/questions about DD I can typically find the answer online, or at least connect with people going through the same. These things are critical to my well-being as a parent, I wouldn't be without them.

MilkTrayLimeBarrel · 20/09/2019 08:03

Whatever the perceived advantages or disadvantages of then and now, I know I would hate to be a child in the current climate with all the pressure to be thin, to be pretty, to have long hair, to have a boyfriend, to have the latest clothes, etc. I was an only child and used to spend hours amusing myself in the garden when I was small - was never bored.

LatteLady · 20/09/2019 08:03

OK, I was born in 1958, so I will give you my mum's typical day throughout the 60s and the 70s

Up at 6:00 am, to clear the fireplace and re lay it for the evening. Fill and light the paraffin heaters. Prepare cooked breakfast for my father (he worked in the Parks and Gardens Dept at local Council).

At 7:00am he left, make breakfast for children and iron... my father did not like to watch my mother ironing. Walk me 2.5 miles to school, back to house for a cup of tea just before 9:00 am ride bike to first cleaning job. Home for lunch at 1:00pm out to second cleaning job at 1:30, collect me from school at 3:30pm. Walk home. Prepare evening meal from scratch. Dad got home at 4:30, always had home made soup. Dinner served at 6:00pm.

Saturday nights were spent washing by hand. We got a fridge in the late 60s. My father's wage was ÂŁ27 per week and I can remember my mum totting up numbers to see how far she could stretch it.

Mortgages were not cheap, we never had one nor could aspire to one. Wages were low, we grew most of our own veg, kept rabbits for the pot.

No, it was not easier back then... my mum's battered and worn hands showed me that in no uncertain times.

And to the person who said, women were no longer asked to leave roles after the end of WWII, you are wrong. My sister was told her job flying was out of the question in the mid 70s when she arrived a pilot.

burritofan · 20/09/2019 08:09

It certainly would be easier to feed DD every four hours and stick her in the pram down the bottom of the garden in-between feeds… but then I'd spend those four hours trapping my hands in the mangle, so six of one, half a dozen of the other

I do wonder how my parents managed 3 under 5 without a tumble dryer or dishwasher, but then remember their house was much bigger than my poky flat so there was more scope for mess and dirt. I agree with the PP who said it's never been easy, whether you were a medieval peasant with a lovely blacked-out mud hut for naps or a cave woman with a warm woolly mammoth bedspread for the baby to cosy up on.

MorrisZapp · 20/09/2019 08:09

If you existed or had kids before the 1930s then you lived with the daily knowledge that an ingrown toenail or a bit of a cough could kill you.

Rich or poor, without anti biotics children's lives were a daily gamble. You just had to hope and pray they didn't catch anything.

80sMum · 20/09/2019 08:11

OP, I assume that you're young and are not speaking from a perspective of any personal experience. I could say that you're talking out of your a**e, but that would be rude.

So, how easy was it for previous generations? I asked my mother, who had her first child in 1955, what life was like for her.

My parents' first home was a 2nd floor flat in a victorian house in London. The flat had 2 rooms: a sitting room and a bedroom. That's right, no kitchen and no bathroom! That was by no means unusual in those days for a relatively cheap rented flat. There was a sink and an ancient gas stove on the landing, for their exclusive use. The bathroom and lavatory were on the floor below them - and shared with the occupants of 2 other flats, on the ground and first floors.

Picture this. My mum brought her newborn baby back to this accommodation. Imagine the difficulties she faced with laundry (all done by hand in the sink on the landing, with hot water having to be made by putting pans on the stove. Nappies were boiled on the stove in a metal bucket, then put through a mangle, then hung on a wooden clothes horse next to a small electric fire.

There was no way that my mother could have gone back to work (she was a skilled shorthand typist/secretary) as there was nobody to look after the baby.

My dad had 3 jobs - an office job during the week, a shop assistant on Saturdays and he ran a small business from home, making cheap jewellery, which he sold by mail order by putting ads in the paper and in post office windows.

By the time I was born, 2 years after my elder sibling, dad had saved enough for us to move to a first floor flat with 2 bedrooms and its own kitchenette and bathroom. When I was 3, he had had a couple of promotions at work and saved enough to put a deposit on a house in Kent.

I am forever grateful to my parents for the sacrifices they made to try to give us all a better life.

We were always hard up when I was growing up. Until I was about 6 or 7, I had only one pair of shoes per year, which were usually bought in September for the new school year. When they became too small, as they inevitably did, my mother would use a razor blade to carefully cut the toe end of the uppers off the shoes, so that I could still wear them without them hurting my feet. I went to school with those shoes on. There were some children at my school who had no shoes at all.

This was life in the early 1960s. Food, clothes, electrical goods, just about everything was very expensive compared with nowadays.

My mother's life was one of non-stop housework, shopping, cooking, sewing, mending and knitting. She had no time for anything else. I don't consider her to be "luckier" than me by any stretch of the imagination!

Some of this is from my own memory, most has been told by my mum, who's in her 90s now and still going strong (well, still going anyway, maybe not so strong any more).

Fresta · 20/09/2019 08:13

I don't think things were easier in the 1970s and 80s but I do think the expectations are different now. It wasn't frowned upon for women to stay at home, and they did so with more sacrifice. Money was definitely tighter and families didn't have the luxuries that many people take as mandatory today- big multiple Tvs, computers, smartphones, designer clothes, expensive cars, modern kitchens and appliances, meals out, days out, cinema trips, holidays abroad, etc.

fedup21 · 20/09/2019 08:17

Yes, It was easier to get a mortgage in the 70s. But for much of my life I was paying 15/20% interest on that loan..

How long were interest rates over 15%?

BarbariansMum · 20/09/2019 08:18

Uni was free but very few people got to go. House prices were cheaper but many people could not get mortgages (no taking account of a woman's salary fi).

Some things were better in the 60s/70s but most things weren't. Trust me, I was there.

EleanorReally · 20/09/2019 08:18

If you were a SAHM you may well have been bored stupid, you may well chat to your neighbours on the doorstep but you might have hated them

EleanorReally · 20/09/2019 08:22

you had a rough time? dh having affairs? you shut up about it, unless you were brave

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