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?

Anyway, don't worry, soon there will be food shortages again and rationing will be brought back, so we'll all get to experience "the good old days". Racism is also making a massive comeback.

Thing is that even this Summer, there were virtually no kids playing on the green or in the playground

Ours is the same. We don’t often see kids out playing. Summer was like a ghost town out there. I think the reason for that was, most kids weren’t here. Most parents are working so kids were somewhere else.

@shearwater

So true!

I think the belief that all mothers were SAHMs is utter rubbish. That option depended on wealth.

Exactly. The women in my family have always worked and my mum wasn't a SAHP either.

Even my MIL wasn't - she just did everything around the house AND went to work FT.

That's true, but also employers were prepared to pay for training. Apprenticeships, day release to do courses at technical college/polytechnic, really good on the job training. My impression is a lot of employers now expect employees to turn up with all those skills which they've had to pay through the nose to acquire.

Lots of employers still provide "apprenticeships" or on the job training etc for the young. What they don't provide is the sort of basic lifeskills that schools/home should have taught. I'm an accountant, I was trained in a small firm of accountants 40 years ago - they paid the college course and exam fees, I was expected to use my holiday allowance if I wanted revision time before the exams. For the job itself, I worked alongside a guy who basically taught me all he know over 5 years - but I was doing productive work, so "earning my keep". It worked well.

I've done exactly the same myself when I've taken on trainee accountants. Difference is, though, that many of the people I've taken out were completely useless - incapable of following simple instructions, couldn't be bothered to turn up at college for the course I've paid for, etc. Some, despite A levels were barely literate and numerate, didn't know how many days in each month, couldn't do simple percentage calculations, etc.

They had to be let go. I don't mind spending time and money on training people in my profession, where they can also contribute to my firm to earn their keep, but there's no way I'm spending time and money to teach them basic lifeskills or things they should have been taught at school. I'm happy to teach them book-keeping and tax returns, but not percentages, spelling, basic grammar, etc.

My dad was self employed and we were very poor, living in a damp house with no heating. My parents were abusive. Nobody cared. The school knew but did nothing. We had hardly any clothes other than school uniform. My dad's mortgage was only £50 per month but on many occasions he didn't have money to pay it. This was the 80s. Yes we had a bit more freedom than kids today but no, I don't see how raising kids was "easier".

I agree that things are not easy for young families for all the reasons quoted at the beginning of this thread.

However, things were not easy in the sixties and seventies as money was really tight. Yes, mortgages were much cheaper but salaries were also low. Clothes for children were much more expensive in ratio to earnings. A winter coat was something grandparents tended to buy to help out. No Primark then! A stay at home mum didn’t earn unless you could find something that was part time and you could share child care with a friend who had also found something similar. Not many women drove a car and there certainly wasn’t money for two cars. I remember wearing knickers with holes in them as they were my least concern. Yes, it wasn’t easy but expectations were not high. There wasn’t the expectations that children would be taken here and there for music, tennis etc lessons that I see now. They went to Brownies or something similar. There wasn’t the expensive technology that children and adults require these days. There was limited tv and no expensive contracts, wi fi etc. We had a coal fire and certainly no central heating. We would, however, have loved mobile phones to know where children were instead of worrying about them. Then again we didn’t have to worry about drugs or gangs. It’s all plusses and minuses.

I would say it is different for each generation. My great-grandmother was married to farm labourer and had five children. She had to clean the big house, keep her house and then look after the children, at a time when there were few domestic appliances as such. She would probably have relished quality time with her children, but she just didn’t have the time. It was probably easier for my grandmother. She did casual cleaning jobs, but lived near her mother, who was among the first to receive a pension etc. My great-grandparents were able to help my Grandmother, and it was a time when neighbours etc were very supportive and looked after each other’s Children etc.

My own mother stayed at home, and we lived near my grandmother, who helped out a lot. I think the supportive role of neighbours was dwindling fast by then, but my mum had automatic appliances, easier food options etc, which made running the home and family easier.

When I was a baby there was no car seats- mum said she couldn’t get the grocery store unless she had someone to come in the car to hold me (or someone to give her a lift). She and her friends had to all meet at one house and take turns driving solo to the supermarket, taking their items home to the fridge and then swapping. Literally a whole day for 3 or 4 of them to get the groceries done. Less lonely, yes, but less time efficient too!

I live on a street where kids do play out every bit as much as I did growing up. My parents chose a quiet cul de sac and so did DH and I when we bought a house. We also did play in one another's gardens quite a bit in the 80s, as kids do now.

In the 70s kids could have a bit too much freedom. Some parents really didn't give a shit where they were all day as long as they weren't cluttering up the house. Hence why they had to make about 150 public information films to stop kids from throwing fireworks, climbing pylons, falling into grain silos, playing on railway tracks and playing chicken on the main road.

I am a bit staggered by this, having brought up 4 children in the 1970s on one wage. The one change that is taken for granted which is massive, is the information and online help available now. We were flying blind, started having babies before we had any life experience, new nothing , most of us had moved away from family and had no help. Yes mortgages were cheaper, and wages were lower. modern mothers have different problems, not worse

My grandparents raised my parents through the war, so no, not easier at all, what an absurd thing to say!??

My dad's mortgage was only £50 per month but on many occasions he didn't have money to pay it. This was the 80s.

Yes, mortgage interest was about 15% as well at one time. My dad was out of work for six months - all the industry where you were meant to have a job for life was being shut down.

Was this really better/easier?

1. My parents lived in one bedroom of my grandparents' council house until they had 3 of us children (then had more).
2. The contraceptive pill wasn't around.
3. Mortgage? - my parents were in their late 40s before they had a mortgage from the city council to buy their council house under 'right to buy'.
4. Only family Allowance - no child tax credits when we were young. No other benefits either.
5. Dad came home from work to Mum going out to part time evening job. She also had reciprocal arrangement with ndn looking after tots so they could each work part time in the day while the older children were at school.
6. Doing the washing in the bath, putting it through a mangle before Twin tub washing machines became the norm, prior to automatic washing machines.
7. Soaking Terry towelling nappies in a bucket and Dad rubbing his fingers raw trying to clean them.
8. No clothes drying machines.
9. Getting up in the cold (with iced-up windows in winter) to clean the grate and start a coal fire.

10. If you needed a GP or an ambulance in an emergency, having to go out and walk to a public phone box to call for help. 11. Everyone knew who received free school meals. 12. No after school activity clubs. 13. University was only for the better off. 14. No microwaves, dishwashers, freezers, timers on cookers/ovens. 15. No central heating and hot water on tap. An immersion heater was used for hot water. 16. Weekly baths for children - sharing the same water with just a little hot water to warm it up for the next child. No showers. 17. Most working class people didn't have cars. Children didn't get chauffered about.

I'm sure there are different struggles these days but I think people have forgotten what the basics are. Most of us have great luxuries in our lives. I think my parents' generation had things pretty tough.

Being a child in the 50s was so much better in many ways - complete freedom because very little traffic danger, and no one had heard of child molesters (tho of course they existed). Schools could be rubbish however.
BUT, for parents it was much worse than today. I would hate to have the life my mother or grandmother had...

Absolutely not. We have access to more support, workplaces offer greater flexibility, you have instant access to online support too, including here. No, OP, it didn’t look much easier for other generations and I for one have a great deal of respect for women like my mum who had a lot to juggle and precious little in the way of a plan b when one of us was ill or something unexpected arose.

Bringing up kids was easier. My mum cooked dinner and kept house and that was the extent of it. She also worked.

No clubs, advice, supervision.

Mind you, babies have always been tough and I don’t think that changes.

I still wouldn’t have wanted my mums life. She followed my fathers lead in everything and put up with endless crap from him.

i think all generations have their trials. but my parents generation and the one before had it so hard.
living through WW2 being evacuated, that wasn't easy.
my mum was ill (cancer) started when I was born, the help my dad got was pitiful.
my generation left school at 16. no not being an adult till your 25.

Got to be honest - I would have hated to have to raise a child without the internet. Spent a lot of the first year googling! My brother probably had severe reflux as a baby, but it was never picked up on, because the information just wasn't there. Those early months were a nightmare for my mother because he screamed pretty much full stop, and projectile vomited almost everything back up. These days, someone on Mumsnet would have diagnosed him in a second!

Yes dgm went out to work but this meant my gps could buy a house. Dm said she felt embarrassed as no one else's dm seemed to work. Dgm was very pro education

You talk sense Kazzy about the education system

People also forget or don't realise that there were so many restrictions on women's lives. My parents got married in the 1960s. Women couldn't get a mortgage independently or even get anything on HP and were obviously paid less when doing the same job as a man.

Oh yeah, and when they got married, one of them had to leave as you weren't allowed to both work there and be a married couple.

Seems to be so much spoon feeding with dcs though. It's great that there is more support and awareness of MH issues and dc get support but I think the internet may make dc more insecure and unhappy to begin with

I think there is definitely something going wrong with our education system