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?

It definitely depended on your situation, tbh, and I think there's a lot of pros and cons. I think it was easier for my parents in some ways because my dad was a self-employed farmer and was able to build the family home on his land without a mortgage (just saved and only built what they could afford as and when money came in). But that did come at a cost because he worked 18h days for the entirety of my childhood, so my mum often felt like a single parent and had me and my brother to care for (who has severe SEN), so she couldn't go back to work and do a job she loved.

Whereas my partner starts his f/t job so early in the morning, he's usually back by 4pm, so I get a lot more help than my mum did. We also get the luxury of paid holidays and set hours in our jobs, whereas my dad hasn't had a day off since his honeymoon early 30 years ago.

It just depends on how you look at it. Some things are better. Others are worse.

I think an awful lot of comparisons depend on where you live. I'm in the Southeast, and there's no way my daughters and their partners can afford a house big enough for a family (I'm only talking a three bed semi) which my husband and I had at their ages and (with a huge amount of frugality) I was able to be a SAHM, propped up by a day or two's supply teaching occasionally. They don't have a hope of either if they stay here. My niece and nephew further north, have family sized houses, and are even thinking of buying investment properties in addition. Same salaries, broadly.

So yep, my daughters have huge challenges compared to me. Or they move away.

My sons were born in the 90's, I think that was a good time to become a parent. No tablets, i phones etc. None of this ridiculous nonsense about children needing lots of activities. I expected mine to have part time jobs from 16 and to be independent enough to leave home for uni without much support ( except for a lot of money) from then on.
I do think a degree of "healthy neglect" and never saying no if you can say yes helps children to grow up in an independent way. Mine did well at school, uni an din the world of work, so I must have done something right.

Mortgages were a hell of a lot cheaper for starters

I wish! Interest rates have never been so low as they are at the moment. When base rates just below 15% at one point we were paying 17% on our mortgage. We had just taken out a big mortgage to fund an extension so were stretched way beyond what would be allowed now. In addition the housing market collapsed so we couldn't even sell our way out of the situation.

I was on maternity leave then but still having to pay for nursery fees for my toddler. No free child places then. We had to pay for everything.

We even had to manage without parent and child spaces at the supermarkets.

I think an awful lot of comparisons depend on where you live

Agree with this, most people I know/knew did have parents with middle class jobs so teachers, police, civil servants, doctors, nurses, etc & with 1 parent at home or very p/t. They all lived in houses that you would need an income of 300k plus to buy now.

The one change that is taken for granted which is massive, is the information and online help available now.

This is so important. We have more information than ever available at our fingertips, and yet knowledge is as poor, if not poorer than ever. I don't think today's "google" generation can imagine what life was like without it. If you didn't have books at home and your parents wouldn't take you to a library, homework could be a nightmare - you'd really be on your own, not like today when kids can google for 10 minutes and copy/paste their answers. Same with access to information about health, careers, benefits, local services, etc. Same with starting your own business - everything you need at your fingertips, no trailing around to see the bank manager, then the solicitor, then the accountant, for advice before you could even start up! Yet despite all that knowledge, people seem to be thicker than ever, ill-informed, go onto online forums to ask questions they could easily google in less time. I am convinced history will judge the current younger generation as the generation of missed opportunity due to not taking advantage of all the information available to them.

OP you are talking about the life of a middle class mother. Most working class mothers worked.
And rates of depression and anxiety were very high amongst middle class Sahm. Lots writtenabout it atthe time.
I don't think we have things right now though. But in general the happiest mothers are those who workparttime.

Not RTFT but with everything there were pros and cons. I was born early 70s so there were washing machines etc and my parents were unusual in that they both had a car and my mum could drive. Supermarkets existed and the larger ones started to appear around early 80s where we lived. I had a Saturday job and I was expected to get on with my school work. Parents were only called in for major problems, not for every little misdemeanour like they are now (or at least it was like that at ds' school). I got a full grant to go to uni, so no money worries. But we didn't have many overseas holidays, or indeed many holidays at all.

But as pp's have said in the posts I have read, women were discriminated against far more badly than now. Marital rape was outlawed when I was at university. Mortgage rates were high (although I do think they are far too low at the moment, it's terrible for anyone needing to live off savings) but then house prices were that much lower in proportion to income.

The internet is a remarkable thing. It has its downsides, but the upsides outweigh those by a long way.

Medical care is so much better. That's not always a good thing, when people are kept alive regardless of quality of life, but in most cases people DO want to live, and they have a better chance if they have a serious illness.

I'd rather live now and be a parent now.

And I do think young adults seem to get a very strange perspective on life in the past. This may be because of old people talking about the past withrose tinged spectacles. But I still remember my first job at 16 working in an institution for severely disabled kids. At the time I thought it was horrific. And childcare standards were lower. It was very tough in the past if you had a disabled child.

What was easier was that kids went out to play. No pressure to be entertaining them.

not like today when kids can google for 10 minutes and copy/paste their answers

You really cannot do that in higher education, Plagiarism software will catch you out.

Yet despite all that knowledge, people seem to be thicker than ever, ill-informed

Well, your living proof of that.

I am convinced history will judge the current younger generation as the generation of missed opportunity due to not taking advantage of all the information available to them

See above....

This constant denigration of the younger generation is uncalled for & completely untrue, i can only think it comes from a bitter older generation that has deep regret, is nearer death and is jealous of the young.

Eeksville I suspect middle class families lived and mixed with middle class families. I grew up in one of the poorest areas in the country. The big push was to get kids to stay on at school after school leaving age. Only posh people went to uni so free grants were irrelevant. You could still leave term you turned 16 so older kids in the year often left before they sat any exams.
I agree with lack of knowledge. There were so many things I did not know about higher education or what was available. You couldn't google it. I remember talking to a pretty renowned at the time working class artist who said that it was always the middle class artists who seemed to hear about grants or scholarships for artists and so got them. She just never heard about them until after they had been awarded. These days you would just spend sometime on google.

I got a free grant because my parents couldn't afford it back in the 80s. This "only posh people went to Uni" is nonsense. My parents left school at 14 and 16 respectively.

I agree with Kazzy to some extent. We have easy access to more information than at any point in history but what hasn't kept pace is the ability to evaluate it. Anybody can say anything on the internet, it never entirely disappears, but that doesn't make it true. Critical thinking is a skill and I don't think it's being taught well in schools, if at all.

Also, knowing you can look anything up means there's no great incentive to memorise it in the first place. I used to know lots of phone numbers and all sorts of other random stuff off by heart. Not any more. This has to mean that some parts of the brain aren't getting the stimulation they used to, and doing lots of stuff online is probably stimulating other parts instead.

I mean full grant, not free grant. I also got housing benefit and unemployment benefit in the summer.

Bellinisurge generally the proportion of working class uni students was small. I don't care when your parents left school. That tells me little. If you lived in a more middle class area you will have been brought up with uni being more a possibility. I am telling you where I lived uni was seen as for posh people, and the big push from the school was trying to get bright students to stay on at school after sixteen. Something they largely failed to succeed. So please don't rubbish my experience.
There has been a lot of work over the last 30 years to widen access to education in areas like this. And now some of the brightest students in these areas do go to uni.

Bellini

It's not nonsense.... There is still a huge class divide in higher education.

My mother had her children in the 90's and she very much agrees with me that they had it easy (in terms of the big life stuff like house / job / kids) compared to life now. At the time they may not have thought so, interest rates skyrocketed shortly after they bought their first family home and they just about managed to make ends meet whereas their own parents had paid off their mortgage in their early 40s and were living off the interest of their savings to travel around the world in their 50s. My parents thought they were terribly hard done by by comparison. Seeing how difficult it is now though, she agrees she can't complain as my dad was a lorry driver when I was born and she was a typist. A couple with those professions now would not even be able to get a mortgage for a one bed flat on their combined salary in the area my parents live, let alone the three bed family home they bought. Their home more than doubled in value in the 10 years they owned it, it allowed them to buy a bigger family home with a smaller mortgage. My mum quit work after I was born and only returned part time (15 hours) six years later after my brother was born and she has never gone back full time. That would not be possible anymore unless your husband was a high earner.

I do think their generation is the one causing problems for our own generation. We are moving back to where my parents live, we had to move originally to be able to afford a home but rising childcare and commute costs have rendered it equally expensive so now that we are on the ladder we may as well go back. Although my ex-employer wants to have me back they only have full-time vacancies because the other women in my team are all still part-time. Their children have all grown up but they still occupy the part-time roles and lots of them are still term time only meaning all the new mums with young children can't negotiate a part-time contract. Also, the estate agents say there is limited housing stock as no one bothers downsizing in the area so the only large family homes that come on the market are run down and in desperate need of upgrading because they've just been lived in by an elderly couple until they've died or gone into care and as the children who have inherited are in no rush to sell the condition is getting worse but they still want £750,000 for it and won't negotiate. My mum regularly comments that this is unfair and yet still works part time (meaning her colleague had to return full-time after the birth of her children as my mum refused to change her hours to fit around her colleague) and she lives in a six bed house despite them only needing one bedroom.

I'm sure by the time I am my mum's age we will be incentivised (taxed) into downsizing and we will all need to work full-time to ensure our private pension pots are large enough to cover the ever increasing old age so hopefully those issues will be resolved for our children's generation.

Ooh yes. Unemployment benefit over the holidays. Although I always worked so not sure why I remember that.

We went without things if we couldn't afford them. Buying things on credit was frowned upon.
Women were not expected to work when we had children, even once we were married.
I remember my manager asked me if I was giving up my job after my wedding. When I said no, he said 'what does your boyfriend have to say about that?'

I started work as office junior with a boy the same age. My employer funded him for college day release and exams to further his career. I wasn't allowed that opportunity.
Yeah,....it was great that ....

Gosh, it was harder if anything. Not much choice in whether you worked as a mum. No childcare and certainly not subsidised like today.
If you weren't close to family you had no support at all.

Let's not forget the low wages too in an era when employers could pay what they liked.

I got my first job in 1996, working weekends in a supermarket, and was paid £1.15 an hour. My mum worked in the same shop and got £3 an hour. I was sacked as I would skip school to cover a shift so went to work on the counter at the local newsagents instead where I was paid £1.90 an hour. My mum got promoted to supervisor at her shop for a lofty £3.20 an hour.

What people forget is that going to university was out of the reach of many as soon as they failed their 11+.

If you didn't get in the grammar school then you got to do CSEs instead of O levels.

If you didn't do O levels you couldn't do A levels and you then didn't have the qualifications to go to university.

Even if you went to the grammar school you might not have been able to afford to stay on post 16 let alone post 18 to go and study for another 3 years.

I was a young child of a divorced mother in the early 70s. There was a stigma attached to divorce and single parents then. No CSA or tax credits. No free childcare and no cheap supermarket clothing or own brand food.
I remember my mum cooking tea and only cooking for my sibling and I. She would eat if we left anything if not she had some bread.
Walking with the pushchair to the only supermarket. Which was a Finefare about 4 miles away. Everything was in tins which were loaded into the pushchair and we were sat on top for the walk home.
Mum up half the night sewing shopping bags which she was paid on a piece deal for or left outside the posh houses whilst mum went in to clean. Socks held up with an elastic band and the only new school shoes I got were a birthday present each year from my grandparents.
No central heating or double glazing and my mums coat put over us in bed at night for extra warmth.
Yes I could safely play in the street but my mum couldn’t afford a bike for me so we made go carts out of old pramwheels and bits of old wood and string. We could play by the river even though it was known a strange man used to flash kids there. We were just told to ignore him which we did.
I still think I had a good childhood but it was not the utopia some seem to think it was back then.

In the 70s I used to work occasional Saturdays in a newsagents for £5 for the day.

Got there at 8.30 and left at 6.00.
So 9.5 hours at just over 50p per hour

My first job I came out with £80 per month. I worked in a bank.
My gross pay was about £50 more but with tax at 33.3% and NI and they insisted on taking union fees it ate into what little I earned.
My rent was £15 per week and my travel was £4.04 per week so like everyone else I had to take on other work.