To ask how women did it?

[TheMurk]

Generations before, how did women do this? Manage children and households 24/7 before all the modern luxuries and distractions we have become so used to?

Having these things withdrawn over the last few months (including activities like baby classes etc) has made me think quite a lot about my grandmother, a woman raising four young children in the late 40s and 50s. My grandfather was a coalman and out all day working. Very traditional roles in that my grandmother was expected to look after everything to with the household and family while my grandfather worked and then did football or the pub when he had free time. He didn’t help her at all and she also had to do everything for him, he even cane home for his breakfast and lunch every day and expected it on the table.

So my grandmother was in the house all with 4 kids, had to do all housework, feeding, shopping, childcare etc. No car, no fancy double Pram’s or scooters to get kids around the streets for shopping, no supermarkets so multiple shops to visit to get the groceries, all cooking needed done, no convenience foods etc etc .

compared to me, I only have 2 kids and all the mod cons etc, plus a DH wfh and helping where he can, but I can barely put a slice of bread in the toaster without the baby screaming because I’ve put them down for 10 seconds, the toddler is (not ideally) occupied by TV but even that barely keeps them going. Toys are played with for minutes and discarded. Too smal for arts and crafts stuff etc.

I am finding it intense, almost unbearable, physically exhausting (not interested in the rights and wrongs of that “you shouldn’t have had kids” etc, I don’t think my grandmother’s generation made much conscious effort to think that deeply about having children, it was just what you did).

I’m interested in the practicalities of it. Did they just let the baby scream and hang of their leg while they made soup?

Did they just turn a blind eye to toddlers jumping off chairs while they did the laundry?

Did they let them roll about fighting and pulling each other’s hair because they were pressing the husbands clothes?

I can’t get any housework done at all, it’s just a constant merry go round of lifting the baby, managing the toddler, feeding them, cleaning up after feeding them, entertaining them, starting all over again.

How did they do it?

I'm only 30 and I was sent out to play all day until tea time. Didn't go in and bother my mum unless I'd seriously injured myself. I don't think she ever even asked where I'd been all day. She wasn't considered a neglectful parent. I think it was normal then.

I went to the corner shop alone at 3 to buy sweets. Again, it was considered normal.

@KKSlider

Even just the difference between when I was a young child in the 80 and now is vast.

We lived in a three bed semi in a nice area with front and back gardens. We didn't have central heating until around 1989. Before that we had a coal fire in the living room and another in the kitchen then vents in the chimney breast that let warm air into the bedrooms but it would still be freezing in the winter with ice on the inside of the (wooden framed) windows on very cold mornings.

Twice a day my mum would have to clean out the grates and lay both of the fires then keep them topped up during the day, it heated our hot water too so even in summer she would need to light one of the fires for at least part of the day. There was a coal bunker in the back garden and the coal man came once a week to fill it, there was an ash pile down the side of the house and he would shovel it up and take it away after filling the bunker. I can't imagine having to lay fires every day!

I had Terry nappies until I was six weeks old and then I had plasters for hip dysplasia so was entitled to free disposable nappies from the NHS because I needed to wear two at a time. Early disposable nappies had potato starch inside to absorb the wee and a plastic outer. I couldn't have baths because if the plaster. I must have smelled lovely - like a plastic wrapped, sweaty spud!

I remember she had a twin tub washing machine that tucked under the kitchen counter and she would pull it out to use it. One side was water for washing and the other was for spinning/draining. It had to be manually filled using a hose and my job was to sit on the counter next to the sink and turn the tap off when she told me to. The clothes went in the wash part then had to be pulled out by hand and put into the spinner. While they were spinning she would drain the wash part and refill it with fresh water so they could be rinsed after they'd been spun, then they needed another spin, then possibly another rinse depending on whether they still seemed soapy, then out onto the line or onto a clothes horse in front of the fire.

She had a coachbuilt pram that my younger sibling went in and I had a little red leather harnessed seat bolted to a board that sat across the foot of the pram, I would sit with my feet dangling and holding onto the handlebar facing her. She would walk into town (3 miles) and back (3 miles) because taking the pram on a bus was too much faff. Once my sibling could sit up she got an umbrella fold pushchair instead. It was basically a basket seat bolted to a metal frame with little metal rings to stop it collapsing and a bumpy rubber coating in the push bar. I hated when she would ask me to fold it for her while she lifted the shopping onto the bus because I would always nip my fingers, the exact same model was later on Watchdog (?) because several children lost their fingers in the folding mechanism.

We didn't have a supermarket near us so for food shopping she had to go to the local high street, about a mile away, and visit each individual shop to get what she needed.

She worked for a bit when my sibling and I were small, doing bar and shop work mainly although she did become a SAHM once sibling number three came along because she said it was too much for our dad to deal with while she was at work. Our dad would come home from work and as he came in the door, she would go out to work. His tea would be all ready for him before she left and we would be fed and in our pyjamas so that he didn't need to do anything, he didn't even need to put us to bed as he would take us with him to collect her at closing time - no car seats in the car though, of course.

My mum now loves all modcons. She's in her 50s and has every gadget going. Alexa controls all her lights, she doesn't even need to boil the kettle because Alexa does it for her so all she needs to do is pour. Washing machine, drier, dishwasher. She has someone comes in to do her gardening. She gets her car valeted once a month. She talks about 30-40 years ago as if it was the dark ages.

Can you give me the timelines of this again? You were a child in the 80s, but your DM is only in her 50s?? Do you mean her 70s? I was a child in the 80s too and I thought we weren't very advanced, but your childhood was even more old fashioned I think, apart from the disposable nappies. My DGM had a twin tub, but I don't remember it being quite as much work and we had at least a minimarket or something in the closest town.

I was born in the 80s and my mum is in her 50s?? 24 when she had me.

Can you give me the timelines of this again? You were a child in the 80s, but your DM is only in her 50s??

I was born in 1981 when my mum was 19. She'll be 58 later this year.

My mum had a twin tub until the mid 90's, and it was actually very efficient - she just filled the washing side once, then you hoiked the clean washing into the spin side, hosed it with clean water, span, hosed it again, then a big spin. She would do 3 loads a day before work while doing everything else in the kitchen

"I was born in 1981 when my mum was 19. She'll be 58 later this year."

Thanks for the explanation.

@gwenhwyfar/ @kkslider, I don't know why you are so surprised? I was born in the 80s and my mum (being a crunchy, 'earth mother' type) bought into reusable nappies bigtime. I know plenty of people who use them now, too. She had heating, but I didn't in 2010 when I was first married; just a few years ago, when DD was born, we were moving house and found a lot of those in our budget didn't have heating. My mum kept her enormous pram for ages after we were born, and still says how good it was. When my older brother gave her a first grandchild, she was shocked that he didn't buy any pram at all, and just carried the child everywhere.

Plenty of things have genuinely changed, but a lot of what we're seeing on this thread isn't social change, it's people who were young in the 1980s describing being young and poor, and comparing it to now being in later middle age and better off.

I was born in the 80s and my youngest brother in the 90s, we all had terry towelling squares for nappies. I knew how to fold them for boys and girls. I didn’t even know about disposables.

They didn't parent so intensively.

for my trio born in 82,83 and 85 i used terry towel diapers they were called terry no fold, kind of hour glass shaped. well loved as rags many years later.

@janeskettle

They didn't parent so intensively.

That's it in a nutshell, really.

One thing that I'msure not everyone did was that sometimes small children were sedated, back in victorian times it was opium [Godfrey's cordial] a pharmacist friend said that when she qualified it was common for mothers to buy otc antihistamines to sedate their children, [can't remember the one, I know someone once suggested I use it didn't, but she obviouisly did, and I remember seeing someone letting her baby suck whisky off her finger.].... and by the late 80s it was much less common. Didn't gripe water once have alcohol in it too
No fancy cookery, either

BookOfFacts I agree .Obviously it depends on everyones circumstances but my Nan and Grandad had a similar sort of life .Grandad had a "good job" in the printing industry ,working for that old MN favourite the daily Mail! Nan stayed at home to look after My DM and care for the house and garden .I think individual people had different ways of life then as now .There are still pockets of hardship now as well .Many women having to hold down a couple of jobs as an SP ,and care for their DC with older ones having to step up as needed.

"@gwenhwyfar/ @kkslider, I don't know why you are so surprised? I was born in the 80s and my mum (being a crunchy, 'earth mother' type) bought into reusable nappies bigtime. I "

I'm not surprised at using reusable nappies. When did I say I was?

I remember my grandma telling me that she was told by a doctor to put her babies in the pram in the kitchen overnight with the door closed so she couldn’t hear them cry. This would have been the late forties.

Clothes weren’t changed regularly...my mum says they had to wear the same pair of socks and pants for 3 days before they were allowed a clean pair. She was also responsible for cooking breakfast for her dad and brothers from the age of 7 or 8.

I think parenting children probably came pretty far down the list of priorities and aside from clothing and feeding them, they pretty much brought themselves up.

@SarahAndQuack it's actually not so bad - our house languished for years on the market, because it was a bit of a mess and everyone looked at the heating system and went "hell no!". Enter DH and I, who are perma skint and limited in our house buying options it's actually the warmest house I've lived in, and we now have an ongoing row over the possibility of there being another fireplace behind the wall in the toddler's room, and whether I should whack in with a sledgehammer to find out

There is also nothing as satisfying as getting two tonnes of coal delivered every September, and seeing it all pile up in the yard. We're going to experiment with drying out seaweed to burn too. I draw the line at donkey shit.

Well they made it easier to be fair:

No such thing as 'parenting'. Just keep the kid alive. Everyone was trying to stay alive. No expectation to interact with the kid every minute of the day. Result is resilient children and adults with the ability to deal with their own frustration rather than the self obsession we get 'these days'. Parents were proper adults not performing monkeys sycophantically reacting and cowing to a child king's every move

Cleaning ones house and self was from necessity not convenience. Read these boards and it seems 50% of people think it's utterly disgusting if you don't wash a towel after one use, shower twice daily and change the sheets 4 times a week. Everyone was clean yes but being clean to the point of unhealthy obsession was not the norm.

See also cleaning rota's that involve ' weekly skirting board bleaching'

Cooking was seasonal and used basic ingredients that could be used over several meals. High use of labour saving slow cookers or long roasts that increase richness of flavours. Child's eating foibles were simply not entertained.

Kick kids out into the street for the day, every day over summer. Risk was higher than now for predatory adults but lower for cars. The risk was assessed by parents and measured as being a risk worth taking if they told their kids the rules of street. Again, result was streetwise kids with social skills.

Equally not much chance for leisure or enjoyment of any kind! However ask any 1960's parent to swap for the modern parents parenting guilt and 'busy work' and I guess they would take a pass.

I read Can Any Mother Help Me? yesterday evening and it was very good. I cried a little at the end. Keeping the magazine going when they're all dying off in nursing homes Female friendship is such a powerful thing, I get so cross at the "girls are bitchy and two faced" trope. Going to read Around a Pound tonight, for balance. This has been quite the thread for my Kindle wishlist

My mum and dad had multiple siblings (all born 40s), they were either out playing locally with other kids or in the back garden weather permitting when they weren't at school. The older ones had to look after the younger ones (from 4+). The adults out and about kept an eye on the kids in their area and would know them. They were in and out of their own grand/aunties houses most of who lived locally.

Their mothers didn't stop in the middle of their day to sit and do arts and crafts/puzzles with them which gave them time to do housework etc.

They all had various jobs around the house that they had to help out with.

Shopping was done very locally 2 or 3 times a week.

There was a lot of support usually within the community from family and friends (usually women).

It was hard graft of course but the norm.

I was born in the sixties to a much older Mother. We were probably the last generation to roam about freely all day. We had a bath once a week and clothes and bedding were only changed when absolutely necessary, spot cleaning was a big thing.

Plus people just did not own much stuff back then, lots of stuff just didn’t exist. So there was just so much less clutter. Basically the genuine middle class sent their dc off to horse riding, dancing and whatever lessons. If you were poorer it was incredibly rare. These days people expect to be able to do more and this includes stuff for their kids like lessons.

It’s a myth that women didn’t work, the middle class Janet and John book type Mummies didn’t but many Working class women did, my Mother did and she had six dc born over a 20 year period. My Mother was born in the 1920’s and her Mother was born in 1900. So I’m only early fifties but had a Victorian Grandmother.

Yup. I was born early 1970's and started walking to school alone and letting myself into the house after school at 7/8 after my mum had to go back to work. So that was early 1980's

I know no one who had a stay at home mum at that age. Occasionally a friends grandparent might show up at the school gates and walk home with us but it was a treat rather than from necessity.

We just got on with it. Watched kids tv and had a cup of tea when I got home. Did homework ready for parents being home at 6. Dinner would be something shoved in the oven and a ton of veg so sausage mash and broccoli and peas. No quibbling allowed over the menu. Take it or leave it. I learned to take it!

Mums were encouraged to bottle feed babies during the war years, not because it was better for baby but really it was better for mum. This enabled mums to work. Put babies in nurseries from a very young age. After the war and mums were encouraged to be SAHMs they still used formula for routine and more settled babies.

My HV described it to me as formula is more filling than BM. So babies act like they have just had a massive takeaway and go back to sleep. They go longer between feeds plus the fresh air babies slept a lot.

Mums are being encouraged to Breast feed but have the same expectations of a FF baby. That their own mums experienced.

I think it would be really good to have a time line of parenting throughout the 20th century.

While I like the myth that in the 40's and 50s people stayed close to family. It's not actually reflective of either sides of my family. Both my Grandmothers were at least a bus ride away from their families. They moved into their husbands family home. One became cared for her MIL and one who's husband lived with siblings.
The 40's and the post war years had lots of housing shortages, Generation's were crammed in together.

I was born in 1953 in a household with 5 children, I was 2nd oldest. Dad was a plumber and worked 5.5 days a week. Mum was a SAHM, or housewife as they were known then. Monday was washing day. All day. She had a boiler for whites and nappies, no disposables, a mangle and spinner. Clothes hung on the line to dry, or on a thing that hung on the kitchen ceiling that she wound up on ropes and pulleys when she had to dry inside. I just about remember her scrubbing clothes on a washboard. It was hard. We had fairly set menus. Roast on Sunday, left over cold meat and chips on Monday, or she would mince the leftover meat for a cottage pie. As we grew older we were left to our own devices, playing in the local park, or on the local railway embankment, steam trains were still running, and Diesels starting to be introduced, so that was exciting. I was about 10 or 11 when dad got the use of a company van, and he took us all over the place, leaving mum behind with my youngest sister. 4 kids piled in the back of a van, with a load of camping equipment, no seat belts, well there were no seats either. But it gave mum a few days respite. She baked a lot, most food made from scratch, we always had a week's summer holiday in the UK. There were no distractions such as daytime TV or social media, so bringing up the kids and looking after the house were her job. In later years, when my dad was asked if he remembered when one of us did something, he usually said No, because he was working. It must have been tough, but neither was overweight,, my dad lived to 88 and my mum will be 91 next week. So many things changed in their lifetime, growing up through the war, starting married life sharing a house with an aunt, with only an outside toilet, and no running hot water, and gradually things improving. It wasn't all roses, but not a bad life either.

Great post @Malin52, and so true. People seem to spend far too much time obsessing over their children's every move these days and the children can't cope with life because of it. Don't even start me on the ridiculous cleaning and hygiene standards of some MNers.

@Gwenhwyfar, I was replying to both you and another poster.

@BeatrixPottersAlterEgo - ooh, you should! Discovering a hidden fireplace would be brilliant. I suspect if we ever manage to buy it'll be something similar (I trawl rightmove looking at wrecks and yearning).