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Having these things withdrawn over the last few months (including activities like baby classes etc) has made me think quite a lot about my grandmother, a woman raising four young children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 reread 'Round about a Pound a week' last night. And what really, really struck me was the impact of poverty on the women studied. These were 'just coping' families, but it was the woman who would cut her food right back on short weeks (and on the normal weeks it was bread and marge two meals a day anyway), who would often not have boots to wear, and who might be staying in 2 rooms all the time as she had a baby and 'ex baby' with no pram to go out. The death of a child would mean mother and other children going very short of food for weeks to pay the bills.
And although the street might pull together in extremis, its also noted what a very lonely existence it was for many women as they didn't have the time for friendships, and their own family were busy just surviving too

Most of these points have been covered but thought I'd post anyway.

Imagine a world where your children got up in the morning, put on their clothes, had the breakfast that was on the table and went to school either with a sibling or a bunch of neighbouring children. Mum might have taken you to school on your first day, but not after that.

I can’t promise the world I lived in was exactly that, but it was pretty close. Now 83 I don’t have fond memories of my childhood for all sorts of reasons, nothing to do with lack of choice, which was the norm. We wore clothes for a week - there was no choice, we ate the breakfast Mum put out, or cooked, because that was it. We did not eat between meals, because there was nothing to eat. We had three meals a day, and if we came home and asked when tea was (it really wasn’t worth asking) it was the same time, presumably for when Dad came home from work. Hungry - wait for you tea.

School holidays we went out to play unless it was raining, had to entertain ourselves - if we said we were bored, we were told, at least you are doing something. Funny how without watches we always managed to come at meal times.

Occasionally, perhaps on a Saturday evening we played ludo or similar board game as a family, but generally it wasn’t our parents’ role to entertain. Dad, certainly, bless his heart was not a friend.

And when I became a parent (1965) it was pretty much the same. How on earth did we get our children to bed at 7pm for the first couple of years of their primary years? No idea.

That’s how Mum did it, including all day Monday set aside for washing - using the mangle to squeeze out as much as possible. Tuesday ironing with hot irons on the stove and walking to the shops most days.

Your point above about your dad not being your 'friend' @petronious16 strikes a chord with me, too. I had my childhood in the 60s/70s and we didn't expect our parents to entertain us or even talk to us much, and I can't speak for everyone, but as a kid, that was the way I liked it. My life and activities were for me and my friends and I didn't want my parents poking their noses in. I remember one girl I knew when we were about 13, she was an only child and her mother wanted to hang around with her all the time. We all felt sorry for her as she never got any peace. How things have changed!
I'm not saying that more or less ignoring one's kids was the right approach to parenthood, but that was how it was at the time.

Petronius16, that was very much my childhood. Right down to the mangle and wash day!

Mum ran her household the way her Mum had run her household. Unsurprising, because my Mum had to take over running the household for her, her Dad, and her five brothers, at the age of six, when her poor mother had an horrific accident.

I guess it's very much 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.

To an extent, that's how I've run mine, as well - although modern day luxuries and complications have crept in.

(The Ludo really resonated. And snakes and ladders. Monopoly was for high days and holidays!)

Even mobile toddlers were strapped in prams in the garden. And my Nan said you simply didn’t know if baby woke crying the night as they were in their own room with all the doors shut and you might have ear plugs in. They had bedtime feed and you went in in the morning. Thing of all the sleep deprivation and sleepless nights that go on today. Well I think they didn’t happen then as they didn’t respond to the babies in the same way and they soon learnt to sleep.
I know an old lady that said she put a cage over the cot to keep her toddler in.

But @Devlesko thinks that everyone can afford to live on one salary if they just give up 'luxuries'. You know, like food and rent.

I grew up late 60s, my mum used to give us a sandwich a bottle of Tizer pop and say come back before its dark!
we played in the woods behind the house making tree houses, climbing trees, ect. When back home bathed eat bed by 7pm.
I think children of today are with parents so much they have become quite molly coddled.
I was a one parent family with a mortgage 3 jobs, I worked around my child. Who also was in bed untill 9yrs old by 7pm. One of my jobs was behind a bar 2 nights a week, that became my social life, met lots of people chatted we were allowed 2 x 1/2 of drink . No tv, no mobile no microwave no washing machine no hoover.. I batch cooked in the evenings and froze, took out each morning what was for tea. Sheets were soaked in the bath during the day while at work. used a sweeping brush and a ewbank for carpets. I swore id pay my mortgage off before I was 60 did it at 55, this was when mortgages were at a rate of 16.5%. Helped my son through uni he came out with no debts. I dont think I missed out in any way. Youd be amazed how much time is spent on a mobile phone, and watching tv, try turning them off for a whole 24 hours, you will find so much spare time, I promise!

The mention of mangles has just reminded me of this wonderful experimental archaeology / social history programme I've been watching, "Full Steam Ahead" with Ruth Goodman and some men hanging around. She talks about the impact of coal on housework, and how much extra work it caused women compared to previous times. Interesting.

The status of women seems to fall through the same period too.

I had my elder 3 in the 70's. No modern luxuries in our household. I had a twin tub washing machine that leaked madly every time it was used.

Cloth nappies, so lots of washing.
I didn't drive then, so any shopping had to be done with a big pram and walking, sometimes on the bus.
We did have a playgroup which we went to once a week, but there was no other entertainment for children.

We didn't know any different and just got on with it.

Yes, to a certain extent we just let children get on with it. They were clean and fed and well looked after, but we didn't entertain them for 24 hours a day. Boredom is good, it allows them to use their imagination. They played outside a lot, and we had lots of long walks.

@Pepperwort in what way did it create more work for women? This is during the Industrial Revolution I take it? I would have thought the opposite, as coal holds heat better and for longer - would have thought that would make cooking and drying easier

I've been reading Around a Pound and wheesh. It needs to be taught in schools. My great grandad was a boy of 16 in 1911, and he only died in the 1990s, so that sort of life really isn't that far in the past.

I was reading giant chunks of it aloud to DH and as we still get a lot of our food in lbs from the local butcher and veg shops we were able to translate it to today quite easily. So 3/4lb of sausages for a mother and six children at one meal and 12lb of potatoes a week would mean that for that particular dinner they would have less ths than one sausage each and one potato. The other meals that day consisted of a slice of bread and marge for breakfast and ditto for lunch. So two slices of bread, a potato and not even a full sausage in a whole day. And they were lucky to have the sausages. No wonder the women were all described as being about 5 foot tall and anaemic. And this was the respectable working class poor with full time employment, christ knows what was going on in the slums

It also made me think about sizes. The children in that book would be adults in WW2, and they'd be suffering from a childhood of malnourishment. That would probably follow on to their own children to some extent. No wonder vintage clothes are teeny weeny. My granny was 5'2 and a size 8,my mum 5'4 and a size 10,I'm 5'6 and usually a 12 but currently a lockdown 14. My DD is 12 but already taller than me. Obviously you have to take the fact I'm a greedy cow out of the equation, but I'm also in general built on a much bigger scale than my gran, and each successive generation has definitely been better nourished. DH and I were talking the other day about how things like blueberries and avocados weren't childhood staples for us the way they are for our DC

The changes are so gradual, it's weird to look back. I'm in my mid fifties. Growing up we had no central heating. In winter there was often ice on the inside of the windows in our bedrooms. We put coats on the beds to keep warm. (We weren't 'poor'. My dad has a middle class job but refused to let my mother work.)
We had no car, no telephone, no fridge for a long time. I remember milk turning to cheese and rancid butter in the summer. No washing machine for ages - long trips to the laundrette with washing piled into an old pram and then finally we got a very leaky twin tub.
We walked everywhere. My mum carried incredibly heavy shopping home by hand from the city centre market to our suburb.
This was in the sixties and seventies.

The book 'French Children Dont Throw Food 'has some silly bits but overall the sections that talk about allowing children the freedom to learn how to manage their own frustration in relation to playing, eating and sleeping are hugely insightful and rooted in scientific study and reflect many of the strategies that have been talked about on this thread. The main premise being helicopter parenting is Very Bad and 'leaving them to their own devices to entertain themselves' is Very Good.

Recommended.

"DH and I were talking the other day about how things like blueberries and avocados weren't childhood staples for us the way they are for our DC"

They're still not childhood staples for a lot of people. I'll splash out on avocados, but now way would I buy blueberries or cherries.

Gosh it makes my heart hurt to think of children (& adults) just being hungry all the time. I have to ask mum a lot of questions! I want to cloth nappy but can’t bear the idea of the washing

I’d be interested to know, what was the cause of the change in mind frame towards child rearing.

From the comments, I have read that children were outside all day, many children died young from the dangers that that unsupervised play presented, and children fell victim to abuse etc. Discipline was usually physical, and children didn’t expect to be entertained.

So why the change? The majority of the changes we see today have been brought in by people who lived in those unsupervised time’s described. So, why do they consider that what ‘they’ could do is now ‘neglect’? (I mean in terms of social worker intervention/laws/school intervention etc).

I would give my hind leg some days to Chuck my children outside all day long, and not have to deal with them, their mess and the constant cooking/cleaning/attention, that their presence demands, but that’s no longer acceptable.

So what changed? And why? Especially in light of books such as the French one recommended above? We endorse freedom for children but there are no longer any parameters within which it is acceptable to give it to them in the same way.

Malin I haven't read the book so can't comment on that, but I wouldn't say my own experience of being "left to it" as a child worked out that well personally.

My elder sibling was bossy and had the benefit of age to outwit me; played mean tricks, changed the rules of the games at will to suit themselves, cheated etc and with no parent to help fairly and respectfully manage the situation we grew up largely hating each other. Fortunately we get on well as adults but we could have had a far better relationship as children if it had been managed better along the way. As the younger child, I also grew up with something of an inferiority complex from constantly being told or made to feel I was wrong/foolish/thick etc by unharnessed power-wielding elder sibling. Personalities and birth order play quite a key role.

My own kids disagree amongst themselves as all kids do, but they are not mean to each other in the same way that kids left to it with no direction can be. I believe kindness and respect can (and should) be taught and it starts at home amongst your own family members.

I think there are two main reasons for less freedom today. One is the sheer amount of traffic. In the sixties and seventies when l was a child most families, like mine, had one car. Now it is normal to have at least two. This means that roads are a great deal more dangerous than they were then. However, the proportion of children involved in traffic accidents has reduced by at least three quarters. This can only be a good thing and is due in no small part to safer cars and speed awareness. The other reason is the perceived stranger danger risk due to people being more aware of this because of more news etc. In actual fact, there is no more real danger by strangers than there ever was, most children who suffer in this way, unfortunately, are abused by someone known to them. There have always been suspect people around and we were warned at school and home about strangers. We were also aware of who to avoid in the community. Sadly, a summer rarely went by without news of a child disappearing but it has always gone on.

Violinist yes those were my main thoughts, but I feel like it must go deeper. As you say, there were always risks, so why is our perception of these greater? If people were ‘used’ to children dying or being seriously injured, then why should more cars be considered worse?

There must have been some sort of seismic shift in thinking generally. If anyone (including people brought up with huge amounts of freedom) saw a group of under 10 year olds out playing all day with zero adult supervision, the police would likely be called. That’s a change in community thinking across the board, not just a generational change.

(Sorry I don’t expect you to answer those questions by the way, these are just my ruminations!)

My parents said it changed with the Moors murders - the idea someone might take a child hadn't occured to most people before that, tales about gypsies notwithstanding.

Though I think car use probably had even more.to do with it - I grew up in suburbia in the 70s/80s and wasn't allowed to play out beyond our cul-de-sac, but I know people the same age who lived more rurally who were.

@Gwenhwyfar quite, but my point is they're fairly easy to come by if you want them. We're solidly working class and always have been, we've been really skint at times and we have to watch our budget, but as the DC like them we tend to have them quite a bit. You can get a small punnet of blueberries for less than a pound in Tesco. I don't remember seeing them about a lot as a child, and when I did, they were really quite expensive and definitely not a weekly item

I've actually bought two blueberry bushes for the garden so I can grow my own. Cherries now, cherries seem to be expensive no matter what.

jack ah that makes more sense. The sudden realisation that children could be targeted victims as opposed to almost passive victims of accidents.

My great grandmother was a Sahm and had 2 children, her husband died when the kids were small but she had a maid and family help.

My grandmother was born in the 20s, had her 2 children in the 50s and went back to work full time as a teacher. She used a private nursery and had a maid.

My mum had 2 children born in the 80s and went back to work full time when they arrived back into Britain after living on a military base for a few years. Used a nursery and after my dad left the army he worked part time.

"There must have been some sort of seismic shift in thinking generally. If anyone (including people brought up with huge amounts of freedom) saw a group of under 10 year olds out playing all day with zero adult supervision, the police would likely be called. That’s a change in community thinking across the board, not just a generational change."

That may be a thing for parents though. I don't have children and wouldn't think 8 and 9 year olds playing in the street without a parent watching them would be something to report.

Re coal making more work - my mum says coal fires made everything filthy, so much more cleaning would be needed.