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Having these things withdrawn over the last few months (including activities like baby classes etc) has made me think quite a lot about my grandmother, a woman raising four young children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?

There was a reason for that old chestnut: "A man may work from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done".

Life then was easier than now. If you parented today like they did then SS would be in touch. It will be different again in fifty years. Looks to me like it is going to get harder tbh.

I’m loving this thread. So many amazing stories and memories from others.

@SarahAndQuack

Yes, just off the top of my head, 'free range' play involves:

• self-care skills and regulation (tiredness, hunger, thirst, toileting)
• child-led risk assessment (often at odds with parents, rightly or wrongly!)
• socialisation (settling disputes, play order etc without intervention)
• experimentation and problem solving (what can be done without a parent?)
• imaginative skills
• physical and environmental confidence

Parents can get in the way of these. Obviously it's important that we keep kids alive, but the intelligence, learning and survival of the species has depended on play phases which are fundamental to our development. We might have stopped living in caves thousands of years ago, but nobody had told our basic biology that (see also: why we get fat in a high-calorie environment!).

The flipside of this is that no-one is allowed to tell anyone else's child off anymore

I am always soooooo tempted to step in with some misbehaving kid and tell them 'You listen to your mother'.

But I don't want to a) mishandle a situation if the child has needs I don't know about or b) get slaughtered by the parent concerned.

It's a shame, because in many situations it would not only work but be gratefully received!

First of all it was a very different world then. People lived in tight-knit communities. You knew everybody. Nobody tended to move very far and that included your immediate family so you had a ready made support network at hand and you'd be in and out of each others houses regularly. Also your neighbours would help you and you them. Women would leave their babies in the pram outside, even outside the front door. Washing was only done once a week, you wore what you had. Shops would be at hand and closely grouped so you didn't walk too far. Houses were generally smaller and you never used the front room. Food was simple , nothing ever fancy. Kids would either be at school or out playing until you call them in for tea. They wouldn't be under your feet the whole time. That said it was still a long day and you'd be on your feet the whole time - you wouldn't need to go for a run or do any exercise. Things changed post war but it really wasn't until the early-mid 60's that you saw wide spread change.

Kids were expected to fit in to family rather than the other way around. They were out and about by themselves at a far younger age and entertained themselves more. I don't think parents felt the guilt we would feel about not entertaining and developing etc because nobody knew any better than their immediate community or social strata to compare to mostly, what with no social media, lack of travel, lack of transport etc. Also parents didn't really have to answer to anybody in those days so they had almost complete autonomy/authority over how they brought (or dragged) up their kids.

I think some people like to have rosy-tinted glasses on about kids entertaining themselves with home-made toys and entertainments, all that freedom to roam, good old-fashioned pastimes of scrumping apples, looking for birds nests etc but on the down side there were probably a lot more horrifying accidents around the home (chip pans, washing machines, gas cookers, falls etc) and there was probably little in the way of recognition of emotional needs.

Reading this, I feel proper old.

We didn't have a car when dc were little, I cooked from scratch on a very limited budget, didn't have a telly, no mobile phones or iPads, internet existed but was much more limited, still don't have a dishwasher.

I built on tricks I learnt from my grandmother and my mother (who had 4 children). Things like have a kitchen cupboard at floor level with pots and pans that a toddler can play with safely, talk to them while you're cooking, have one safe place (play pen or room shut off with safety gate) where they can be when you really can't supervise, always start telling them a story just before you get on the bus.

I drew comfort from a large family store of anecdotes that suggested that things were very similar in previous generations, kids were annoying and difficult at times, they fibbed and argued and were sometimes cheeky, that parents sometimes felt at a loss or exhausted, but that later on you'd be able to laugh about it.

Knowing that the fibs my grandma made up when she didn't want to admit to something in the 1890s were very similar to the ones employed by my own children in the 1990s and 2000s was a comfort. Having access to the tape recordings made of me and my brothers playing in the late 60s reassured me that my own children were not uniquely noisy. Knowing that my mother said to her mother about me when I was 2 "I'll never be able to raise that child, I just can't cope with her" and realising that all my memories are later than that period, all about how she did cope and how loved I felt.

"They didn’t compare themselves to anyone else and just got in with it I reckon"

They did compare though didn't they? Competed on things like cleanliness of door step...

I agree working class women weren’t stay at home mothers in the old days, not even in India; they always worked full time and managed the house. My grandmother made dresses and did baby massage often for 16-17 hours a day - I remember her enlisting the entire family to ensure the household chores were completed and she would often stay awake until 3am to do things that couldn’t be delegated.

My grandmother raised 4 young children including one who was disabled in a one bed flat near the top of a tenement block. No lift, no option of leaving the massive pram with the makeshift seat for the disabled toddler on top of it downstairs so she had to bump it up and down the stairs several times a day every day. All between cooking, cleaning, washing nappies and dealing with the disabled toddlers inconsolable screaming. She was a hard as nails. She’s probably the woman I admire most who I know. She once told me she was envious of what I had when mine were small- central heating, washer and dryer, the bottles and things available to relieve colic. Oh and the chance for an occasional sit down and to just watch my babies sleep.

My maternal Grandma was a nurse and my Grandpa was a university lecturer.
They had four children, my Grandma used to choose to work nights when she had babies. She'd take them to work and put them in the nursery on the maternity ward where they'd be cared for by the staff there then pick them up at the end of her shift.
When she had a baby close to Christmas the nurses let her leave the baby in hospital to go home and host Christmas for her family and a number of elderly relatives and pick her up the day after Boxing Day!
Grandpa did lots of childcare when the university was closed in the summer and once they were school aged my Mum and her siblings would be sent off to stay with various relations for a month here and there and in turn cousins would come and stay with them for a summer.
Neither of them believed in smacking much to my Great Grans dismay. Famously once she told them to give my uncle a clip round the ear, both refused to so Great Gran did and my Grandma clipped her round the ear for doing it.

My Dads parents were more traditional. Grandma didn't work once they had children. She had a daily who did all the cleaning and ironing as well as a bit of childcare and food delivered bread, fish, meat and groceries. She only went to 'on the parade' to pay the bills or choose things for delivery. She hated the supermarkets when they opened.
She'd often have lots of female friends and family round and my Dad says the kids were expected to entertain each other and knew better to interrupt or you'd get your ears boxed by someone. Dads childhood sound like the Just William stories, he roamed around with friends firing arrows and getting into scrapes going home for a tea and cakes and a good telling off.

Lots of good points made - family close by, older generations and older siblings helping more. Kids were not monitored 24/7 and got up to things they would be arrested for today, Back then they just git a back hand from whoever they were pissing off. Also, we had far fewer things. The number of shoes by our back door is ridiculous. Back in the day, people had 1-3 pairs and one coat. Few toys to put away and just no clutter. Cleaning was easier in that there just wasn't so much STUFF. People didn't bath daily or twice daily so bathrooms were not always a sodding mess. Clothes were re-worn solaundry was not the mega and daily task it is today. People literallly had washing day. If we did that you would not be able to move for all the laundry and it takes more than a day anyway. Kids were left at home alone more while mum popped to the shops.

Women did have a hard time in many ways. On the other hand, it really wasn't comparable with lockdown. Mothers were with other women most of the time. There were fewer educational expectations of children, and parents certainly weren't doing homeschooling. Children were out of the house in groups much of the time and were expected to mind younger siblings and help with housework.

I grew up rurally in the 70s. My dad was away a lot with work but I remember my auntie and her children, my mum and my grandpa spent most days together at one or t'other houses. We children played together all the time, mostly in the garden and mum and my auntie would clean or do the washing together in whichever house they were in that day. My grandpa would snooze in his chair or play with us sometimes but we mostly entertained ourselves and each other. Sometimes we were bored shitless but that's how it was.

I think lots of parents now see their role as an entertainment manager for their children.

My mum was 12 when the younger DC were born, and she helped to bring them up while her mum ran a B&B. But people just got on with it in those days.

My DC is 12, but when they were a baby, they had a playpen, and if I wanted to do something, they went in there. If they screamed so be it. Sometimes you do have to just get on with things, so you make sure the child is safe and do whatever you need to do.

I also let DC play by themselves, there is no need to interact with them every second of the day.

Women did have a hard time in many ways. On the other hand, it really wasn't comparable with lockdown. Mothers were with other women most of the time. There were fewer educational expectations of children, and parents certainly weren't doing homeschooling. Children were out of the house in groups much of the time and were expected to mind younger siblings and help with housework.

Absolutely.

The role of women ,and crucially Mothers has changed hugely over the past 60 or 70 years .My Nan was one of 9 children , they would play out and her mum (my Great Nan ) would have a big pot of stew on the go which would be added to each day! Nan and her siblings were one of the few children who wore shoes! The girls went to work at 14( WTAF)! and married relatively young as well , often having large families themselves .Although Nan and her DS all had one child each out of choice !

In 50-100 years people will look back and say the same things about our life today. Interesting to try and guess what the future people will think about our life! Imagine if teleportation is in existence then. They would be amazed that we spent hours travelling in "real time", queueing at the airports, sitting on planes for hours etc, especially those of us who travel with little kids and babies in tow. "How did they do it", they will wonder about us.

They did compare though didn't they? Competed on things like cleanliness of door step Don't forget the nappies, having a full line of brilliant white nappies out first thing was definitely something to judge and be judged for. I knew mums who would boil the nappies late at night and leaving them soaking so that they could dash out first thing and beat everyone else. Strange what makes us happy.

Monday wash day my gm still did when I was a child.
Saturday bath night was still the case when I was growing up in the 80s.

@thecatsthecats, do you really think people don't allow their children to do those things any more?

My DD is three; she's been allowed to use kitchen knives, stir stuff on the cooker, get her own snack/juice from the fridge/go run an errand in the garden on her own since she was under two, and I don't think that's particularly far-out talking to other mum friends whose kids are the same age. Of course there's a range and we're not all the same. But I'm interested you seem to be saying there's been a real seismic shift?

I find this idea that contemporary mothers play with their children every moment of every day mind-boggling - who does that?! When would we all have time to chat on MN?

I don’t think any of my female relatives and ancestors who unceasingly worked in cotton mills, had multiple children and sadly lost many would necessarily agree that their lives were ‘easier’ 🙄
No housewives in my family history.
Taking DC’s to swimming lessons, ballet classes, entertaining them etc is a choice and a privilege. Don’t confuse it with ‘work’.

My grandfather used to get up before work every morning he would boil the nappies and wash the kitchen floor before heading to his city job. He regularly brought work home in the evenings but the mornings he did jobs. As dc got older he took different jobs like shoe cleaning but he’d often wash the clothes. The idea that men did nothing in those days is not reflected in my family.

My DD is three; she's been allowed to use kitchen knives, stir stuff on the cooker, get her own snack/juice from the fridge/go run an errand in the garden on her own since she was under two