What did our mums used to do?

[CantFindTheBeat]

I'm 55

I spend so much of my down time titting around on MN.

I have a great job. Great friends.
But i waste so much time on social media and probably trying to distract myself from reality when I should be doing something productive.

I remember my mum cooking, reading and working but never wasting time.

What do you remember? MN and the like are surely pleasure and curse in equal measure?

Plan menu's for dinner parties, cooking, write letters, gardening... If she was sat down then she'd normally have her large writing tray across her lap and she'd be writing cards and notelets to people (to her family in France) or making lists. She was a list maker.

my mum? As little as she could possible get away with.
Including feeding me chocolate biscuits and crisps for breakfast.

My mum would go to Bingo.

Minbe painted pictures, sewed clothes, played piano and guitar, read a lot, learned French, made her own bread, jam, yoghurt, had an allotment.

Makes me realise how lazy the internet has made us.

I don't waste too much time on SM, I don't have FB or Instagram. I enjoy Twitter and MN occasionally.

I love cooking, my way to relax and have a good time is to cook a firestorm with a couple of glasses of Pinot Gris. I lost my mom when I was 5 and my stepmother hated cooking, I think there is something in genetics because my mom and all the women on my mother's side are exceptional cooks.

SM, phones and tablets have never been allowed at home during dinner, it caused a few issues when my boys were pre-teens or teens but I stuck to my guns and I'm glad I did, even my adult children now enjoy sitting at the table and a having a conversation without continuously looking at their phones.

I hate texting, I only do it if I can't get though a call. I prefer communicating face to face, face time or a phone call......texting is only good for short messages without any emotional component. They are too easy to be misinterpreted.

My life is much easier than my mom was. I have a dishwasher, a great fridge, heating, air conditioning and a washing machine she'd have killed for. But I learned from my family that good communication with my family is essential even in times of SM.

Mine used to read the paper, be on the landline (but only after 6pm)
watch a lot of shit telly
(still does these things)

My mum used to read the newspaper every day (and still does) and spent time on the phone or on the street chatting rubbish to people - the internet is just the modern equivalent.

She worked full time, but at home she always seemed to be cleaning things unnecessarily often, always ironing, which I do rarely. No duvets so beds had to be made. She also spent a lot of time being a martyr and the word narcissistic was invented with her in mind! Shopping was delivered which was good, but she spent a lot of time running around doing things which now would be on line. In retrospect I feel sorry for her. I guess she didn’t have an easy time and I was a horrible teenager!

And my dad did nothing in terms of housework

My mum had affairs with half the bloody neighbourhood.

She literally did fuck all round the house, my utter Muppet of a dad used to go to work from 6am until 5pm, come home and do all the cooking, and on weekends all the housework. The most she would do is pop to the local high street for a few bits from CoOp.

When not shagging anything that moved she watched soaps and stuff like Ricki Lake.

Can you tell I'm N/C with either of them?

My mum had time to work full time, have horses, be in amateur dramatics and have an affair! Clearly Mumsnet is a terrible timesink as I can only manage the full time job and horses

Christ are you my sister?
We got bourbon biscuits for breakfast. She couldn't be arsed to make toast. It's a wonder I have any teeth

My mum used to clean or lie on the sofa looking at holiday brochures 😂

There was a lot of scrolling through teletext iirc

Looking back I think mine may have had undiagnosed depression most of her life.

She was a housewife most of her life and leans on me too much.

Learned to drive to gain her independence - can still remember her first car.

Made us dresses from patterns.

Did THE best birthday parties. Nothing extravagant, no entertainers etc, but they were always fun. And she always made a birthday cake, lots of different styles.

Worked in an old peoples hone. It was a lovely old manor-type building with small, but lovely, grounds. Used to sometimes go there after school to wait for her to finish a shift. Remember sitting and chatting to some of the residents.

Then worked in a residential home for mentally and physically disabled. It was a proper house, felt very homely. She was really good at her job.

Did the ironing whilst singing along to ABBA.

I don’t remember her having “down-time” activities, but I wouldn’t say she was manically on the go all the time either. She did her job that she loved, acted as both parents, but never made it feel like any of it was a burden.

She did great. Sometimes I wish MN had been around for her, she might have found a good sounding board. I appreciate what she’s done with so few resources, so I try to do what I can for her. I definitely lack her patience!

My mum used to: do things about the house, make clothes (she taught this too), knit/crochet, do embroidery/tapestries, cook and bake everything from scratch. She also taught sugar craft, royal icing and so on. We had a small holding, so she would sort out the animals. She also loved reading, gardening, was active in Church, WI and Salvation Army. She never stopped. She had a seemingly infinite amount of patience to do all the things she did, and look after me and my siblings - I work FT and certainly don’t have the patience to do the things she did!!

Before I was born, she was a qualified nursery nurse. Wish she was still with us. I miss her so much

How old are you all? What did you used to do yourself pre internet ?

it feels like a different life then and it was really

my mum used to watch tv alot and read the paper everyday

Monday was shopping in the local village
Tuesday my Nan would come round at 10am and they'd drink coffee and talk all day, until my grandad arrived after work and then they'd drink tea and talk until dinner time
Wednesday was paperwork and admin
Thursday was cleaning
Friday was rest day

There was a lot of teletext reading, book reading, magazine reading, darning my dad's socks, ironing, researching and trying the latest fad diet, baking huge cakes which may have contributed to the failure of every diet she tried.

Newspaper, sewing/embroidery, reading, tv or on the phone. She would also throw dinner parties which took whole days to prepare for, as opposed to when we have friends round and bung pizza in the oven…

Working, ironing or drinking as I recall

I think shopping used to be more of an activity/hobby - going to out of town shopping centres, then a cafe.

There’s a great programme on iplayer called Three Salons and I thought it was fascinating to see how some people were spending so much time getting their hair set!

My mum worked quite long hours, she didn't have a lot of downtime. If she was at home in the evenings she would rarely miss the Archers (and always the omnibus on a Sunday if she was home for it), she read loads and she liked TV crime dramas - Poirot, Inspector Wexford, Bergerac, that sort of thing.

Now she spends most of her time on internet crafting forums and at the moment she's always got a livestream on of some American woman sewing a quilt. She also spends a lot of time on Twitter, mainly tweeting about the Archers.

@NoWayRose I loved Three Salons! It was so interesting, and quite emotional (for me) and funny too. I was surprised it was made in the nineties - that still seems like only ten years ago to me...

Working part time (2 days a week) but you would have thought it was 80 hours. Walking the dog, dancing in am dram productions which I loved seeing her in. Knitting and sewing and baking… then there is the drinking and more drinking and being nasty…. which I hadn’t really realised at the time. She was very awkward socially so hardly any friends just her toxic alcoholic sister.