To ask if parenting really was easier in the past?

[germanbight]

My beloved grandma, who lived on a small farm and really ran it alone, always used to tut at toddlers/small children who were being naughty out and about and always told me that when she had her children it was all much simpler— especially in the baby phase.

Apparently routine kept all 4 children perfect from baby-hood. Baby fed every three hours until it slept through, all children off for an afternoon nap after dinner and bedtime a prompt 7:30 until they were 10. She always used to say that now parents adapt to fit the baby in their lives, but when she was having children they had to adapt to her life.

I just don’t see how it could’ve run on clockwork like that. Was it really that much easier? Just a case of endless CIO?

Exactly. And then this extended into childhood and adolescence as children grew up also. No acknowledgement if their needs, punishments for have SEN, no awareness of children's mental health. Neglect leading to horrific accidents and deaths. Hideous. It is not something to be praised.

When exactly are you talking about? A time before living memory by the sound of it?

Never had to pay for playschemes in the holidays either.

So who was looking after the children then? Either one parent could afford to be unemployed to do so, or you were neglecting them and putting them at risk without adult supervision.

Or granny was looking after them.

Definitely easier. A lot less judgement. There wasn't childcare in the seventies. We played outside, all day sometimes. We got up aged 4, got dressed, walked to school. By age 8 I was ironing shirts.

@Blossomtoes Playschemes were run free of charge. I attended them in the seventies, they were held at the school I attended. They ran from the week following factory shutdown week until the week before the schools went back so in effect four weeks of free childcare between 9 and 3.We did crafts, sports, had visits from people the organisers persuaded to come in and talk and show us things of interest. Once a week we went on trips to local attractions. Only requirement was a packed lunch. I've no idea how they were funded though, maybe the Local Authority?

Or granny was looking after them.

Ha! Yes. Hilarious. Not had a single hour of childcare for my DC from their grandparents.

When exactly are you talking about? A time before living memory by the sound of it?

I'm talking about the childhood of me and my siblings in the 80s. All with undiagnosed neurodiversity, punished for that. All only diagnosed later as adults. No concern from parents at all. Their treatment of us these days would mean going into care: the violence and emotional abuse. Three childhood friends died from parental neglect leading to horrendous, avoidable accidents. This was in a very middle class area where houses now cost £2m+

but a number of people die to accident, they may still happen now but no increase in number statistically

Wrong. Child mortality, even when separated from infant mortality due to birth complications etc, was orders of magnitude higher then. Figures were posted earlier in the thread. Multiply the number per year up by the population increase in the intervening years and then you'll see.

Why’s that hilarious? My mum looked after mine a lot.

I didn’t know about free playschemes @hiredandsqueak. I don’t think there were any where we lived or I wouldn’t have been so dependent on my mum in school holidays.

I paid £50 per week per child for my childminder in the 80's. I had 2 children, was a single parent and earned £9,500 per year. I got child benefit and £20 per week child support . I lived in a tiny 2 up 2 down and the rent was £160 per month.
Money was tight but my children didn't go without.
My children are now in their 30's and say they had a wonderful childhood

Sounds like a dream compared to now.

@hiredandsqueak did nobody breastfeed their babies then? On demand feeding is thought to be the healthiest thing now.

Why’s that hilarious? My mum looked after mine a lot.

Because lots of grandparents don't do anything like that at all, especially now. So yes, it's hilarious because people are comparing times when this might have been the norm to now when it absolutely isn't.

Lots of things have changed. We were taught to put our babies down on their tummies, breast feeding wasn’t encouraged the way it is now and we started weaning at three months wit baby rice and purées. It will all be different again in ten or 20 years.

There aren’t any fewer messed up young people now though, even with all this knowledge and better safety etc 🤷🏼‍♀️ MH issues in young people are rife and more common than ever

Agree.
"Go outside and play" was not just my parents but when we went for playdates my friends parents would say that too. Plenty of kids "out" to play in the neighbourhood to with.

We knew when tea was to come back.

Making sure children have healthy food, babies have enough nappies washed and clean when they need changing is parenting unless you want them running round with a wet bum all day and an empty belly.

Nobody wants that. What people have said is that there is much more to good parenting than that. Not just keeping them alive, but actually caring about them as people. How they feel, their non-physical needs. Their emotional development. Mental health. Getting them help if they are neurodiverse rather than punishing them for that. Caring if they are actually happy, not just fed and clean. Emotional support. Actually bothering to know them as people and spend time with them, talk to them, play with them. Care what they think, listen to their ideas. Teach them that their feelings matter as well.

@Babooshka1990 Among my friends nobody did. In hospital the one lady in our ward who breastfed didn't seem to get a lot of help and her baby was taken away at night like all the others. I knew only one mum who breastfed but she had breast fed her older ones who were significantly older than mine so most likely at a time when there was a different mindset.
@Blossomtoes we were sent because unlike the norm we were never allowed to roam free. Dm had sight of us at all times we were never allowed off of the garden, we were taken to the park, on walks, days out etc. dm was very protective of us. Likewise my dc weren't roaming the streets either even if it was very common.

Someone recently spoke to me about the following. I don't know if eh is so true or not:

Years ago our grandparents weren't always so materialistic as we are now (me included).

They didn't seem to need en-suites and separate bedrooms for all the kids, expensive clothes, holidays, big TVs and a car each etc. So the wife often stayed at home whilst the husband worked, or the wife just worked part time.

Although money was tight, there was generally a parent at home with the kids so they had more time to concentrate on home life, which made things more simple.

Nowadays we are generally all working and rushed off our feet to pay the bills for the nicer things, so effectively we've all made it harder on ourselves!

I transcribe old registers for an on-line genealogy site and sometimes it's heart breaking, families in the late 1800s/early 1900s where a father would be burying his wife and newborn babies on the same day, where families were burying three or more children within the space of a couple of weeks. My mother and father lost a child at almost 7 just after the war, I was the 'replacement' for him, and my mother especially never really got over that loss. Apparently she walked up to the Churchyard every day during the awful winter of 1947 for weeks, it took the Vicar to persuade her not to put her health at risk and stop going so often. There was nothing callous about her behaviour nor I'm sure about the behaviours of those who records I transcribed.

This is utter rubbish as economic data demonstrates that most people now need two incomes to main the average standard of living. What they had was a luxury of maintaining an average standard of living with just one income of 1.5.

As a lone parent who works full time I still look after my children with far more care than was the average way of parenting when I was a child and many more families proportionately could afford a stay at home mother, than can now.

I had a stay at home mother myself and my own childhood was neglectful and abusive.

There is no correlation demonstrated anywhere in any research about stay at home mothers or fathers leading to better child outcomes.

The problems in the past were driven by awful attitudes to parenting and very poor understanding of child development and safeguarding. This caused huge damage to children's mental health, as well as many avoidable deaths.

Sure, not putting much effort into parenting was easier for parents. But that doesn't make it ok. And it's a good thing that these days social services would get involved in many of these cases and prevent what many used to consider acceptable - bullying children, shouting at them and emotionally abusing them, hitting them, putting them in dangerous situations with no supervision - and stop this happening.

In the mid and late 70s when I had our two we were encouraged to breastfeed, they both settled to a more or less 4 hour schedule but would be topped up if necessary. The advice from somewhere apparently was for front sleeping, I don't recall getting any input from outsiders though, SSAFA popped in the day I came home with No 1, saw things were OK and we drank sherry for an hour, don't recall anyone coming after No 2. Maybe if new parents trusted themselves a bit more they may be happier. One thing I never did and really don't understand is this constantly having a baby strapped to you then wondering why s/he can't be put down!

I think it’s unlikely that MH issues are ‘more common than ever,’ now. I think MH issues are now more commonly recognised. Perhaps the pandemic has seen an increase, but this would also be true of global events in the past - WW2, The Great Depression, the Flu pandemic and WW1 etc..

Actually, when I think about it, a person who was born in 1900 lived through during WW1, then lived through the influenza pandemic, then the Depression, was 45 when WW2 ended, had every reason to be anxious, depressed, suffer ptsd etc.

I was born around 1960, and remember that a mentally unwell person was seen as being weak - having some sort of character failing, a coward who just needed to ‘pull up their socks, get their heads on straight, and get on with it’ So a lot of people would have just suffered quietly.

I think that some of what you say is true but it was often very hard for the women at home. It was expected that nearly everything to do with home life, including children, was her responsibility. But their work had no value in the eyes of society in general. With a lack of ‘value,’ comes powerlessness. There was nowhere to turn if you were regularly being beaten up by your husband. It was very much, ‘ you made your bed, now you lie in it.’

A man often did carry the burden of being the sole provider (money-wise) for his family. This was a more powerful position than that of his wife. While there were many decent, honourable men, there was also a lot of bullying bastards. If you married a man that turned out to be a bullying bastard, where did you go? And if you had somewhere to go, it’s still hard to leave for many women - even now when there is more social encouragement to do so. How much harder would it have been when there was absolutely no safety nets.

I agree, @Morestrangethings . At least we recognize and are willing to talk about MH issues now. A few decades ago, someone might be described as “having nerves” and their problems would be swept under the carpet. Taking sick leave for stress or anxiety-related reasons would be unthinkable- I imagine many people struggled on and/or ended up physically ill as well.