To wonder how mums of yore did it

[Peonii]

I just read on another thread that "you should only have as many children as you can cope with on your own" and "three kids is already too many for most people to handle".I feel like these are relatively new ideas as there were bigger families in previous generations. I only have one DC (14 months old)and with that limited experience I totally get those statements. I am in wonder at how mums juggle having babies, recovery, weight loss, back to work, emotional transitions, career progression, another baby, rinse and repeat. Before DC I really wanted four children. But honestly WTF. How the fudge do women do it!? I would still love a big family but I am terrified for a) my body (it's still healing 14 months later) b) my energy levels c)the lack of time I have for things that aren't family related eg. exercise or hobbies.

How do women do it? Men could never. I have never been particularly the "down with men" type but having a baby has completely changed my perception of what a successful man and woman are. But I'm waffling. I'm just curious how women have managed large families and careers and life. I am frazzled after just one.

I think nowadays people (mothers) are advised to parent in a way that causes anxiety. Too much mental load

Do you really think so?

He does most of the household chores but he is almost like an alien meeting a baby and I feel like with time he will learn. He isn't the most maternal or not the highest EQ - I am sure he is a little on the spectrum. He is already a lot better than what he was like when DC was very young and he is willing to try things differently to improve etc

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/07/25/fact-check-coke-once-contained-cocaine-but-likely-less-than-claimed/8008325002/

My maternal grandmother was widowed in the 1940s, leaving her with 3 kids, 4, 3 and 3 months old respectively. She went to work (she was a nurse) and her mother raised the kids.

My mil is the oldest of many, growing up in rural Northern Ireland. By the time she was 10, she was cooking and cleaning and providing tons of childcare.

We stopped at 2 because I hated being pregnant, had horrendous mental health after dc1 and I didnt want a 3rd csection however I found 0 to 1 way harder than 1 to 2 so I think we could have definitely coped with more. Acceptance is a big part of it imo. One rubbish meal isnt a problem for example. Of your list OP, the only bit which would really annoy me would be the cues, especially around physical play when its not wanted. However I'd expect him to figure out and/or improve all that list when I raised it. I think (understandably with anxiety) mothers often set too high a standard and thus the other parent gets away with weaponised incompetance. Have you discussed it with him?

They didn't have MN or Social Media to waste hours on every week.

My mam has seven kids, started at 19 and most of us have only 1-2 years between us.

When asked she has said she coped because:

• She started young and her body and energy levels bounced back quick between each baby and she had the energy to burn the candle at both ends and in the middle.
• She has multiple siblings and so does my dad so she had A LOT of family help (I was raised by my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and the ladies from church)
• Motherly perfection was not an expectation in the late 80's/early 90's so she was under infinitely less pressure to be perfect and flawless all the time like modern mums are.
• My dad always pulled his weight and did his fair share with us.
• We kids pitched in to keeping the family running from the moment we were old enough to do so. Self sufficiency was a vital skill for us to learn. Old school farm family, I could milk a cow and shear a sheep before I learned my times tables. We weren't entertained with constant activities, we had to work!
• She didn't have to work outside the farm and home, from the moment my eldest brother was born.

Modern life just isn't set up for big families unless you've got "fuck you money", I don't think. Or it's a lot harder than it used to be.

I call it weaponised incompetence too. But I think DH has had a reeeally sheltered life and it's sometimes hard to believe but then if you met my ILs you would know he isn't lying about why he doesn't know how to do stuff. It's really stuff for another thread.
The nappies part, if he's alone, he might forget to change DC's nappy. I think it's about remembering to check and he is so unbelievably absent minded. It's actually chaotic. And that's why I suspect some sort of ND or spectrum..
The preparing meals - he doesn't cook/,can't cook but would like to improve but also doesn't even have the time. Before meeting me, all his meals were ready meals or eaten at work from their canteen.
The wet clothes thing - when his own clothes are a bit damp he thinks it's ok, and so I think his tolerance for discomfort is a lot higher than mine. He now just changes DC if in doubt.
The nap part I hope will improve as DC gets older, it's sadly another symptom of how little time he has with DC and he rarely gets to do nap times and bedtimes and I wonder if he had the practice it would get better.

Hold on to your hats mumsnetters
My granny had 21 kids 😳🤯🤯🤯.
My dad was the youngest.

My other granny had 8 but then passed away pregnant with twins.

I think they had a lot of help from older children, my mum was second oldest and she always said they looked after the babies

I will add though, as I feel DH is coming off in a bad light - it is thanks to DH's hard work and career that I can afford not to go back to work temporarily. Today is my second day of having resigned from my full time job. I have every intention of finding a job that works better for our circumstances/my anxiety etc. but I have DH's support (do whatever it is I need to feel happy) and no pressure to do anything until I'm ready. But it is my own internal pressure of wanting a career AND a big family.

Holy moly. These women are incredible.

My granny had 7. She is still so healthy and strong in her 80s and so I wonder how she is like that given all this talk about babies draining our resources and reserves. I guess in her day there was only home cooked food and she, too, was a farmers wife so quite active etc

Yes both mine were farmers wives in Ireland.
Not exactly healthy though as poverty stricken Catholics
Lots of porridge, potatoes and cabbage though.

They just got with it and probably didn't do this spending all their time feeling judged or complicating every single aspect or trying to involve themsleves in things that are not their business?

Please please please tell me your dh is doing ALL the housework and cooking. Please. If he can’t fit that in with marathon training, then he can’t fit in marathon training. (& once baby is here parenting takes precedence over training!!)

My DD is similar age. We never had help from either family (not even an hour), so we rely on daycare a lot.

DH does his fair share of childcare and housework. We are both overwhelmed with love for our child and also the reality of everything that is juggled with it. I enjoy working and missed it a lot while I was in maternity leave. I very much enjoy the balance of work and being a mum. I wouldn’t have more for many reasons but one of them is because I want to focus on a career. I worked hard to get my current role. More children would probably put career on hold for a lot longer and for me personally I don’t want that. With one I am easing back into the workplace but am having such a great time being a mum.

I enjoy reading the responses here and am happy to see I’m not alone! Sometimes when it’s an extra hard day it can feel like that.

My 1st husband was one of 9 kids (born mid/late 1950s onwards) & there was still 6 kids living at home when I met him, late 1978.
We were babies really, getting married at 21 - those were the days.
But his Mum often talked how she managed chores & kids - each of the older ones had a younger kiddie to watch out for if they ever went out as a family. A rare event apparently but she then only had the baby.
These same older 4 kids would be in the back seat of the car with a younger one on their lap, she had the baby with her in the front.
Ye gods - but maybe in the 1950's /1960's etc cars were driven much slower.

They each had chores like dishes, baking, ironing, lawns, milking cows - age appropriate. But discipline was fierce too, I can remember visiting there & one of the teen girls was fetting the jug cord around the back of her legs because she had been sewing not ironing all the school uniforms.
So I think there was a definite routine in that household & they all had their bit to do.

So my grandmother had 6 children and raised my aunt’s daughter - who was born between my mum and her younger sister.

They were poor in a way we couldn’t imagine and wouldn’t put up with.

Eg: my mum shared a bed with her sister as well as a bedroom with her other sisters. They used to top and tail.

No holidays ever.

My mum and her sisters all left school by age 15.

Lived as a family of 9 in a 3 bedroom council house that they never owned and that my grandparents lived in until their respective passing. (Zero inheritance to pass on to their family).

Evening meals were an egg and a slice of fruit cake. They ate a lot less.

We have an ability to choose in a way that mothers of yore did not. Contraception, education, expectation are all very different now

Rich women had servants - still do except the events live out.

So if you have a nannie (or two) and a cleaner and a gardener abc maybe if you are mega rich a housekeeper then you can have a career because the raising kids/looking after the house is subcontracted to others.

Otherwise - yeah, what people are saying. Definitely getting the older kids to mind the younger ones and do a lot of the chores. Much much lower expectations.

If you look at parents with lots of kids these days they tend to be either very rich or pretty poor. The pretty poor ones live like they have always lived - two or three or four to a bedroom, chores, no extra curricular etc.

This isnt you "being particular" or wanting perfection.
Its him being lazy and thinking "meh...that'll do"

No it wont do. Its also depressingly common irrespective of what you may be told.

Push back, challenge and fight it hard now. It only gets worse otherwise. I refused to accept this shit standard and my tactics work/worked but its a hill my marriage may yet die on.... (not joking)

As an example...
I had the wet thing with dh.
I said it if was "fine" to leave her like that i was going to pour a small glass of water on him and he could sit in it for an hour and then we would talk. This was in winter. We had a blazing row and i said if the baby was wet he didnt have to change her but he did need to agree to tell me so i could change her because it wasnt too much trouble for me and i would do it he couldnt be bothered to meet her needs.
He was furious about the "unfair accusations" and it all kicked off but he stopped leaving her in wet clothes.
We have had the same/similar format arguements multiple times about various topics relating to meeting our childs (imo basic) needs to (imo) a reasonable standard.

Frankly i HATE that he makes me be this person and take these extreme postions... he was 💯 a fully functioning adult when we met and i wonder if i made him like this somehow...
What i find more baffling is we are fairly MC with nice couple friends and he is pretty much considered one of the " best dads" in our friendship group. The other women are fairly efusive re: his parenting and im told im lucky a lot.
I do not feel lucky, most of the time i feel stitched up.

Re women in the past.
I have no clue how most women/mothers today arent standing in the street just screaming with rage at the fucking injustice of it all.
If i was born in 1920s I'd probably have thrown myself off a bridge leaving my 7+ kids motherless...

To quote taylor swift... if i was a man, I'd be the man. It's fucking depressing.

I think it depends on personality somewhat as well. I have five at the moment and I don’t feel particularly overwhelmed at all, occasionally I need them to go play far enough away that all I can hear is a dull roar, but basically I’m pretty laid back and enjoy the chaos of a good-ish sized family. I grew up constantly surrounded by small children, as I imagine many women in the past did when large families and living nearby was more a norm, and thus it’s just life as usual to me.

You often hear about benign neglect on here and it really was a thing. When I was 4 and my brother 6 we used to play on a huge patch of land which was a derelict railway siding. Nothing bad ever happened but who would entertain that now? We'd be in soft play or swimming.
I'm a child of the 70s.

I used to run around in the woods with my siblings when i was 3

Parenting was very different. We actively parent now. Then you just fed them whatever you had, dressed them in whatever you had. Washed them once a week. And that was pretty much it. Babies would just be left in prams till they needed feeding or changing. Toddlers just roamed. Older kids worked. If they did something you didn't like you, or a neighbour, hit them.

No tummy time, soft play, clubs. No regard for their nutrition, development, education, mental health. Lots of them died, couldn't read and write, were abused, became abusers etc. I'd definitely say we're doing a better job now.

Well the women didn't have a choice did they? No birth control is what gets you 21 children. And the older girls do all the babycare. No expectation to work outside the home.
I don't think it was better then. Just have sensible expectations of yourself. Get off Facebook and instagram as it's all lies.

I kinda aimed at 70 so in reality it is 50%::
Driving us all
Making sure finances are in order
Running small side business I had an idea for
Almost all gardening
All home improvements
Almost all dog walking
Half the cleaning
Majority of dish washing
He is absent from cooking as I cook better and laundry as well I do have to do something
Ironing his own stuff
6am children take over from me and all related to them untill 9 when I start work
Nursery drop offs and pickups
More than half nappy changes during day
Half of entertaining children

In some things I am OK he does them however he wants as long as they are done. In children area and household I expect him to follow agreements.
Yes we had fights about it but it is now done to some standard.
Few times I stopped "cleaning as I go" and just let shit build up and exploded at him about the mess so that has improved too.

The bar for men is quite low and my MIL told him how "he is so nice for helping me with household work". He told her he also lives there. Probably prompted by a fact that his horrible wife was in the same room 😏

I've sort of got a dual perspective on this as I had one British and one Iraqi grandmother, both of whom had 5+ children spaced out in age. Its an open secret that my Iraqi grandmother had some pregnancies quietly terminated as well - quietly because they were Catholic - so clearly she did think there was a limit to what she could manage. My British grandmother was poor - very poor - and with minimal education and opportunities. My Iraqi family are pretty wealthy and solidly upper middle class, and my grandmother was also a high school teacher, though her husband was the main earner. For the British family - well, their childhood was rough. There wasn't much in the way of parenting, from what they say - the kids were fed and watered when food was available, but there was minimal supervision and they were 'playing out' (or doing various things to get money and food) from toddlerhood, but that was the norm. Babies were left to cry. Older children were expected to look out for the younger ones. And they mostly muddled through. I don't think it was great, but I do think there's a middle ground between that and the excessively child-focused fashion of parenting we see today, where the ideal seems to be that children never have to tolerate frustration, injustice, boredom, or want. I certainly wasn't raised that way, and I still find it pretty shocking to hear the way (some!!! by no means all!) British children and teenagers speak to their parents. On the other hand, my Iraqi family had much more of an extended family setup. My dad, for example, spent long periods with his aunties (both biological and in the Arab sense of "auntie")- he was not a healthy child and I think they thought it was good for him to be away from his rambunctious brothers, I'm not sure. I'd say there was less of a sense that older children were obliged to care for the younger, but maybe because she had all boys, but friends and family did a lot. Children are more integrated into adult socialization in the Middle East - its normal for children to stay up late and eat and talk with the adults (my brother and I did this too), and people visit each other's houses a lot - almost every evening there would be lots of friends and family around. I'd say that children are much more raised by the "village" than in the West, and less seen as exclusively the responsibility of the parents. My Iraqi grandparents' house was always full of people.