To think we mums are utterly exhausted as it does take a village

[Namechsnger]

I was listening to a podcast where women were discussing the actual reason why modern day mums are absolutely exhausted cause raising a child was never a one or 2 people job but it was supported by whole extended family, lots of family members used to live together and support each other in raising children, that's what family was about. On top of that women used to stay home and not work which meant focusing solely on home and children, which I think would be easier to do than juggling home, kids and a job.
I am utterly exhausted with 2 children - a toddler and newborn and so are all my friends who have 2 children. People with one seem to be doing okay but still juggling all the plates.
I think this explains the ever slumping fertility rates in the West. Sigh!

I have a preschooler and twin 4 month old. Don't have any family in my area or close friends. I think it's been a trickle down effect for me. I moved away at 17 to get a job in a city then bought a house 10 years later within commute of the city. If i stayed in my hometown during the reccesion i would not have got a job then i just got used to being somewhere a bit busier, better job prospects etc This how I ended up in this position of living away from everyone I know.i didn't purposely cut myself off from a potential village (would be interesting if others are in the same boat)

It's the monotony of the day to day which is tough. Because of preschool hours and feeding 2 babies, I'm pretty much tied to the house. Thankful for my whatsapp groups with good friends who I don't see often at all, thankful I got a cleaner during my rough twin pregnancy and a night nanny thereafter. Grateful I did buy a house that has a playground beside me and a coffee shop in walking distance
My husband calls our life groundhog day 😂

As I said - a massive generalization.

Yes, I absolutely agree with you! Modern life sucks (for women!) ... Back in the day (pre mid 1980s,) I knew lots of stay at home mums, (including my mum, and my aunts, and cousins, and the generations before) who used to stay at home and have multiple family members to help - sisters cousins nieces nans, neighbours...

I had kids in the mid to late 1990s. Those were the days when women were supposed to 'have it all,' and were supposed to have a career and climb up the corporate ladder and smash through the glass ceiling blah blah blah, as well as being a really successful and good mother and looking after their children. I was told in my corporate job that I must keep trying to meet new targets and new goals, and I had appraisals every 3 months with new challenges, and I had to go on multiple training courses - some were 100 miles from home. Did my fucking head in.

The trouble is, a lot of women had to farm their kids out to childminders, so I didn't get the full motherhood experience that they probably would have liked because of being expected to be superwoman at work as well as being a mum. I was fairly lucky. I worked 3 days a week one week/4 the next, so at least had SOME time with my kids!

The 1990s also seemed to be a decade where lots of people decided to go off to another country (or somewhere hundreds of miles away,) to 'start a new life,' and people started thinking that moving out of the area to a different city, or a different country, was the only way that you could possibly be a success. (And that anybody who stayed in the same town was a loser.)

So, people moving away in droves, coupled with most women working now meant there was no communities or extended families together anymore.

It's made life extremely stressful for women over this past 30 to 35 years. That's why - as you say - women having children is on the decline because we have got so little help with raising children. As I said, pre mid 1980s, there were loads of people around to help, as communities were much stronger, and lots of extended family were around.

When mine were little, (mid to late 1990s/early noughties,) DH and I did it on our own, and nobody ever had our kids really ... Nobody had time. Everyone was too busy with working. OR they had moved out of the area.

Also, friendships rarely last these days. Everyone I knew when I was younger who was born pre mid 1940s had the same friends from childhood to when they died. (Sometimes people were friends for 70-80 years or more, and they lived in the same town or village all their lives, and never moved more than a mile or two from their friends.) This rarely happens now.

And finally, much older relatives in their 70s and 80s (and older) who weren't working, and were close by, were too old to look after little kids.

.

You are also meant to be with your dc & doing so much more with them. There wasn’t the same expectations for previous generations.

So women only use is life is children and caring

No idea why women go to school or uni or get a job they have to leave when having a child as their only use is breeding and looking after other people's children and caring for the elderly

I can imagine if a man offered to baby sit someone else's children it would be 'red flag' all over the place

So we all want to live in the 1950's again?

WHOOOSH!

Yes but as a single parent I agree with all the misogyny related comments about how women are expected to do everything but men aren't expected to do anything. I notice there is no mention of a partner in your post op.

If men want a stay at home wife to do the lions share of the parenting then they have to earn enough money to enable this. If they don't then they have to be prepared for it to be more 50/50. That's the way it is.

We need a major shift in society where men are expected to do more and their wives aren't seen as "nags".

Also, some people pack far, far too much in their own calendars out of choice and complain that their friends and family aren't jumping for joy and excitement to help them for entirely unnecessary things.

I've had women in supposedly happy marriages with hands on husbands tell me how hard it is for them to get one school aged child to an activity in the evening when they also have a toddler. Well if there are 2 parents and 2 children then divide and conquer surely. But I've noticed that this doesn't seem to be a thing amongst some couples, everything has to be "wholesome family time", both parents have to attend every swimming lesson for example, even if it means they drag along a bored 2 year old. Then they complain there is no village to look after the toddler just so both mum and dad can go to something. It's just unnecessary.

A school mum I know had a second baby a few months ago. She had a c section and couldn't drive and the husband never learnt to drive. So it was the other school mums running around the older child to their various activities for weeks, brownies etc, these are activities that are luxuries not essentials. Many of these women are also working full or part time. Apparently it hadn't occurred to the dad over the first 8 years of his first child's life to learn to drive so his wife and her friends didn't have to run around after HIS child.

Another example is me offering to pick up my friend's dc2 because her dc1 was unwell. Upon dropping off her dc2 I was informed that the dc1 suddenly felt better in the afternoon and my friend's husband unexpectedly had the afternoon off work, so the 3 of them went out for a pub lunch then went to clip n climb afterwards whilst idiot here picked up a third child on the only day that I do school pick up at 3.30 (the other days they go to ASC or my mum picks them up).

Or I could mention another "friend" who was all over me like a rash when I looked after her children during school holidays, teacher strike days organised at a day's notice, but she was always too busy to meet me for a coffee yet found the time to do full nights out with the cooler, glam, coupled up mums.

I'm very happy to be the village but people have to put the effort in now and again. The obsession with weekends being nuclear family time - well, they can't have everything. Fortunately I do now have some friends who are my village but it takes YEARS of time and effort, and has involved them trusting their husband (the shock!) with the odd bedtime so we can catch up over a glass of wine.

My mum, for example, people comment on how lucky I am to have a hands on grandma for my kids. And I am of course. But it is reciprocated and that's what they don't see. She has been ill this year and I have spent 16 hour days in hospital with her, looked after her when she has come home, arranged food deliveries, etc. I know people who wouldn't do that with their own parents because they're "too busy" with their own nuclear family but then are upset when their parents won't babysit for them.

The village starts at home.

Despite being reasonably consistent across societies? Did you misread what I wrote?
What are your sources in the evolutionary biology field?

I think another issue is that children do a lot less work at home than they used to, and tend to do in other cultures.

There wasn't this idea that children shouldn't need to do anything but play, they also had to contribute to the family and it's functions.

I can't really over-state what a big differernce it made to my life when I came back from a holiday and discovered that dh had taught all the kids how to use the washer and bought them baskets for their own clothes. They've all managed their own laundry, including bedding, since then.

When I was young a lot of my friends had some substantial chores, maybe cleaning the bathroom weekly, starting supper a few night a week, babysitting on a weekend. They also were more likely to take themselves to activities by the time they reached about 11 or 12.

Many parents now do everything for their kids.

I feel heard. We have 2 DC and no family support nearby, both working with kids in nursery/wraparound. I honestly dream of just having my mum nearby just to drop in for a quick brew or drop the kids off for an hour while I do a food shop. I have close friends who I could count on in an emergency but its not the same!

That's a very common scenario, in fact our economy is really set up that way. So people follow work, and the workforce is pretty mobile. Industry and business love this model as it provides more workers when and where they want them, much the same reasons business and industry love women in the workforce. For them, it's all about productivity.

It seems "normal" to us it should be that way, but it hasn't always been the case, workers used to be much more tied to the land.

But the flip side of that is people need to replace the roles played by the "village" and extended family, usually through the market, or the state needs to fill the gap.

So increased productivity on the one hand, but increased monetary costs for family and the state on the other.

The questions with this are significant I think - who is really benefiting most here - families, the state, industry, the people who own industry? And who is bearing the brunt of the costs? Things like gaps that can't be filled by spending money, or costs that can't be rendered in economic terms (spending time with your kids, peace of mind, etc.)

Your sources were generalizations. You can't say women would not have a baby and a toddler based on average child spacing, even if it was the same results in every society, it's a statistical statement, you can't apply it to individuals.

The main reasons it was the same are primarily biological, based on infant deaths and return of fertility after breastfeeding which were similar everywhere before modern medicine and sanitation, but you only need to look at historical records to know that individual mothers vary a lot in terms of their fertility and survival of their children.

Mostly we found each other on mat leave. I have one friend in particular who has form for picking up random women in parks and cafes and bringing them into our social circle. I do drop off at the standard time once a week and I’ve made an effort to meet people then.

I don’t have time not to get to know these women; they make my working life far less stressful. For what it’s worth they’re CFOs, nurses, surgeons, lawyers, academics, teachers, small business owners etc. We’re all busy but we like each other’s company and we collectively add a lot of value to each other’s lives.

Bringing up 2 kids whilst holding down a job and divorcing xdh was 24/7. Hardly had time to mysrlf. Remember going for an MRI scan and thinking that was the most relaxing 15 minutes I'd had... yusr just fucking impossible very hard work. 25 years later I'm lying on sofa watching end to end George Michael videos and feeling your pain. Grit your teeth . It was worth it. Try to farm out some jobs? Put on blinkers re non essentials like ironing or housework?

I didn't actually meet any other mums at all when on maternity leave. We didn't have NCT where I was, and mums and toddlers provision wasn't that much of a 'thing' either. Maybe it's different now.

I know that - that information is in the sources quoted? I think you're just being contrary because you want to be right?

I amend my original statement ' generally in those societies you wouldn't have a baby and a toddler'

There you go

I agree- my dh has thought my sister could help more when she lived locally. I would tell him she is massively stressed and overworked and if she sees her friends on weekends she’s still doing 12 hour workdays on Sundays so I don’t want to ask her.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lb2bz39fXSQ&pp=ygUZRGVpcmRyZSA4MHMgaXJpc2ggbW90aGVyIA%3D%3D

Different times

The village model doesn't reduce the overall life workload, it just allocates it differently. Because while it means you get support when your children are small, with the time saved you reciprocate and help older villagers. And when your DC are grown up, you don't get to stroll off into your leisure, you roll your sleeves up in middle age and take care of your GC.

Yes I feel the same as I don't have that village in terms of help with my toddler. However, living either extended family is usually awful. Trust me.

I want to work and I don't want to be looking after other people's kids. I want to work and just look after my own kids. The idea of my life being looking after my own kids then 20 others for years to come. We're not all the same.

I agree

My post should say I find that idea horrifying! I did look after nieces/nephews and mine have been looked after by siblings/in laws and my dad did help me out. I'll gladly help with any future GDC if I can. But that's where it begins and ends for me. I also like a bit of space even when it comes to immediate family.

The reference someone made up thread about it extending beyond family and in traditional societies older women helping look after lots of kids sounds horrific.

I'm going to be bashed for saying this but here goes.

Community went and died the moment thatcher got into power and brought in neoliberalism, under neoliberalism everything has become individualised and it's why you shame people on benefits we don't want to help anyone because we think the solutions should be on an individual not society/the collective.

A village raised me, it had its problems (I'm black) the village included white people who would crack racist jokes around me but the village helped my mum I'm mid 20s btw.

I don't agree with SAHM as I think it absolves men of a lot, women bear the brunt of all child rearing including me to both doctors appointment remembering to buy the Christmas presents and the smaller things that don't seem much even if the man does domestic chores... This is why I'm more than likely to not have a child it's too much!

This. It's a social structure that I really buy into but it's not easier.