To think the past is being misrepresented on here?

[ChilliLips]

Not all the time obviously but didn’t want a waffly title.

I feel like lately I’m seeing a lot of posts describing a past I don’t recognise. Apparently schools used to be relaxed, have no rules, fewer demands. Whereas I’m sure I remember uniform inspections, SATS, end of year tests, mocks, weekly spelling tests at primary, Saturday detentions, and don’t forget the worst punishment of all - the CHAIR!

I have also seen a few posts saying conditions now are much worse resulting in poorer mental/physical health, hence a spike in disability. But again - can this be true? The world wars wounded, no antenatal tests, jobs like coal mining, loads of smoking/drinking, polio and measles… I’m sure there were a lot of people disabled with conditions they wouldn’t have now.

And finally that everyone was wealthy and lived in massive houses. Nobody I know who grew up in the 50s/60s have tales of luxury, I’ve heard all sorts of horrors including ice on the inside of windows, smog in the air, kids sleeping 4 to a room.

Particularly interested in answers from those alive then! I’m mid 30s.

"Britain is no longer a rich country after 15 years of stagnation “caused UK living standards to plummet”, according to economists, leaving parts of the UK worse off than the poorest parts of nations including Slovenia and Lithuania."

"“That the poorest in our country now fare worse than those in nations once considered less affluent is a stark indictment of the UK’s economic social model.”

I think this is what people complain about & yes whilst women are allowed to work, etc it's a new thing to have such stagnation & decline

Household incomes have fallen in the past 15 or so years (though not precipitously) mainly due to low productivity. They are certainly not lower than they were in the 80s!

That's going to vary widely. My kids have had a standard of living I could only dream of, and we were pretty skint in the early days. Expectations are higher these days too.

Then again, when I went to school I was always the poor one who didn't have the same as everyone else, so the bar is pretty low.

We have such high standards now… after the war my grandparents rented 1 small room in the small house of another family, to live in it with their baby (my mother). They all had to share 1 toilet and kitchen and there was no real bathroom. People washed in the kitchen. We could never go back to that.

But as I said it's a new thing for living standards to stagnate & @farmlife2 it's at a statistical level so won't apply to all obviously

Household incomes have fallen in the past 15 or so years (though not precipitously) mainly due to low productivity

But that's the point 😆 we shouldn't be getting poorer & saying at least it's not Dickinson but I guess people don't want to acknowledge it.

One thing I notice with younger people starting out now is that they often want to start with so much more, and better quality things, than we ever could aspire to. Standards of want have definitely increased.

My mum started married life without a washing machine, washing was done by hand or at best with a boiler and tongs. The laundry would be wrung out in a mangle. Dad had collarless shirts and the collars needed starching. There were no tumble driers or dishwashers. Life was quite a grind for many people with very little leisure time.
Shopping was mostly done round the corner at local independent shops, butcher, baker, greengrocer, grocer, newsagents, ironmonger/haberdasher. Shops were closed for lunch, for a half day in the middle of the week, on Sundays, and usually after 5.30 on other days, planning ahead was required.
I had a special trip to the local mens' outfitters to buy my first lab coat for university (which my parents altered to fit me). At university the ppe we had was lab coat and googles, (no gloves, no coshh, no special disposal protocols). Research was done in a library rather than typing a sentence into a search engine.
We knew how to map read (no satnav/google maps).
In 'the west' our lives are much more convenient now, it's very noticeable how discombobulated people are when they can't get what they want, when they want. The price is the exploitation of other people in the global community, migrant workers, farmers in developing countries, leverage of cheaper manufacture in other countries often with lax health and safety/workers rights, or just a lower 'living wage' (means a differentt thing to different people).

We shouldn't be getting poorer, no. And I'm not saying we're in a great place now. I just dislike this grossly distorted picture of what the past was like (mainly by people who aren't old enough to remember it).

But saying that living standards are declining now and that this is a new things seems to get inferred as no one struggled in the past. It doesn't mean that at all.

Your mother is probably quite a bit older than me then. We had a washing machine gifted to us when we were married. We got a dryer when our first baby arrived which I paid off over two years. I don't want to be without one now with the size of my household.

Life is definitely more convenient now but women are usually more likely using that time they save with machines in the workplace now.

I do my best to buy only ethical products. It's impossible to always know but I do my best to research and make choices that don't exploit anyone.

One thing I notice with younger people starting out now is that they often want to start with so much more, and better quality things, than we ever could aspire to. Standards of want have definitely increased.

But this is just the other side of the same coin, useless stereotypes. I work with young people and don't see this. Yes, there may be some with different needs eg when buying a house but that's because they are mid 30s with a dc on the way vs someone getting on the ladder at 25. I would argue the quality of most things has declined.

There were fewer opportunities for children. Now everyone seems to do at least two after school clubs. We spent a lot more time at home, and there fewer days trips out etc.

Takeaways and trips to restaurants were treats, not weekly or monthly.

Our school had uniform rules etc

Our next door neighbour didn’t have a phone in the house.

Kids were cold in their houses in the 60s and 70s but we were out and about more ... and at least we weren't on our phones drowning in a slurry of porn and wanky influencer shite. Must be so depressing.

I also have plenty of qualifications and experience in working with young people and they have so much more than we had and expect so much more. They get it too. Good on them.

I do think the quality of most products has declined. It's cheap and disposable throw away society vs. more expensive but long lasting. I hope we go back to the latter for the sake of the environment.

My mother gave birth to the 3 of us ,one after a other between 1965 and 1968. She absolutely doesn't look back on those times with warm nostalgia. When my youngest brother was born ,in a hospital in North Wales in 68, the woman in the next bed was having her 12th child . The hospital offered to tie her tubes. She needed her husband's permission to do this and , as he refused, it wasn't possible . Hideous.
Friends mum worked for MI5. When she got married she had to leave. MI5 required absolute dedication and that now belonged to her husband and inevitable children so bye bye. Married men with children carried on working of course .
When my mother became pregnant with me in 64 she was given a leaving date by her company . There was no discussion/ possibility of returning. No concept of maternity leave. My mother didn't work again until I was 14 and that was only because she fought for it. My father was of the opinion that ' no wife of mine goes out to work'. He felt it was a reflection on his ability to provide for his family. My husband's father was extremely domineering. My MIL was provided with everything, but absolutely on his terms. She was allowed to work part time in the library ( unpaid) at my husband's secondary school as long as she dropped the day if her husband needed her to do something else.
We were hit regularly at school in the 70s. Girls did sewing , boys did geography. When my mother queried this she was told that we would all be marrying farmers so there was no need to know about the world. The boys who were doing geography were the farmers we were going to marry ,so even less likely to travel the world, but apparently it was important for them to know it was there . Life for women was far far worse than it is now. My mother can only marvel at the way my son is with his young children. My father existed in an entirely parallel universe when we were children. He was important. His career determined everything. We ( and she) were seen and not heard.

i remember my mother not being able to afford the power one winter. We spent the evenings tucked up in bed with the telly to keep warm. I'm really glad to have had my childhood before the age of the internet. There's something to be said for a simpler life.

So true.

No that’s fair. There’s a certain thing which really pisses me off around the implication that life is automatically worse because in most households both partners need to work.

There’s this automatic assumption in some of these posts that all women want to and should be SAHMs.

When many of us actually enjoy working, want to work and find our lives enriched by working.

But there’s this rhetoric everywhere at the moment around the idea that it’s a tragedy that mothers are working.

I appreciate that not all mothers want to work and certainly housing is expensive. But I don’t think it’s a tragedy. Net/net I think greater female independence and participation in the economy is positive and I dislike the use of a rose tinted memory of the 1970s (of all periods in history) being used as a positive counterpoint to where we are now.

If people don’t want to work that’s absolutely fine but I resent the idea that mothers who do work are some gross social/economic experiment gone wrong. It’s mendacious and worryingly backward.

What I think is sad is if a mother (or father instead) wants to stay home while her baby is young but doesn't have the choice because she can't afford it. The world has become oriented to two incomes. This does make it harder if you need/want to take time out, even for a short time. Women wanted choice but that choice is often lacking. The two income necessity also makes it very hard for single parents who can only have one income.

‘You’d think nothing of giving a neighbour a lift, doing shopping, helping out’ ….this is the same where we live! I think village/rural life is still like this. We all help each other and the village chat is full of people offering help or asking for favours!

Well in Ireland if you were a women working in the civil service r a bank you had to leave your job when you got married until 1973. So that's improved. You can even work in all public sector jobs if you are a married women now. Women can even get credit and a mortgage without their father or husband having to act as a guarantor, which wasn't always the case. So we really do live in a golden age😀

I have to agree. I remember school in the 80s, lots of very cross strict teachers. Lots of pressure even at young age. My kids are in lower primary and the teachers are so lovely and caring

@farmlife2

What I think is sad is if a mother (or father instead) wants to stay home while her baby is young but doesn't have the choice because she can't afford it. The world has become oriented to two incomes. This does make it harder if you need/want to take time out, even for a short time. Women wanted choice but that choice is often lacking. The two income necessity also makes it very hard for single parents who can only have one income.

I was a single mother for about seven years and trust me I was incredibly grateful for the the fact I had to work. I count my blessings every day that I never gave up work and never became dependent on my alcoholic and abusive ex for money. Work has been an absolute godsend for me, both economically and socially. It allowed me to get myself and my daughter to a safe and stable environment.

Yes this means its sometimes harder for a woman with very small children to take time off and that's difficult. I found it difficult.

But it's a trade-off. If you want economic independence you have to work (unless you have private income). If you want above all else to spend your children's early years at home you can do that but it comes at a cost in that you're being supported by someone else and that puts you in a vulnerable position.

But that wasn't better in the past. In the past I would have been force to stay with the ex if I wanted to survive. And most mothers worked then, whether it was out of home or at home doing endless and sometimes back-breaking domestic labour.

Two working parents is sometimes hard and draining, but its a lot better than one woman being dependent on a man and completely at the mercy of his goodwill. I know which I prefer.

My two both had residential trips whilst still in juniors, the total cost was several hundred pounds 😮This was a state school in a very mixed demographic area.
It was an unreasonable ask imo but I was told that residential trips at that age were a curriculum requirement.