....to think women find having babies harder now?

[PollyHutchen]

Partly I am talking about giving birth.
Partly I am talking about the experience of getting used to looking after a baby, while also gradually finding ways to carry on with other bits of one's life. And managing to hang onto some sense of well-being despite all the upheaval.

I think there has been a big shift in recent years but I am trying to work out why.

'You can have anything but you can't have it all' springs to mind- we want be parents, want/need to have full time careers, family support is less- either not living locally/still working/older and less able to support, medical support is less- no week long stay in hospital to recover, community support is less, the list goes on and on, and we wonder why it's harder... We've been fed a narrative that we can have it all, but the reality is that's not the case and we need to accept that...

I think while we've still a long way to go, women have better access to perinatal supports now which will recognise and record and affirm the difficulties they may be having. Before I think women weren't expected to talk about it in the same way, I know my mum had awful ptsd after having me and her biggest fear was anyone finding out, she never had any support and was never formally diagnosed, but now I work in mental health and I can see it. Now she's 70 and she's only just now starting to speak about the experience she had when she was 25.

I also think there's more pressure on women to do everything now, to have a successful career, look a certain way, be fit and strong, be well dressed and groomed, be the gentlest type of parent, but still be a great partner and have time to invest in hobbies and keep a lovely house etc etc and that's a lot. I think in years gone by more women were able to take time out of work/ choose to be a sahm and this isn't possible now for many women through cost of living rises. Obviously that wasn't the case for everyone but my dad had a middle of the road job and my mum was able to come out of work and still afford holidays etc while being frugal. That's really not possible for a middle of the road job now with childcare or housing costs. I also think more relatives were willing or able to circle the wagons and provide help with childcare etc whereas now people are working for longer and retiring later, or moving further from their supports to access affordable housing etc and that help isn't as readily available. Raising your family in the same community you grew up in where your family and friends live isn't an option for many young parents now because they can't afford the house prices.

I also think we've come a long way in being open about things being difficult, women are more aware of issues with maternity care and post natal support and are speaking up about it which is necessary for change and improvement. We're also operating out of an nhs system that's working under extreme pressure and lack of resource and funding which of course is going to affect women accessing maternity related healthcare support. I think there's a while myriad of reasons behind it and I don't think women in years before necessarily had it 'easy' but some of the struggles/support available just looked a bit different.

More women are waiting till their late 30s or early 40s to have their first children. In my opinion, that's it. I had my first at 20 and was done by 29. Of course there are pros and cons to having babies younger and older, but in my own experience I found it easy to adapt to being a mother as I had not had years and years as an adult of being childfree. Some of my friends who have waited to begin their families at 36-40 I certainly see struggling. In their defence, they are ahead of me in terms of their career but they all require a lot of practical and emotional support ( often from me) that I did not really need.

@jolies1 - I was thinking further back. I was born in 1962 & my perception of my mother’s generation is that they were held to much higher standards in terms of cleaning & ironing etc. my mother also worked full time. Teacher.

I understand that still goes on, but I think years ago nobody would dream of making a post in the first place saying they couldn't get a baby to sleep. My mil couldn't even admit her children suffered with teething when I mentioned my baby was teething, she honestly claimed 'hers didn't suffer with that', my arse!

Well, we have more to lose these days, If you’ve broken in the middle of that quite important decade of work in your mid-thirties (relatively senior high earning years, for many), then you’ve probably also harpooned your career in the ass to some degree, or else worked like the clappers to meet expectations of both. The instagram community of 40-something mums, a large group of anti influencers have flagged the barriers in a very vocal and honest way, using a medium younger generations can relate to. I’m so unsurprised that birth rates are falling, the barriers to motherhood are higher than ever and the reward is highly subjective.

I also think what people perceive as success (for want of a better word) around birth also doesn't help.

When I was told that, for various reasons, my twins had to be c-section I felt like a failure. To not even "try" naturally, after everything that had been said at antenatal classes just felt like a complete fail.

I was brought up by my grandparents and my Nana, kindly but firmly (and rightly!), pointed out the changes from when she gave birth. Her twins were undiagnosed so caught everyone off guard, which was dangerous. And when she was pregnant a successful birth was classed as one where both mother and baby survived.

Whilst it's good that standards in many things have been raised sometimes we do lose sight of the actual important bit, and put too much pressure on bits that ultimately don't matter 1, 2, 10 or 20 years later.

OP I think you are trying to call people snowflakes ir something similar. Give us some examples then of the youth of today being hopeless? Or maybe you’re just being goady with nothing to back it up.

Absolutely absurd (and offensive).

Add this to the list of stresses for modern parents - they have to work to pay the bills, but then if not spending 24 hours a day with their child they’re neglecting them in some way / ‘haven’t learned how to parent’.

They don’t live in the nurseries full time you know. When did it begin that unless mums were ‘actively parenting’ every second of the day, they were crap? Certainly wasn’t the case when I was a child.

Definitely! My granny had her babies in the late 50’s. She worked part time as a hairdresser once my mum went to school & then in an office when she was widowed when mum was at secondary. I think caring for the home was much harder work, both physically and how much they had to do, but they had no childcare costs, my mum says from a young age she would let herself into the house (door was never locked) and all the mums on their council estate looked out for & made sure all the kids were behaving and where they were supposed to be! My gran laughs at all my baby books as they had lessons at school in how to care for babies (actual babies that mums brought in!) even how to peg your washing out properly!

I think a lot of the challenges now are this loss of a village, increasing housing costs and lack of council homes meaning mums and dads having to work FT & pay for childcare. My parents were the first I knew to have a “bought house,” everyone else rented a decent council house.

Are you mad? We only got 12 weeks maternity leave. Of course we had to go back to work early, or quit entirely and be too skint to pay bills.

Years ago women were taught their whole lives how to be home makers and mothers.
Now women are working full time, AND trying to figure out how to be a mother and split homemaker 50/50, which it never is.

This exactly. I completely agree. And many of the friends I met at uni have eventually sold up in London or wherever they ended up, and moved back home to be nearer parents and family. I did it! And lots of the people I've met since moving back up north have done the same, left for uni, forged careers, had kids, moved back to their home town or at least nearby. No one thrives without friendship and support.

When my mum had her first baby in 1970, she stayed in hospital for 10 nights so that she could rest. My sister was looked after overnight by the nurses and midwives in the nursery. During the day, the new mums were helped with washing, feeding, taking care of baby etc. This was for a straightforward delivery, married adult woman on the NHS in London.

When my mum came home with Dsis, there was no expectation to get out to baby classes, baby yoga, rhyme time etc. Mum was surrounded by other women in her friendship group and family.

We have over complicated early motherhood and placed so
many unnecessary pressures on ourselves to breastfeed at all costs, get our figures back, make lots of mum friends, get baby out and about, all while building a strong new family and making memories.

Women have always struggled with adapting to motherhood but we have made it worse with our unrealistic expectations.

I think - and sorry if anyone else has already mentioned this - that we are also expected to have more input into our children. I suspect that this is a detriment to both parents and children. There are aspects of this that we can't avoid - when I was a child I went to the local village shop a 5 minute walk away alone from being around 5 or 6. There is no way I would let my children do that (our shop is a little further away but a similar village set up) because the roads are so busy. So they lack that independence.

But I spend far more time supervising, joining in with games and helping with homework than my parents ever did. I have three aged 8, 6 and 4. I am now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, in brief glimmers, but dealing with the three of them often feels like a second full time job. I'm sure there are those who think that I am just pathetic, and maybe I am, but that might be part of it.

I think it's always been hard but less talked about. My grandmother had what would probably have been diagnosed as severe post partum depression which she got no help at all for.

@WaitedBlankey what era are you referring to?

Poor women have always worked.

I think in the olden days people, especially women, were around more babies growing up. Closer knit families. So they had experience of having children around.... most of us nowadays - the first baby we look after is our own.

I really don’t think this is the main reason. My mother had me at almost 40 in the 80s and says there is so much fussing now about rearing children compared to back then. I had my first at 32 and adapted easier to it than some people I know who had them in their early 20s.

People are talking about their struggle more than they used too. Must Women have to work full time. Still do the biggest share of childcare and housework.

This.

Add in underfunded NHS, maternity & women’s services and it’s a shit storm.

Totally agree. I went to a childminder when I was a child because both my parents worked in the 80s/90s as did many other children so it’s not a new thing. Some people seem to not realise that not every woman was a housewife back then either.

I had no family in this country so it was just me alone after husband went back to work with the baby! none of my friends had babies and it was just so hard and lonely.

I think as well previously housework was all consuming...no washing machines so you'd hand wash, no fridge or freezer so shopping every day, no convenience food so lots of cooking from scratch. Women didn't have time to sit on the floor playing with their kids. I remember a thread on here where a new mum was not even going for a wee when she was alone with her baby because she didn't want to put them down, she thought she had to wait for her partner to come home...