....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.

I'm old (68 now) and my son is in his 40's. I was always able to have a shower and do at least basic housework/laundry/food prep without any drama when he was a baby. DH and I also used to sit together in the evenings after dinner and chat or watch TV until bedtime. I'm sure there must have been times when this wasn't the case but generally it really was.

Yes, I agree with this. When DD1 was born my Godmother was just retiring as a RAF midwife. She took a rather dim view of baby wearing, nursing to sleep, 24/7 hovering etc.

She wisely pointed out that one of the worst ways to raise a baby is to be constantly exhausted, irritable and miserable. It's such a negative experience for mother and baby.

I'm still grateful that she encouraged me to start a strict, but sensible, bed time routine.

I suppose a counter argument for the being with baby all the time is that it can suit some mums. Mine were quite needy and I think I'd have struggled with leaving them to cry for long periods or restricting feeding to 4 hourly. That said I do think it's ridiculous to take it to extreme like waiting until a baby wakes from a nap to go to the toilet or make a cup of tea.

I think another problem is knowing how to transition from this. I think you do need to be firmer with bedtime and it not being normal to start the day at 4am with toddlers. I also think it's not only fine but probably good for a child to be told "mums cooking/doing dishes/having a rest, go and find something to do," some children sound like parasites following their parents around expecting constant interaction.

For me, and for many - I think having babies later means that our child rearing years also coincide with peri-menopause & also ageing/ailing parents, so that line of support is no longer there, but also creates additional demands on parents

I love baby wearing and breastfeeding my 9 month old to sleep - very convenient and makes my life easier! Each to their own I suppose.

The only bit I really struggled with was the horrendous start to breastfeeding thanks to severe tongue tie - the lowlight was surgery under general for a breast abscess, not fun 😂

I agree re: lack of wider family and community support on average when compared to earlier generations of mothers - as PPs have pointed out, we evolved to have multiple caregivers for babies, not just the mother and father.

House price inflation massively outpacing salaries hasn’t helped 😂

I see threads about how hard mums have it all now without the support network they had 40-50yrs ago, at the same time as threads about the right to progress their careers at the same rate they would have if they didn't have children and the importance of financial independence etc. It strikes me that the 2 aren't compatible and if we keep chasing having everything, we're chasing an impossible dream...

@Shineonyoucrazydiamond1 i totally agree that the two aren’t (easily) compatible. A lot of men don’t help,either, they still want the lions share of domestic stuff/child care done for them yet still expect the women to split everything 50/50. So traditional when it suits, just not financially….. And I’ve lost count of the posters who have really struggled to finance their maternity leave, as they still need to pay their ‘fair share’

I think yes, women are bombarded with perfect mum content so hold themselves to a much higher standard. Also all of this tech making cheating easier to do and easier to find out about is making women paranoid about having to be super sexy for their dh at the same time or he'll cheat.
And women are often the breadwinners on top of this all, and carry the emotional and mental load of the household.
Before. Only a couple of these jobs would be for a young mum with a baby.

It's a different kind of pressure now.
Women are meant to act like nothing has really changed, most are working whilst pregnant, and have no choice but to return to work.
I think it's really positive that women now can feel they can be honest and express their true feelings without being judged. All stages of parenting is hard.

Is sending a three year old to the shop alone even possible?

I think it’s largely visibility - we talk much more about it now. Plus we are less likely to live near extended family.

I also think the fact that men have largely been relieved of the historic obligation to be sole providers, but in many households are still miles from shouldering an equal burden of the housework and childcare and household management, is a contributing factor.

I made a mumsnet post when DD was 10 months or so asking if it was completely bonkers to offer a 9-year-old neighbour a couple of quid to play with my baby whilst I cracked on with some jobs. The nine year old was absolutely obsessed with babies/DD but as I didn’t really know the mum it was vetoed.

DD hated being put down and left to her own devices. I wanted what every woman complains about on MN; somebody to hold the baby whilst I did the house work.

I grew up in a traditional Irish Catholic family, being able to look after a baby/child was seen as a life skill. I remember being taught at nine how to do poppers on my baby cousins sleep suit. I wanted to quit as I couldn’t do it and she kept crawling off and being told that I had to learn at some point. With DD I deliberately bought sleep suits with zips

Looking after a baby is a life skill. I’ll be definitely farming DD out in the future as I cannot imagine the fear of being thrown into the deep end with your own baby.

Yes. Very neglected 3 year olds can grow up quickly. They act more like 8 year olds.

@breakdown98765 Even thirty years it would have been normal for the girl to look after your child while you get on with housework. Many girls at that age are very interested in babies

It’s not that parenthood is any harder now, it’s just that the rest of life is so much better, which brings into focus the utter drudgery of child rearing. When people (women especially) had not much else going on in their lives, it was easier to not to notice.

YADNU
I think people are quite snowflake-like nowadays. Parents always wanting a break and having nights away from their children. Why bother having children if you constantly want to get away from them?

Tbf it was probably easier when you could push your kids out of the house and tell them not to come back until tea time, or leave them in the car with a packet of crisps.

@CrispieCake You could not do that with babies or toddlers even back then.
I mean I guess some people did, but some people still leave babies and toddlers home alone.
The going out to play was from 5 years old, at that age with an older brother or sister, or mums watching from front steps. And progressing to just going out.

That said, all my older relatives were part of close knit communities and large families of siblings, aunts, cousins, all of whom lived very close to one another.

Mine, too. The feuds were epic! I really don't think many extended family 'villages' were all sweetness and support. It's more likely that they never talked about the fact that Evelyn and Beatrice never spoke to one another after Bea's husband flirted with Eve, and Martha's name was never spoken after she was sent to an asylum, where she died.

I only know some of this stuff about my grandparents' generation because I was able - and willing - to talk to them as an adult. My grandfather had a secret second family!

Women's lives were shit, honestly.

I'm on the middle of reading a book about Bluestockings and I'm reading about Hester Thrale (born 1741 and close friend of Samuel Johnson, creator of the dictionary) who had 12 babies and by about baby 10 was convinced that she was going to die in childbirth. She kept having more because she needed to birth a son who stayed alive long enough to take over the family business. Some of the children she didn't dare get attached to as she has buried the child before them.
She used a wet nurse which enabled her to keep getting pregnant after only a very short gap. The nurse would share a bed with the children. Even in a text that is by it's nature feminist, these women get barely a mention aside from the one who dies, but presumably they are also women who have lost children to enable them to produce enough milk for their charges.
Pregnancy, childbirth and maternity have always been dangerous pursuits. Hence the rates of PND. It's just that women's pain wasn't seen to matter.

Women in the UK are chastised for leaving the fucking room if their baby is sleeping, they are supposed to sit on the floor and play with their kids and hang around them pretty much all the time, no child is to simply be left to play or watch a video, mother must be teaching them something new and interesting regularly, not to mention mums are not allowed to even raise their voice slightly or just say "No, stop that" if their child is acting up, without a lecture pending from a mouthy minority of powerless parents who centre Jasper and Jezebel at all times and expect everyone else to do so too.

Then they are to go back to work and earn money - nothing at all unusual there women have ALWAYS worked for money, only a very few very privileged women ever stayed home while the father worked.

However, instead of their kids being allowed to sit at home on their own for an hour or two, as was always the case with kids 10 and up until recently, their children are not allowed to walk up the street, go to school or pretty much do anything at all without their mother or a paid adult hovering, and she is blamed for absolutely everything (which is nothing new) while the entire world is thrown at her children through their various devices.

Oh and schools insist upon continual pointless busy work and attendance at various "events" which simply didn't happen 20 plus years ago.

Yes, it's different now.

Family support is invaluable and the difference is night and day between couples that have no help in comparison to those that do.

My NDN have their grandkids Friday - Sunday most weekends but they’re all in couples so surely not both parents work on weekends? Surely one has to be off or they can at least work it so they aren’t working at the same time. I think it’s to give them a break but then why bother having kids if you’re never going to see them on a weekend through choice. They’ll be able to have a nice lie in every weekend, go for meals and just all out relax and be well rested for when the kids come back.

I had mine in the 80s - I was shaved and given an enema on arrival at the hospital with first one - just what you needed when in labour. Next baby they'd stopped that without an apology to millions of women......
I lived miles from all family for all children. But DM came for a week. Also MIL for one which seemed to put pressure on me to produce good meals and to dust - so not that helpful.
Did stay in a night or two but not that conducive to rest as a shared ward.
It was v lonely sometimes but you were expected to get on with it. Good thing then was a visit a couple of times from the health visitor - however one was lovely and one unsympathetic when I had a colicky baby.
I don't talk about it - it wasn't my happiest time. But babies thrived which was the main thing.

I think it is very naive to think it was better.
My mum had no family around her. My dad didn't change one single nappy. Nice bloke but that was women's work.
She had to hand wash all the nappies by hand and dry them without a tumble drier or central heating.
She had PND that no one did anything about. As with most things then you just got on with it.

This is what we are told, yet in reality I see babies every day sitting in buggies with some sort of screen. They are being ignored more than ever.

I had a perfectly normal vaginal birth has a good recovery but stayed in hospital for five nights after my first baby in the 1990s.

I had absolutely no support at all at home and needed to learn how to breastfeed, bath the baby and learn the rhythm of feeding, winding, sleeping etc etc and I was fed and looked after. A lovely, older, bustly HCA looked after me and taught me to look after my baby.

I’m really grateful for the experience I had. I’d have been completely out of my depth and terrified if I’d have had to go home after one night.