To sit and think my poor grandmother! What would she think?!

[DurableMatts]

It’s 10:30 and so far today my house has been hoovered/mopped by the robot hoover, the clothes are washed and drying…and I have only had to pop the clothes in and press a few buttons. The house is warm and I’ve done nothing for that as it’s on a thermostat.

I am wfh so I get to earn and I still dropped my dc to school.

My poor granny had 10 dc! She had no washing machine so washed everything by hand! She walked the youngest to school and then came home to clean the house, washed the clothes, hung them out if weather permitted, had to light fires to keep the house warm. And she didn’t earn a bloody penny!

she would be in awe at things today 😢 (and yes I’m well aware that a lot of people still have to do a lot of these things these days…I was just thinking about her is all and it got me)

Nurses (and those doing similar heavy lifting) are obviously a completely different story. 'Nurses' Back' is a well-known thing. I still stand by my theory that modern life is not good for health - and that doesn't just cover backs!

yup, but that's not an argument that "retro" or historical life was any better.

This is so sad. Your poor great granny.

Great thread @DurableMatts, it’s good to remind ourselves that even in these uncertain times, we’ve got a lot to be grateful for.

For some reason, winter often makes me think about what life was like in the past. Yes, the COL is awfu, but I’m grateful that my children sleep in warm beds with full stomachs-and if they get ill, we’ve got antibiotics, etc. to treat them. Winter must’ve been a terrible season in the past, a cold could easily turn into pneumonia and a healthy child would die. Same with stomach ailments, you couldn’t rehydrate the way we can today. 😕.

Aaah I haven’t read all the posts yet, but some of these are lovely, I’m glad I had you all remembering the amazing women that have come before us. They really really were amazing!

Actually, looking back I have done similar. In my younger years my inlaws ran a country pub. Once a year we (DH and I) would take it over for a week to 10 days to give them a holiday. The building was 16c, all stone or brick floors heated by one open fire in the actual pub and night storage heaters upstairs in the bit we lived in. There was a washing machine and there was a certain amount of running hot water. The two of us did the lot, cleaning, running the pub bar including all the glass washing and drying (and washing all the ashtray. used to make me heave), catering....simplish stuff like ready filled rolls, or making bacon or egg or similar rolls, cutting sandwiches for darts matches and so on. cleaning the toilets including vomited in urinals, pegging out and ironing the endless glass drying cloths. The stone floors were bloody agony on the feet. could I do it? yes. Was I happy doing it? No I did it for love. Would I do it through choice Fuck no.

My grandad told me that by the time it got to his turn for a bath (he was the youngest) there was a thick layer of dirt on the top 🙈🤢

@Allthebookszerofucks A few years ago, my DS’s primary class was talking about conserving water and he said what about sharing bath water like people did in the old days- his teacher thought that was disgusting!

But that’s what everyone did back then. 🤣.

Winter must’ve been a terrible season in the past, a cold could easily turn into pneumonia and a healthy child would die. Same with stomach ailments, you couldn’t rehydrate the way we can today

This was one of the most sobering chats I had with DH's Granny. Health was so precariousz

There was a measles outbreak near us a while back and she was so angry at the reporting of low vaccine take up. I'd go as far as to say she was furious. She lost two children to measles before the vaccine was a common thing and she said she considered herself very lucky. One of her sisters lost eight children overall, six of them to measles. When she was able to get the first of her children vaccinated it involved queueing up and she waited literally for a few hours just to get them done.

My great grandmother used to keep my grandmother off school every Friday so she could clean the house from top to bottom. She did all the cooking and cleaning and child rearing. She was the eldest girl of 8 children, with 2 older brothers who did nothing. Her younger siblings all said she was more of a mother to them than my great grandmother and they all adored her. However my grandmother loved school and felt she missed out on so much. She went straight from that house to her marriage house where she had her own 3 children, one being my mum. They were poor, so she cleaned the local nurses home for some money. Then every week she cleaned her church for free. That amazing woman scrubbed floors her whole life, but every single one of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren loved her to the moon and back. She was more of a true lady than anyone I’ve ever known

@WonkyMirror Yes, the way the oldest daughter was treated back in the day was awful. DH’s grandma was pulled out of school at 16 to take care of her younger siblings when her parents had their seventh child. Decades later my FIL found her school reports and the school had urged her parents to let her stay on as she was academic. Of course, her brothers did. 😡

My Granny had it worse in some ways as she was the first person in the family to go to university and then her mother died. So Granny had to come home to take care of her siblings. No real reason that her father couldn’t have got a housekeeper, she was just cheap labor.

Your 'good' cups, plates etc, brought out for people you wanted to impress or placed on a dresser. Think it comes from the Dutch willow pattern trend which Queen Mary (?)/Queen Anne popularised.

oh! "Delft"

I'm 48 and we used to do it back in the 80's 🙈 There were four of us, two parents, two kids.. my poor dad would always be last! 😄🤢

I think it was more to do with the fact that the hot water tank would only hold enough for one bath though, so it made more sense

yup. I was the first child in the family not to have a penny policy bought by my grandmother. They were sold to ensure that if the child died young, there would be money for a funeral. If the child lived, the policy would be made "paid up" and could be cashed in when the person did die. Pneumonia used to be known as "The Old Man's Friend" because it was said to end their suffering. Bedsores cound't be healed and the kinds of mattresses and cushions used to treat them now didn't exist. My own grandmother died of infected leg ulcers, I think caused by varicose veins. Nowadays the varicosities would be treated pretty much at onset.

I remember pads being the size and shape of a brick

It made sitting down uncomfortable,they leaked and slid about in your knickers (the sticky part wasn't very sticky)

I did find the thin ones as a later teen which was a bit better but not that much-the wings tended to stick to your pubes

I see both my dds wearing period pants and think 'you dont know your born!'

My aunt told me that they used to come with a belt and she told me how lucky I was for have the brick style ones

It's all relative i guess

@Allthebookszerofucks Yes, I was giving the impression that it was way back, but my family shared baths until we had a shower installed…that was how DS knew about it because I’d told him he was lucky to have his own baths and showers! 😆

I'm grateful for a nice clean private toilet, and I've got 2, with soft paper, when I think of how common it was for people to live in a couple of rooms in large houses with all the occupants sharing one outside toilet, wiping their bottoms with newspaper if they were lucky. I remember as a child being taken to visit someone living in such a place where a shared cooker was on the landing. Very conscious of the luxury in which I live

@JennyChawleigh thankyou so much for this. I’ve just spent a happy hour reading through it

Yes periods must have been particularly shit for women through history. No sanitary wear whatsoever until the 20th century even for the wealthy though rich women probably had some washable contraptions. And no analgesia for the poor until fairly recently. I remember reading Helen Forrester's memoirs of life in the slums of Liverpool during the Depression and she suffered dreadfully from what was obviously endometriosis, and that wasn't even diagnosed properly until the late 20th C.

women who had 10+ kids probably didn't get many periods, always pregnant or breastfeeding.

Currently reading Angela's Ashes which really brings home how bad women especially really had it

Absolutely spot on about vaccines.

We are privileged enough to have access to free vaccines, that prevent deadly illness, and people don't take them??

This book is also available as a free download from Gutenberg if you don't want to buy it from Amazon: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58691

One of the last lucid conversations I had with my gran before dementia completely ruined the person she was, she told me how lucky I was because of modern inventions like the automatic washing machine and dishwasher and disposable nappies… because these things gave me time where I could sit and cuddle my babies guilt free or watch them sleep. My gran didn't have time for that, no mother of her generation did. They had so much to do. She sat and held my hand while we watched my then baby daughter sleep. It’s one of my favourite memories of her.