To Wonder What AIBU would have looked like in 1951?

[MrsMontague]

I have recently bought an issue of Woman & Beauty from 1951 from a vintage site. I love things like that, I pretty much live in the past...it fascinates me!

Anyway, reading through it, some of the things are obviously a far cry from how we live to day, some very amusing in a 'cant-believe-it' way.

For example...

BE A PRETTY HOUSEWIFE
One of the prettiest aspects of being a full-time housewife is that your hours are your own, you are three times luckier than the average career wife. You, as the little keeper of the hearth, should be the prettiest girl of all. No matter how crowded your days, you have a certain freedom and privacy for doing beauty things with housework. For instance, your husband need never see you through a layer of facecream, not when you've had all day to wear it in his absence!

The article then goes on to describe how to manage a beauty regime along with the housework. There are even little diagrams demonstrating how to exercise whilst changing the bed sheets!

So what would AIBU have looked like in 1951 I wonder? Obviously if they'd have had any such thing as the internet!

'AIBU to have let DH see me in my face cream?'

AIBU to think that just once I did not have to lie back and 'think of England' every Saturday when I could be at the WI knitting circle?

1951 was very different in our household. But then there's yet to be anyone who has described themself as a "housewife" in my immediate family! And that's from 1890 onwards.

AIBU to be a little dismayed that DH didn't come home last night? I'd managed to get a really marvellous chop for his dinner and of course that was ruined.

My mother says it's my job to have a good meal on the table whenever he gets home and that it isn't my place to question him. Of course I wouldn't dream of making a fuss, but I did have a quiet weep in the pantry this morning before I managed to pull myself together.

(This thread seems to have unleashed my inner 1950's housewife ).

AIBU to sell some of my 20 teabags a week on the black market? If I drank all that tea a week, my teeth would go brown.

My husband has forbidden me to use the new 'Oxo' stock cubes, AIBU to use them anyway and hide the evidence in the coal shed?

AIBU to have got so sick of dh using my tights when mending the car that I have put a padlock on my undergarments drawer?

displayuntilbestbefore YANBU, bu neither will your husband be to cane you if he needs tights urgently and finds that they're all locked away. After all, he's a man, therefore has a short temper. It's your job to keep him calm.

So, although you're right to be fed up, maybe it would be wise for your own good to let it slide.

display YABU as tights hadn't been invented in 1951 (or at the very least weren't available) - stockings

But what would your husband say

oh my! don't you know what sort of women wear such things?

AIBU to slip two of my Valium into DHs bedtime cocoa to make sure I don't have to lie back and think of England? I am always a little tired after bathtime and bedtime with our 14 children.

That or they were like my nan and naturally as skinny as a rake. Even as a ten year old I struggled to fit into her old evening gowns.

AIBU to hope my next child is a girl so I can have at least one of each now I have provided my DP with his darling son and heir? Or should I be holding out for one or two spares first?

AIBU NOT to have his dinner on the table when he gets in?

AIBU to use potted meat paste and not real meat in his sandwiches

AIBU not to brush his hat every day?

There wouldn't have been an AIBU in the 1950s becauase all the replies would have been "Yes, you most certainly are. Pull yourself together."

My Mum's former landlady (OK a bt after 1951 but Somerset so anything up until 1998 was effectively 1951 IME....) would ahve been the Doyenne of AIBU of the era

AIBU to refuse alease to anyone not displaying a wedding licence

AIBU to evict someone for only cleaning their step rwice a week

the list could go on but dinner is ready

Tottwriter YABU- nobody had "DPs" in the 1950s. Why aren't you married- you hussy you!!

AIBU to think Television is the last word in common?

AIBU to think that I can, in fact, drive?

AIBU to take extra housekeeping money and spend it on the sport of kings?