Were 1950/60 family homes more clean and organised?

[Tumbleweed101]

With more women in those eras homemaking rather than working out of the home were those homes more organised than those today? As now many are encouraged to have both parents working when children are very young? Or is it more of a myth and lots of women were still working out of the home then?

Agree that more women worked than we assume. My gran did, but I do think she was at home for most of my mum's primary school years. She was a bit horrified when I said I was going back quite quickly after work as she felt a parent should be at home until at least the youngest was at primary

As others have said, we didn't have as much stuff. Also, laundry was done every Monday in the twin-tub, and we kept our clothes for that time (maybe suffering the indignity of a sponging down).

The other things is that we, as children, were out playing for hours on end, so not messing up the house.

@Wenfy I was born in 1960 and don't recognise your comment at all. Both my parents worked and the house was clean. Much less stuff - fewer toys, no gadgets etc so looked tidier. Less focus on meals and cooking - eggs on toast for tea and that kind of thing (so less time spent cooking and cleaning up).

My grandmother worked all of her married life (long after her husband had to take early retirement for health), and from pictures I can see her house was always tidy. It wasn't particularly sparse. They liked knick-knacks, which I think were fashionable in the 50s, so lots of dusting. Two big dressers full of the 'fancy' china. My granny kept a lot of toys and brought them out for us when we were children. Based on that I'd say there were more toys for children in the 50s than the 80s, but fewer than some people buy now. Or maybe toys were less disposable, so more likely to be kept?

I suspect it is much easier to keep homes clean now, given we're not reliant on coal fires. Both of my grandparents, and my dad, remember well how messy coal could be, and how the smoke from it hung on everything. And we don't have to beat carpets/rugs; we don't have to deal with woollen blankets on beds rather than duvets whose covers can be washed separately. And we have lots of fabrics that don't need much ironing. My sense is that, certainly in the 50s, keeping a home nice would have been much more labour-intensive. For women who worked full-time, it must have been absolutely shattering.

Oh yes I recall all the cleaning. Every Saturday the house was totally cleaned up

From what I can remember about my gps and friends houses etc they were clean and tidy. There was less stuff, books, toys, packaging, food. No fridges so lots of food bought daily and no waste. Washing was a Monday job when everything was hand washed, mangled then hung up. No piles of clothes ever laid around waiting to be washed. No chemicals! Things were scrubbed clean with water and soap or flakes. It must have been a full time job. In my family circle, the women didn't have jobs. It must have been hard to work and keep a clean house.

They were way more dusty before hoovers. I know this because my Granny didn’t have a hoover for years; she just swept even though the house was carpeted and it was never really clean.

People as a rule had a lot less space and a lot less stuff. It's also a myth that women stayed home, many worked, my grandmother worked and my dad was left to be neglected by his older brother!

If you don't have as much stuff everything has a place

Do people wash their towels after every shower? 🫣

With more women in those eras homemaking rather than working out of the home were those homes more organised than those today?

Working class women have always had to work! It’s such a middle class view that most women have been SAHMs until recently.

Our house in the 60’s was very simple, spartan even. No huge piles of toys or plastic tat cluttering up the lounge. We didn’t have much stuff compared to nowadays.

Much, much less stuff. Toys, clothes, no tech, I mean rooms were practically empty. We didn't have carpet, only rugs over lino, so floors were swept and washed. My mum polished everything, even the Aga in the kitchen. Looking around my home I think she would be flabbergasted by the amount of stuff and wonder how much of it was necessary. I did know girls whose families were better off than ours, but they still didn't have tons more stuff. We manage to accumulate far more stuff now and would not be happy with the few clothes I had when young for example.

Same here. My parents were sort of middle class. dad was white collar, mum was a sales lady in a London department store, They were both obsessively tidy, and I seem to have inherited that. Better a few nice things than an a pile of tat cluttering up the place. DP feels the same way. Our friends say our house is minimalist or 'spartan', but we like it that way.

I'm a single parent working full time and sometimes keeping on top of everything seems impossible. Often dream what it might have been like if I could have been a stay at home housewife with a partner taking home money while I sorted the rest. I guess it's easy to look back with assumptions and rose tinted glasses!

I definitely hadn't considered that we had far less stuff back then, or about coal fires being the norm, to impact what we see in videos of times past.

My Mum seemed to spend her whole life cleaning, cooking, shopping for food with no car so could only carry home 2 bags at a time, laundry and hanging out the washing, ironing and baking. She used to scrub the doorstep every week with a scrubbing brush. A lot of washing was done by hand but she also used a twin tub for laundry. She baked twice a week so we always had cakes, biscuits, jam tarts, sausage rolls, pasties and apple pies and she made her own pastry from scratch, no ready roll. She used to be up at 6 to see Dad off to work, clean the grate from our open fire, set a new fire, warm our school uniforms and cook us scrambled eggs every morning with toast because my Gran had chickens and gave Mum free eggs. My Mum cooked a meal from scratch every day for lunch time. Shepherds Pie, fish pie, hotpot, stews with dumplings, and roast dinners in the winter and Quiche and salad with baby potatoes Dad grew in the garden in the summer. Mum was always so busy working in the house she did not have much time for playing with us. Dad took us to the park a couple of times a week. My Mum was truly content in her role as home maker and said she would not have liked to go out to work as she was too busy bringing up me and my 4 sisters. Our house was always clean and tidy and growing up I realised how hard she worked. She was a fantastic Nanny and often looked after her various dear Grandchildren. It was a different way of life back then.

Plenty of women worked but homes were different. In the 50s fitted carpets were rare in my experience but becoming more common as the 60s went on. Mopped floors probably caused fewer allergies than carpets. We all had fewer clothes and toys and things so houses tended to be tidier. Clothes weren't washed as often, getting another day out of kids clothes was common. Without fridges and freezers shopping was more likely to be done daily and quite young kids would get sent to the shop with a note and some money.

Daily baths weren't a thing for many of us, particularly if like me you started life in a house with no bathroom. A bath in front of the fire might be fun for us kids but bloody backbreaking for our mothers.

"quite young kids would get sent to the shop with a note and some money." - my mum used to send me to get ten Woodbines when I was 8.

I grew up in the 60s.
We had far less stuff. More storage, alcove cupboards, built in wardrobes etc. Not many toys or clothes.
My mother worked from when I was 7 . My grandmother worked until she was 75 and also cleaned for my mum.

Aside from the houses generally having less in them I don’t think it’s any different than today . I was born in the 60s but can remember my nans house being an absolute tip and her kitchen was definitely unhygienic so I’d say that in all generations there are people who are happy to live in a mess . I’m just pleased that my mum didn’t inherit my nans slovenly habits .

Women spent a lot more time on housework and very little time watching TV and zero scrolling on their phones in the 50s and 60s.

I suspect that people had less stuff because credit wasn't available and debt was frowned upon. Mum borrowed money from the co-op in the late 70s and was embarrassed that the neighbours might see the co-op man come around for his repayment. There also wasn't the distraction of social media which is a time vacuum. Mum has some old housekeeping books from the sixties which would make a feminist wince. A lot of the old cleaning skills have been lost with automation.

But nice to see misogyny hasn't changed a bit, eh?

I was born in 1958 and mum didn't work until I was about 8 and then it was part time, we had a lot less stuff and she spent a lot of time making clothes for the family, housework was done when it was needed and she used a copper and mangle for washing a lot of stuff. The house was reasonably tidy but people didn't care so much then about having the latest look and new kitchens, bathrooms, etc. and stuff wasn't replaced unless it broke.

It was still rationing until about 1954, so people didn’t have a lot of stuff.

When mum died I kept one of her books from the 50s called Better Home Making which was very much of the time and an interesting read