Parenting - did our grandparents have it easier or harder?

[newmum234]

Do you think parenting was easier, harder or just different for our grandparents’ generation compared to now? My grandparents had their kids in the 1950s. Far more women must have been SAHMs back then, partly because the rent/mortgage and bills could more often than not be paid for with one salary.

I can’t imagine not having Mumsnet as a resource but perhaps they had closer community networks back then - not sure. We do have antenatal classes these days though which can offer that face to face support (at least we did before c-virus) so is it really so different?

The other big change is obviously technology. Were kids better at entertaining themselves in the 1950s/60s as well? Not sure.

I’d be interested to hear people’s thoughts anyway!

I’d go for different more than anything. When I was younger I used to think they must of had it easier , but life experience tells me otherwise now. Things like only needing one income largely to live off , less for kids to get caught up in like internet safety , more ‘wholesome’ fun being available and the norm like just playing with toys and the great outdoors , so much less consumerism and a focus on family.
However now technology can and does make our lives easier , wider choice , more opportunities. It’s swing and roundabouts I think and hard to compare like for like now.

Only needing one income in the 50s was helped by having no car, no central heating so bills minimal utilities bills, no holidays much maybe days to the seaside instead, limited food choices. Home could be tied to your job.
Before the pill I don't think children were seen as quite the blessing they are now so there was less choice in the matter. But no mod cons like washing machines so more work.
Expectations of parenthood were not the same, my DPs never attended a meet the teacher meeting ever but might attend prize giving once a year.

I grew up in the fifties. My mother worked full time because my father was disabled from the war. We had no central heating, no indoor sanitation, no car. She made all our clothes in the evenings and did the shopping at weekends by bus. My father could do a little light gardening, but struggled with physical and mental health. As ever people's circumstances were very different, but I think people underestimate the longer-term impact of the war on many families. Our situation was not unusual.
I think life was physically much harder, cooking, shopping, cleaning, laundry took much longer. On the positive side, consumerism was not as powerful an impulse and there were fewer pressures to achieve the perfect lifestyle.
The Jenna Bailey book, "Can Any Mother Help Me" is an interesting read.

We may live in weird times now, but when she was a mother of young children, my gran lived near enough to her own parents to see the sky turn red when their town was bombed, but far enough for it to take about 5 days to find out whether they were okay. She went through that more than once.
She had to feed her kids under rationing and send them to school with gas masks. Many childhood illnesses were much more threatening then than they are now.
She didn’t choose to give up her job when she got married, she was forced to leave. She went back to the career she loved decades later when rules had changed.
She was very unsentimental about the realities of life before central heating and washing machines.
I wouldn’t want to swap.

Clearly older than some of you, as my grandparents were raising kids through the 2nd world war in London. There was no NHS, no treatment for many common diseases and spent they time living in a single room due to being bombed out.

I think there was far less pressure to entertain children.

My Grandmother had 9 children, 2 of whom died in childbirth. Not by choice contraception was not really available. My Great Aunt stayed single her whole life after her fiance died in the war, she never recovered. My mother had 4 children in 4 years and lost one. She brought us up in a council house with no washing machine or hoover, didn't get a TV til we were 6 or 7. My day worked days in a factory and nights delivering to make ends meet. I wasn't allowed to study technical drawing or metalwork at school as they were on the subject lists for boys only.
That's a snapshot not a detailed analysis but you get my drift. This generation has the most money, the best health care and the safest place to live. Every generation has more and is better off than the last. This generation is incredibly lucky, so lucky they have the time, the space and the safety to navel gaze themselves into unhappiness.

My grandmothers both worked and had husbands working long hours. One side lived with her parents due to a lack of housing after war and the other had her mother live with them so I guess that helped with childcare. One grandmother had 6 children and not much money, I definitely think I have it easier!

I think with most generational comparisons the answer is easier in some ways, harder in others.

Personally I don't think me and DD would have done well under the parenting norms of the 50s/60s, wasn't this the time when you were told to only feed every 4 hours and leave them in their pram or cot otherwise? She'd have just screamed all of the time.

My grandmother also brought up her kids during the war. She worked full time. My mother and her older brother used to get the tube all over London, helping with the business, picking up cottons from shops in the West End and taking them to the factory in the East End. She had to teach the kids when the schools closed, or at least source text books for them. Children were very much left to their own devices then - as long as they were home by dark, they were quite free to roam all over London with friends.

Personally I don't think me and DD would have done well under the parenting norms of the 50s/60s, wasn't this the time when you were told to only feed every 4 hours and leave them in their pram or cot otherwise?
Yes DM did this. And was disapproving when I went to DD1 who cried a lot through colic.

This generation is incredibly lucky, so lucky they have the time, the space and the safety to navel gaze themselves into unhappiness.

Very true!

My grandparents raised their children in the USSR. So no SAHMs, they had to rely on their parents for childcare but with several siblings each that wasn’t ideal. Money was tight but even if you had it buying simple things like shoes or edible meat wasn’t always possible without connections. Even with connections some goods were near impossible to buy. My grandfather (from a very well connected family that had managed to stash jewls so had the means) had to wait a few years for a car that he’d already paid for. They had their own traumatic memories of genocide and ethnic cleansing to deal with without any help. Then of course they had to remain vigilant about what they did and said and to whom etc.

I definitely have it far far easier. Ok housing is stupidly expensive and schools fees aren’t as affordable as they could be but at least I’m not being harassed by the KGB or having to arrange the purchase of winter coats through a friend of a friend’s husband’s sister.

I think the challenges are different.

My grandmother was forced to leave school at 14 to keep house for her father and brother; she thinks it's far easier now as women are encouraged to have their own career and to be financially independent.

I'm struggling with the loneliness of being a SAHM, we moved countries when DS was two so I lost the network I'd built up and I've struggled to make new friends. My Mum said money was much tighter for her than it is for me, but she had a really good support system of friends and family close by which I don't have.

I recall a documentary which analysed health, schooling, housing, wages etc over the eras and it found that the 1970's were the best time in history to be alive.

Antibiotics and 'modern' health facilities were available, school was good, children could still play outside till dusk, it was prior to the AIDS pandemic and we weren't all overweight and dying younger than our children.

If you were to restrict yourself to the typical consumption of a family that lived in the 50s then you could probably manage on one income, i.e. no foreign holidays, less varied diet, no devices, broadband etc... Having said that, I think by the 1950s alot of married women had part time jobs.

I do think that there is probably more emphasis on engaging with children's development and education now. There is probably also more anxiety around whether or not you're doing well as a parent. The types of worries people had then were likely different.

There was an old clip I saw on TV once from the 50s or 40s. Three women were asked about their ideal husband. The common theme was that they didn't want someone who went to the pub every night.

I do wonder whether not allowing kids to play out is a good thing. I think I missed developing a lot of skills by not being allowed to do that. It also puts more pressure on the parents to find entertainment for their kids.

My parents are in their late 70s now, so maybe the age of some of your grandparents. I was born in the mid 70s and have older siblings.

In many ways I think life was harder, lack of technology, lack of material things to make life easier. I remember the twin tub washing machine! My mum was a teacher but had to hand her notice in when pregnant. So living off one wage. Money was tight, it was for everyone. There wasn’t a supermarket so mum trailed round various shops buying food. I don’t think we had a freezer until I was about 8yo.

But actual parenting I think was easier because kids were allowed to go feral to some extent. I was expected to walk myself to school and back at 5yo. That was without my siblings in the afternoon because I finished before they did. My parents never played with us. We were expected to entertain ourselves and with minimal toys because we just didn’t have stuff. So we’d either make up games, play monopoly which was our only board game or read.....we always had plenty of books. But we were expected to keep out our parents hair. No after school activities so my parents weren’t shuttling us round places. I did go to brownies, but took myself. We were also made to go to Sunday school which looking back makes me laugh as my parents weren’t religious. Think it was just to get rid of us on a Sunday, they stayed at home!

Far more women must have been SAHMs back then, partly because the rent/mortgage and bills could more often than not be paid for with one salary.

Mostly because lots of places did not employ married women. Those that did wouldn't employ a pregnant woman.

I think thsings were different. I don't think parenting lasted as long, both my parents left school at 15 to start work, they had more freedom to come and go tham many 15 year olds have now. I'm not sure they even had a curfew.

People also generally lived near other relatives so teenagers torming out usually ended up in the next street with gran or an aunty.

In the 1970s I remember my mum and other women on the street having 'coffee mornings' which was basically MN chat, but face to face with instant coffee.

If it was school holidays the children would be outside and we knew which house to go to if we needed mum, but often it would be anyone's mum who would put a plaster on a cut or get a drink of water.

This was a close on a brand new estate so people were not rich but not short of money either but the only house with 2 cars parked outside belonged to two newly married teachers.

Dads would go off to work on a morn ing and there would be no cars left, we had mobile shops twice a week.

Also I think at least half the mothers were on 'pills for my nerves'.

Just like @JacobRees we walked our selves to school and to brownies.

I think we have a perception that women were all SAHMs previously but actually many working class women would have worked. My grandmother was a cleaner and she would often take my mother with her when she cleaned rich people's houses. She would also been expected to look after her own house.

I imagine looking after the house would have taken up a lot of time without modern conveniences- my granny used a mangle for example

I was born in the 40s and my experience of motherhood was not too different from my parents and grandparents. My children were all born in the 70s.

Two things have made the biggest difference are contraception and women’s eduction. The careers that are open to women no are almost unlimited. The education they received should give them a choice of whether they have a career or stay home with children. In reality, many don’t have that choice for practical; and financial reasons.

I think my generation were the luckiest. in that many of us did not want a career and were contented to be SAHMs. We were quite poor, but we were no worse of than our friends and neighbours. We were grateful for the NHS and Council Housing. We began married life in dreadful rooms with little sanitation and did not get a council until we had 3 children.

I am grateful every day that I'm bringing my kids up now and not the 50's.

I remember when I started watching call the midwife when it was on Netflix, and realising that was the environment that my gran was bringing up 5 children.

My (normal) life is a stressy work life/balance tightrope, but it is a damn good life, I have many choices, why children have more choices, I have a washing machine, central heating, a dishwasher, a career, a feminist husband. Despite the fact I work full time, I probably spend more quality time with my children than my gran would have managed as I'm not having to use a mangle or carpet beater on a regular basis, nor cook from scratch every day.

Gran's life was hard. I have no rose tinted glasses about the 50's.

Many women were SAHM because they were denied education, job opportunities and had very unequal rights! As for the 70's being the best time I'm betting a man did that study, from a man's point of view as to how it felt to be a man.

Wouldn't a lot of SAHMs have done things like washing, ironing and mending clothes for a small amount of money?

YY to lots of working class women working in the 50s-70s etc. My DM and her sister were born in the sixties and my DGM was only 18 at my DM's birth. She pretty much always worked throughout, she ran a business with a relative for awhile whilst my DM was a teenager and pre/post that she worked PT in factories and/or betting shops. My DGF was a bus driver for the council. DH's DGM was about 10 years older than mine and she worked PT in a factory throughout her kids being small too.