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 think my actual Grandmother had a shit time of parenting as my Grandad was fighting in WW2. Leaving her at home with 2 kids and she worked.

My mum started school early at 3yo so my Gran could go back to some sort of top secret war work for the civil service. My mum and her older sister (6yo) took themselves on a bus across Nottingham to get to school every day and then got home on their own and sat in waiting for my Gran to come back from work!

Certainly much harder for women. Lack of birth control options and societal intolerance of unmarried mothers meant that women got married very young. Once married women had little control over their finances and there was little you could do if you were in an unhappy or abusive marriage.

My grandmother and mother both started work straight from school and worked full time (before and after having DC). My other grandmother was a SAHM (her husband was a doctor).

I went to uni and now, after having DC, I work part time in an interesting professional job. I'm definitely luckier than any of them!

I think until birth control became reliable children were an inconvenience for many couples. My parents never played with me at all, and there was very little interaction. My mother was not allowed to work by my father until she put her foot down and insisted when I was 16!
We didn’t have a washing machine. I remember my mother taking all three of us to the launderette on the bus with bin bags of washing.
We didn’t have central heating or even a fridge. My mother was very isolated as she is not from the UK. We didn’t get a TV until I was 12. I didn’t have any possessions to speak of us. Reading was my salvation and solace.
I also walked to school and back myself and don’t remember help with homework ever.

I don't envy parents of the past. I'm only 32 but I remember being a child and the labour involved in every task (e.g. having to physically go to places to pay bills).

What I would say is more difficult now is not being able to monitor children's safety (e.g. online grooming).

My Grandmother married and had her first two children in the 50s.

She was a qualified doctor. She never practiced. She moved with my Grandfather to the Hebrides when is job moved there. Some of my Mother's childhood sounds lovely... Even the walking the 3 miles to the local school. DGM ran a little B&B, mainly for visitors to the Distillery (DGF was a Customs Officer). The children basically had free run of the whole Island... They could easily cadge a lift to the other side.

Then when DM and DA were 10 years old, they had to go to Boarding School... That was hard on her. Only contact was letters. On the occasions that the plane couldn't land on the Island and DM and DA couldn't get home, she had no idea where they actually were, esp if the phone lines were down.

Hopefully that's enough for your article OP

What I can’t fathom is how the older generations managed to look after their LOs AND do all the housework and general admin on top - it’s hard enough now but everything was so much more labour intensive back then, with no appliances like dishwashers, washing machines to help you out.

Hopefully that's enough for your article OP

@InfiniteSheldon eh?

Im only 33, but I remember going to stay with my Gran each summer on her farm. I was parented by her the way she would have parented my mum (she was very 'stuck her ways). Everything was budgeted, there was very little excess and cosumerism. I was very much expected to entertain myself, sometimes I was allowed to go out with my Grandad and help him whilst her worked (he was a farmer). The only modern thing there was that I can remember was a tv, which was allowed on in the evenings. I remember she had this funny washing machine thing that opened at the top, and was really labour intensive to use. Washing clothes took all morning, and I was often dressed in clothes that were a bit dirty but passable because washing clothes that were just a little bit dirty wasnt worth the effort.

In all, things were way harder and labour intensive.

I think people probably didn’t have as much leisure time. No sitting around watching tv in the evenings?

We still don't have a dishwasher...

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.

Oh yes the 70s were a breeze, the 3 day week, 16% interest rates on your mortgage. shortages in the shops (fighting for toilet rolls wasn't invented in 2020) The power cuts were just a part of life but a pain if dinner was only half cooked. Candles were another essential.

Modern health facilities were available, but don't think they were modern like now. Hospitals were always trying to raise more money for kidney machines for example (my father died of kidney disease in the late 60s there just weren't enough machines for everyone who needed them.) Maternity care could be a laugh, I had my first in a very busy city hospital, in order to not waste the doctors time you had to strip and put on a hospital gown and lie down in a small cubicle, there was a line of them. The Consultant would then enter with his entourage of students and junior doctors and possibly examine you, gown opened you lying naked in front of the crowd, or he might look at your notes and say something like, "Very good" and walk out. You were then able to dress again. Of course you were dry shaved when in labour (horrible) and then had an enema (even worse) and in my case had a midwife popping in every hour or so but otherwise lay alone in a dark room. I think they'd have laughed in your face if you'd mentioned a birth plan, it did change over the decade but mine was born at the start of the decade.

Apparently every age was a golden age for kids playing out, of course children were all safe back in the day, however the Moors Murders and the A34/Cannock Chase murders were still fresh in our minds in the 70s.

Your teenagers being out wasn't a barrel of laughs as everyone worried about pub bombings and where would the IRA strike next.

Perhaps the worst thing about the 70s was the turning a blind eye to sexual abuse of children, Jimmy Saville, Cyril Smith?

Yes it's a shame you can't go on a day trip, you'd love it.

Harder in the sense that women were generally 'chained' to the home, expected to produce meals on time. clean up and do laundry with very basic washing machines if at all. I wouldn't have swapped my time as a parent for theirs, however it all depended on the individual circumstances and, of course, income.