Ever want to be an 80s mum?

[Sheerdetermination]

I feel nostalgic for my childhood in the 80s and find myself fantasising about having the kind of motherhood my own mum enjoyed - being at home until I was 6, when she went back to work as a teacher. I just fancy pottering to the shops/post office/library/playgroup with my dc, rather than working 5 days a week (albeit fairly flexibly, so I can ‘live my dream’ from time to time).
Just curious, does anyone else feel like this?

Not necessarily the 80’s, but I do wish sometimes I could not work and just potter around…maybe with DD2 still going to playgroup a couple of times a week so I get me time!

Yeah, I was that mum and I kinda lost my career.

I got an OK job afterwards but it was never quite the same

I think there were plenty of 80s Mums whose DC were in full time nursery, and there are plenty of SAHM'S in these modern times, but I understand your sentiment.
I'm a SAHM (was doing part time work now on mat leave) and I'd love my child to be in nursery more, it's more chasing my tail with housework and trying to keep a toddler entertained without him being glued to the TV all day. I can't wait to get back to working more both for the financial side and also because he gets so much out of nursery. But if you have some flexibility on your job then do try and do some of the pottering that you are after.

I think some of it sound lovely but my DM was an 80s Mum. She was given 'housekeeping' money by by DF and that had to buy everything for the home/food/children etc. She had no financial independence at all. I dont think I would like that.

Hmmm I was born in the 80s and my mum did all the parenting and housework by herself because it was her "job", she had serious postnatal depression which was never acknowledged because she was just expected to carry on, and her personal spending money was £80/week out of which she had to buy all the household shopping and anything the children needed. Sounds a bit rubbish to me.

My 80s mum worked full time. I started at nursery when I was a year old and then had an after school nanny. It's basically the same experience as my DS has these days!

Not 80s but 90s

Filling your boring days by going to the post office is hardly living the dream 😁

Lol I thought this was going to be about them smoking indoors, wearing flammable shellsuits and not knowing where tf their kids were.

I was a teenager in the 80s and what I recall is hideous perms, shit boring Sundays and high unemployment. What you’re describing is just being a SAHM. There are plenty of those in this day and age.

I’m not quite sure why you’ve singled out the eighties as a special time for mothers. Some women worked, some didn’t. Pluses and minuses whichever way. It wasn’t a golden age by any means.

We were poor, but mum couldn't work cos childcare would have been prohibitive, if she could have even found any. It was basically a 1950s make do and mend house, but with 80s telly. Dad went to work. Mum did pretty much everything else.

I reckon my mum was bored to shit. And knackered.

My intelligent and talented 80s mum had to give up her civil service career when pregnant with me in the late 70s. Mothers were not allowed to remain in employment in the civil service.

Many years of part time jobs - it took her 20 years to get back to a career level job and she never really achieved what she could have.

Lol I thought this was going to be about them smoking indoors, wearing flammable shellsuits and not knowing where tf their children were

Me too! I thought it would be about having a drink at the pub and leaving the kids in the car with a packet of crisps, and generally not being a helicopter parent.

The higher education section, in particular, is mind-boggling. That level of involvement in adult children's lives would have been incomprehensible to an 80s mum.

I was born in 82. My mum went back to work full time when I was six months old and I went to nursery. So I don't think that your experience was an 80s childhood, just a different one.

My mum worked full time in the 90's while my older sister worked part time in a shop. My sister had 3 children and did the things in OPs post on her days off but even with her partner working full time they were poor by todays standards with all second hand clothes, no meals out or holidays and often missed breakfast as they couldn't afford it.

I do sometimes feel nostalgic for this time as life seemed so much simpler back then.

Not being a forced sahm, but having student grants and a system to support your kids post-18- incl housing benefit in uni! - oh yes.

This.
We always see things from when we were a kid point of view. Never see financial issues, etc. your mum probably took on majority of housework, organising, sorting kids out, shopping, mental load etc. my mum worked in late 80s(when we were old enough to look after ourselves) but not before, she was dependant on her husband, housekeeping she couldnt manage on, kids who needed uniforms, clothes, packed lunches, no day trips we couldn't afford it, holes in our shoes, lucky to have tea in the house each day... electric going, gas running out etc. It was horrible.
So no, id rather be now as a mum, working and not relying on a man. Also no gaps in education, work, training..thats where my mum struggled.. staying at home and gap in employment..the thing her husband didn't realise. The system benefited men not women.

I grew up in a poor community. Nurseries/nannies etc were unheard, of none of the mums worked. All the kids played out on the street after school and at weekends. My mum did the housework, got the bus to town on a Saturday morning for the weekly shop and went to the pub Thursday and Saturday nights. I don't ever remember being played with. We just entertained ourselves.

I'm not saying I'd want to do that but it was a much simpler time.

Ahh yes all of this too!!

I just remember watching my mum and thinking how bored she must be. Housekeeping money from my dad, no say really in how she spent it. Spending the day doing housework.

It was great that she was in when I got home from school, and I have always tried to arrange my work around school hours (taking a massive financial hit as as result) but, by the time I was in my mid teens, I just felt terribly sorry for her.

Horses for courses!

I began parenting in the 80's. The main difference was no expectation for both parents to work, nor children to go be looked after by anyone else. This was despite horrendous mortgage interest rates in early 90's.
I was a nurse and so worked weekends and nights so the children could be looked after by dh. I only knew one or two Mothers in my village who left their children with the local childminder. The children attended the local play group a couple of mornings a week before they started school and could all read and write by 4 years old. It was such a happy time despite having little money, I guess it started pre internet and none of us really knew what else was out there, no instagram, facebook, little competition. My DD, now in her 30's and with her own child, describes her childhood as lovely and so unstressful

Because it was when I grew up and my mum enjoyed being a sahm. I’m also probably partly seeing it through a child’s rose-tinted glasses

Career isn’t everything to me. Did that situation make your mum unhappy? My mum was similar but was happy to choose her children over her career. This sounds like a judgemental thing to say but I don’t mean it to be. Everyone’s different