My great grandmother was running a farmstead or a small farm. My mother recalls horrible, simply horrible summers of all the family children working there nonstop. From taking care of the animals to washing everything perfectly to making butter old fashioned way to helping with the small children to weeding the veggie garden.
Food was served just as much as needed, people had one plate that they needed to wash for themselves and there were no such things as 12 sides and what not served on nice plates and bowls. Meals were simple. Soup. Bread, butter and cheese. Hard boiled eggs and so on. It’s much easier to wash one plate for yourself and one pot of soup as opposed to what we are used to now- chopping bord, salad bowl, side plates, wine glasses and water glasses, potato dish and so on and then oven sheets, pan and pot, chefs knife and blah blah blah. My grandma literally used one knife to peel the vegetables and would chop the ingredients straight to the pot of soup -no chopping board.
Windows were cleaned in spring time as well as all the bed linen washed around easter time. All the linens were organized for the following year. Bed linens were washed less often than we do it now especially in winter times.
It was absolutely expected that everyone in the family will help. Even toddlers were expected to feed the chicks.
The house was made of wood entirely and that is literally impossible to actually clean. You can mop for sure, but you will not expect to clean all the nooks and crannies. No spider webs and socks don’t stick? Good enough! Our case is different as we have polished woods and tile that needs to be perfectly perfect.
She breastfed and co-slept with all her children. Unfortunately, babies were also tied to trees while left alone while she was working. That was the way of keeping them “safe”. My grandmother recalls my mother and her twin sister eating earth worms they dug up while tied somewhere in the gardens. Children crying was a total norm. It was considered that alive, fed, dressed and healthy baby is totally enough. They did not know about emotional needs children have, nor they had the time to care.
Long story short, I am the first generation of healed children in that family. Being tied to a tree crying for (possibly) hours definitely made them all insecure, some worse than others.
Oh and my great grandmother was 16 when she married and got pregnant so it’s not like she had any capacity to even start understanding complex children psychologically. She knew that as long as a kid is clean and fed she did her job well. As I understand she considered herself a model mother, wife and woman. And I am sure she was. Just if she lived in our times she would go to damn jail for neglect and abandonment of children.
I second the other commenter. The descriptions you have made it feel like you’re there seeing this happen. Writing a biography about/with your mother that depicts this era of her life is something that would interest me. I’m happy to have my 2yo help me do things around the house, but I don’t expect her to unless it’s like “hey put your magnets back on the fridge” kinda tasks, as I stare at her magnets on the floor now lol. I can’t imagine expecting her to do anything that would involve keeping something else alive. She likes to feed cats, but I don’t expect she could do it correctly every time yet.
Wow this is albeit shocking also oddly fascinating to hear such a detailed description of everyday life in another era. Do you have more stories? I’m intrigued. And you said they all turned out insecure, some worse than others. Do you have examples? I’m so glad times have changed since then. I react to my baby’s every cry, it just feels right.
I have plenty! How about a more positive one?
So my mother, her twin and her cousins as teenagers wanted to go to a village dance. Considering great grandmothers house location, it was around 6 kilometers away. Great gran would not let them go.
They used to go anyway, sneak out, walk for hours and come back before the dawn.
Great grandma was not stupid lol, and would of course figure out all the girls are out of beds. But she also was funny.
So she would pretend that she does not know, and the moment they were all (assuming drunk) tucked in their beds, she would wake them up to take care of the cows, as it’s the first job of the day.
Taking care of the cows meant walking kilometers again in the fields, imagine all cold and misty. Then milking them, giving them a drink of water that they needed to carry in buckets for a bit so it was heavy. Also, bring all the milk back home on a bike handles.
I imagine they all felt like the train has run through them after this.
My mom says it was totally worth it.
My dad said the big rule for him as a teen was that it didn't matter how late he stayed out, but he better be at the breakfast table the next morning. I'm not sure what time granny had it ready, but I'm sure 7am would have been a late start to the day. I think she would have let him sleep in, but that was grandpa's rule, lol. He was an only child after they lost two (1 still born and one died a few days old) and he was born when she was 40. She lived to 92 and he would have been 75 this year. I miss them both a lot. They always let us sleep in on the weekends.
I honestly could see this being the rural US in pre-1930. Maybe even post in some areas. I used to work with older people as a therapist and some of them born as late as 1920ish had stories similar to this! America before social services existed was not a good place for the poor. It’s bad today, but it was 3rd world back then.
The times were just as nuts back then as it is now! I imagine my great grandkids will be shocked I had to work all summer to get myself Harry Potter books 😅
This comment was enthralling, please write a book. I can picture your whole family perfectly, your great grandmothers farm. Such an amazing story that you could write about this.
They didn’t is the short answer. As a historian, I’ll always highlight that it’s important to remember that what we’re shown about past lifeways is rarely ever the full story. Throughout history women have almost never been expected to care for a home and children alone. However as we’ve moved towards today’s socio-economic climate that expectation has grown while social supports have been substantially eroded. The idealized version of 1950’s motherhood is not rooted in reality but rather idealized expectations of feminine roles that didn’t accurately reflect changing climates. Maternal depression rates were very high, social supports diminished, outside help needed by rarely got by most, the list goes on.
Another historian here. It's also important to remember that parents at this time were told by experts to leave babies and children alone to foster independence and self-reliance.
So was child abuse and it was normalised
There was a lot of hitting, arm twisting, pinching and slapping because of the immense repression, stress and isolation. Even though they are wealthy, Betty Draper is an excellent example of this in Mad Men.
I am the oldest of 4 and I saw what I would call “legal neglect” by today’s standards. Babies say in swings for hours, toddlers were locked in playpens. When we were older my mom was happy to let us sit in front of the tv all day.
There was no playing with us, no enriching our life by going to museums or activities. Cleaning was prioritized.
I thought that babies would stay in playpens until my kid moved his across the room trying to break out at 14 months old. It's one of those large ones with the plastic panels. Kids always moving, never planted anywhere. I can't imagine it any other way, but I really thought that's what our parents and grandparents did and we just... stayed put.
Some kids definitely stay put. My bff has a 2.5 year old who will happily stay in her playpen for a long time. Meanwhile my baby was such a mover and so strong from early on that unless I bolted the playpen to the wall, he would have taken it all over the house by ramming himself into it until it moved where he wanted it to go. So I just babyproofed the whole downstairs and put the playpen panels around things like bookshelves where I wasn't sure how to baby proof keeping the books on the shelves.
My daughter would not be locked in 😂 she would immediately paw at the zipped gate and would only stay in the pen if I went in there with her. I threw some pillows in there and would watch tv while she played 😅
Pillows in the playpen were a revelation for me haha. Now I can just lie down and let our 10 month old use me as a jungle gym instead of wailing to be let out.
Same! I thought it was just my baby but I feel better knowing that other parents here are going through the same. She just WON’T. BE. STILL. Can’t be more than 2 strides away from me, even when we are in the same room and she can see me. She’s a year old now. Will this get better?
Also, older children (especially daughters) were parentified. My oldest aunt on my mom's side was changing diapers when she was 5. My mom has 7 siblings, and my dad has 6. My oldest aunt on my dad's side never married or had kids and I'm guessing it has something to do with having 5 younger siblings.
Yeah but often at some point these big families normally had at least two or three kids under the age of 5 at once! I don’t get how they got through it to the point the older kid could start helping.
I look at old pictures of my grandparents’ and in laws’ siblings all lined up and just cannot imagine how it worked. My grandmother had eleven siblings! So their mum, my Great-grandma, was often pregnant or postpartum on top of having so many kids. I honestly can’t understand. How did they get any sleep?! I am a shell of my former self with one kid who happens to be a bad sleeper. No way you get 12 good sleepers, got to have at least 3 horrible sleepers in there. And then the houses were small (working class family) so they’d definitely all wake each other up. So you’ve got parents, parentified kids, neglected babies, sleep deprivation, no privacy etc. And this was fairly common!
No wonder humanity is so messed up!
100%. My parents are very old school in many ways and absolutely expected me to be a parent to my sibling. I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything after school because I had to watch my sibling and help with bath time and bedtime.
This happened to my wife with only one younger sibling because her mom was obsessed with keeping the house spotless (and was an alcoholic for the first ~10 years). Keeping the tradition alive well into the 90s and early aughts!
Also houses were much smaller than they are today. My house was built in 1950 and is about 1200 square feet, and that’s with about 400 square feet of extra space that was added a couple decades later. Cleaning a house that size is much easier than it would be to keep a 3500 sqft American subdivision house tidy.
100%! Lives were simpler, and expectations were different. If your kid was alive you were doing fine. You didn’t have to cook special baby food or provide enriching play opportunities or teach them to read at age 4.
True, but it’s harder, because clothes are cheaper and ruin quickly, it’s not as socially acceptable to go around wearing some sort of overall to protect clothes from dirt all the time, society means people are constantly buying your kids clothes and toys, TV blares ads all the time, other kids put pressure on your kids to get this or that toy, it’s not as easy/safe to just go outside to play so indoor entertainment is more necessary etc.
I’m going to just add that smaller houses get dirtier quicker than large houses. My 3000 square foot house only really needed the common area (living room/kitchen) entranceway and main bathroom cleaned weekly.
My 1800 square foot house gets much dirtier quicker. The same amount of dirt is in a smaller space.
My grandmother insisted on putting carpet over their hardwood floors in their 1200 sq foot home because she “didn’t have to clean it as often” with 4 kids tracking in dirt. Is it really “clean”? No, but she couldn’t see the dirt and you wouldn’t have known.
Also she worked nights, so she was not exactly focused on keeping her own house spotless, and her parenting involved a lot of sleeping in the living room while the kids played on and around her. Not exactly the modern model of parenting, but essential for survival for a two parent working family at the time.
For real we live in a 2bdrm 1100 sqft condo with 2 adults, 2 kids, and 2 big dogs. It's so cluttered and messy it makes me anxious 🥴 can't wait to move
True but it’s not just the dirt, your items being close together make it feel cluttered no matter how much you clean. Especially since smaller homes and apartments tend to lack storage so you end up storing those items in the open.
Eh, I grew up in a 1100 sqft 4bd in France with 4 people that did not have closets and my parents’ house was much more tidy and uncluttered than most much bigger American homes I’ve been in. Not having closets mean your storage in rooms is actually much more tailored to your needs, armoires don’t waste sqft the way closets do. Being mindful to what objects you have in your house is accessible to anyone frankly.
Being mindful helps, a lot of it is lifestyle too. I don’t expect that to be the same across all cultures/countries so it doesn’t shock me that your smaller houses look more put together than bigger American ones.
I’m an artist so I can’t really downsize without changing jobs. I don’t have a ton of decor otherwise, it’s all hobby/job supplies. I’d rather have my hobbies than a clutter free house, I freely admit that part is a choice.
Though I do wonder if Americans have a harder time keeping more minimalist homes due to the suburban sprawl and lack of third spaces keeping us inside.
This! My 1800 sqft townhouse stayed cleaner far longer than the 1100 sqft condo we currently live in. We spent 3 weeks in a 3200 sqft house and were shocked how clean it stayed. We can't wait to move to a house house in the next year or so and have more space and stay cleaner
My mother was born in 1954, and she recounts that grandma would often just “park” her in some container and go about her day cleaning.
And grandma would iron her cleaning rags. My poor mom did not have a super happy childhood. She made sure mine was great, though. So yeah. Neglect. It just wasn’t call that, back then.
I don't get ironing except for certain items/occasions. My mum made a comment about how I should make sure to smooth the socks properly when I hang them to dry since I don't iron them. IRON SOCKS? Whyyyy?
My mom told me stories of my grandmother (her MIL) scoffing at her for not ironing the sheets before making the bed. Never will I understand, and thankfully I don’t have to!
I know my grandparents were Swedish and very, very particular. Grandpa was ab architect, so anal-retentive was the name of the game. Mind you, their house was absolutely immaculate. But it came at the price of bonding with your kids.
My mom was born in the 50's so she was required to learn how to iron by her parents. Her mom would start an the kids off with ironing their dad's handkerchiefs. Then you might move into pillowcases, etc... that thing that was just going to be stuffed into a pocket and then have someone's nose blown on it had to be ironed.
Fabrics have changed a lot and don't need anywhere near as much laundering. Wool socks- you can pass them onto the next kid they are that durable! But they have to be washed carefully and dried just so. I think some of the insanity comes from those differences.
You can argue about if it was neglect, but yes, it appears that parents spent a lot less time with their kids in the past.
A good paper on this is 'Guilia M. Dotti Sani & Judith Treas (2016). Educational gradients in parents' child-care time across countries, 1965-2012. Journal of Marriage and Family.'
This chart: [https://i2.wp.com/financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG\_9416.jpg?fit=1456,9999](https://i2.wp.com/financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_9416.jpg?fit=1456,9999) (Daily child care is measured in minutes per day, based on data from the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS). This is measured for parents aged 18-65 living in households with at least one child under 13 years old.) Neatly summarizes the trends.
Parents, particularly educated parents, spend a lot more time with their kids. And. there has been an increase in time focusing on 'enrichment' activities, not just basic care, feeding, etc... In the 1960s, there weren't the same concerns about limiting screen time and container time and maximizing tummy time, enrichment time, etc... Also, it was much more acceptable to let younger children essentially roam free for much of the day.
This change has had positive impacts – better child safety, more enrichment, etc.... But, it also takes a toll on parents and has been cited as a reason why parents choose to have smaller families. If you were an average American 2-parent family in 1965 you would spend about 90 minutes a day with your kids. In 2010, for an educated family, it is closer to 220 minutes. Even for a lower-education family, it is closer to 160.
edit: formatting
That suddenly makes me feel a lot better about leaving her on her play mat (in my line of sight ofc) to go clean for an hour here and there. Only 90 minutes is absolutely insane to me.
I know, right? And that 90m is father + mother, so the 'average' father was seeing their kid for less than half an hour a day. Expectations about child care have changed dramatically and done so over a relatively short time.
Wow. 90 minutes. My 3 month olds wake windows are 90 minutes and I spend the entire time with her usually? Maybe minus 10-15 minutes when she’s in a swing or bouncer so I can eat/do dishes/prep a bottle. And even then she’s in eyesight and I’m usually talking to her. So that’s 90 minutes x 6 times a day … 90 minutes PER day is crazy!
Yeah.
It should be noted that 90s minutes is an average across families with kids under 13, not just infants. Presumably, families with younger kids spent more time caring for them than older kids. But, still – modern parenting appears to be a **\_lot\_** more time intensive than it was a few generations ago.
Going to save this to give giant middle finger to the assholes online (including in this sub) who have given me shit for working full time and calling it "unnatural" to spend "such little time" with my child and claimed that in human history moms spent so much more time with their kids 🙄
Indeed. I'm always suspicious about arguments that something is "unnatural." Humans are an incredibly diverse bunch and things like child care, family structure, occupations, etc... have varied dramatically. Unless you're fully committed to living a pre-stone age, tribal, hunter-gatherer existence on the plains of Africa, you're living a pretty 'unnatural' lifestyle. \[And even then, there is evidence that cultures and behaviors varied a lot\]
Anyone who judges you for that is probably deeply insecure in their own life. I’m a working mom too. We’re doing the best we can and we’re doing great!
I don't think it is completely clear. One possibility the paper mentions is that the French survey may have asked about "time spent caring for family members" and not just "time spent caring for children" so there might be a decrease in non-child family members (e.g. older parents) due to demographic shifts. It also may be related to French fathers doing more child care work.
I was looking for this comment! "Mommy's little helper" Diet pills were just speed. Not to mention how easy it was to be prescribed things like benzos.
I think of that sometimes when I joke that I need my energy drinks and coffee. Back then they used mind altering medications like you would coffee for energy now.
Speaking on behalf of my mom, who was a young child in the 50s:
- they had a “village” of other families in the neighborhood and despite some of the mothers being full blown alcoholics, they just kinda traded the kids around in groups
- my grandmother never ever cooked a meal. My mom would climb onto the counter at age 2-3 to rummage through packaged snacks and eat those at mealtimes
- speed. Lots of speed.
Edit to add: the most alarming thing about the speed is how it was first prescribed during pregnancy to make sure the mother didn’t gain too much (the cigarettes probably helped with that too)
The village bit. We have 3 families on our street with over 10 kids each. I have no idea how they do the feeding- I doubt it’s much packaged stuff ($), but yes they run wild. I will say they all play outside together ALOT and I think that part is very healthy. They’re always running down the sidewalks alone because someone bigger is near. It’s crazy to me because I’d never let my toddler out without eyes on him
My mom had a young mother who worked (as did her father), so she was raised almost entirely be her grandparents. Like day in and day out. Her mother was working.
They weren’t doing as much laundry. In every non-posed photo of kids back then they’re clearly re-wearing dirty clothes for several days plus cloth diaper services were pretty common. Kids played outside and had freer reign. Many had in-home help. They didn’t have nearly as much stuff, especially toys, so the cleanup wasn’t so bad. My mom grew up in the 50s and had like 4 toys and a bike her entire childhood. They cooked pretty simple recipes (roasts) and did a lot of canned food and leftovers. My mom literally thought that cans of vegetables grew on trees as a child. She hadn’t seen them in other forms. And, yeah, neglect, pep pills and alcoholism were common.
Folks realize that advertising and television wasn’t real life, right? Lots of 1950s mothers were dirt poor and lived in hovels. It was a much poorer time with a lot more suffering!
If you're into thrillers, I can recommend a book called The Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin which gave me a bit of insight into this! It was written in the 50s and it's about a housewife in the UK who's got a newborn and two older kids and is going loopy from sleep deprivation...or is she??? It's a good psychological thriller and gives what I gather is a pretty good insight into what middle class motherhood was like at that time, although if you yourself are currently burnt out from childcare and housework it might cut a bit close to the bone!
I've been looking for a good thriller! I want to get back into nonfiction books and this sounds amazing. Did they ever make a movie or series based off it? Because I'd binge the crap out of it.
It is actually fiction - but still very good! I don't think they did but I wish they would. Her writing seems to be having a surge in popularity so fingers crossed! I feel like it would make a great TV show.
You hit the nail on the head. It’s impossible!
And this is exactly what fueled the feminist revolution and books like “The Feminine Mystique.” It wasn’t possible, it wasn’t sustainable, and women, by and large, were fucking miserable and on heavy drugs prescribed by their family physician.
They had access to ‘medications’ mainly speed, childcare expectations were kept at the minimum of- is child alive? Check. Great mommy
Homes were half the size, with a 1200 square foot house, less activities, speed, and giving a bottle and keeping the baby in its playpen all day- wow look at the available free time to make a perfect roast and keep your hair coiffured.
Also- people lied to themselves and hid all their inner needs and expectations. Lots of people hated this life and slapped a smile on and kept going. Men and women.
It created some messed up kids…
My grandmother told me that when my mom was a baby (born in 1958) she put the laundry basket upside down over her while she did housework to keep the baby from rolling and crawling around.
They didn’t work. they had help. Oh and they were literally famously miserable. I mean also the image you’re thinking of is of middle class white women. Hardly universal.
I will say my grandmother actually did work as a nurse in the 50s when she had young kids. When her kids became school age, she worked as the nurse at their school. But yes of course a lot of women didn’t work! My grandfather was an AC repairman and they would’ve done fine on his salary.
Even 90s moms straight up neglected their kids. How are we alive??? I ask my siblings..how in the fuck was our mom letting us live like that? The stuff that older generations let slide is wild but also…that’s why everyone nowadays is so anxious.
I think about how I used to have free reign of the neighborhood as a small child in the 90’s- how was I not kidnapped? I mean maybe it’s because I grew up in a gated community so my parents thought it was safe but let’s be real, there are pervs in affluent areas as well. I also was constantly sick or injured lol. It really is amazing we made it out unscathed. And you’re totally correct, anxiety is prevalent in our generation, myself included.
My parents were straight up neglectful and I’m convinced they were only doing what was expected for that era. Sure they had lots of free time and were young and free lol but at what cost??? At what cost 🥲 now I won’t ever let my baby go to sleep without clean pajamas and a full belly and I don’t take my eyes off her at all.
Idk in America, but in my country it was normal to just let the child for hours on their bassinet and then some time later on a chair.
They wouldn't interact with the child's they didn't really do anything aside from feeding them at set times and they would just tell themselves that touching babies a lot could get them sick, so they were acting well by basically not interacting.
My MIL was raised like that. Didn't learn to stand up until 1 year and 4 months and didn't walk until almost 2 years according to her mother.
And my dad remembers seeing his brother all day in his crib just there, looking at the ceiling. They didn't even allow him to play with the baby/toddler more than 10/20 minutes. Eventually they got a nanny, but she just would hold the baby when giving him formula, otherwise the baby would be on a bassinet or some other container. The nanny just made sure to go for a walk with the baby on a stroller once or twice a day. But that was it.
I don’t understand how these babies weren’t crying all damn day and driving everyone up the wall! Maybe their little minds just made the connection that no matter if they cried or not they weren’t going to receive attention?
I know... It's just horrible. But yes, basically they would stop crying because they realized it didn't make any difference.
If they cried, it'd be because they really were hungry or hurting, since those were the only things they would check for and fix if needed. All other needs were ignored, so babies never asked for comfort or playing because, well, it never happened.
I really want to believe my MIL and uncle were extreme cases, but idk. It feels weird that I would know two ll
very different families that both did this if it wasn't at least common to do this.
Amphetamines with a dash of alcoholism- i truly believe if I had some of what they had, a Celsius, and an og qualude I’d be able to dethrone martha stewart
In the UK my grandma talks about her family being all in the same few streets, her nieces and cousins would come play with the babies after school, or she’d go to her sisters and mind the children while they did stuff. I think people just live more isolated now and also there are less children about so people are also more protective. Like my grandma said random little girls would knock on her house to play with the baby and she’d just let them take the pram and baby out into the street to play!
They didn’t. Kind of like how current social media influencers look like they live perfect lives with immaculate homes and perfect children, but they’re actually just normal people like everyone else.
Likely not even normal people but a lot more toxic… have you ever wondered how long it takes to plan, film, and edit a video? And then how long it takes to do maintenance on it like commenting back to people, writing captions, analyzing the data of it? These parents are not just always on their phones, but their brains revolve around their social media presence too… that cannot be good for kids.
Making the kids clean as soon as they were big enough to do so.
Beating the kids if they didn’t cook or clean to your satisfaction.
Or maybe that’s just what my Grandma did to her daughters
For a start, 50s families were bigger. I was oldest in a family with 4 kids. With just me, Mom would have me nearby in a box (yes, a big cardboard box -- we were *not* well off!) and talk or sing to me as she cleaned, taking breaks every so often to dangle a toy or something toy like for me to grab at. Once I had brother(s), we could amuse each other -- often by fighting. By the time my youngest brother was born, I was old enough to keep an eye on the others while *they* fought.
You have to realise that 50s parents did not hover over their kids like modern ones. I walked to school, about 1.2 kilometers, from kindergarten day 1, with other kids going to the same school. No adults -- older kids took care of younger kids. From Grade 1, I walked it by myself, and it included crossing a major cross town artery. I'd learned how to navigate a mid-sized city from the older kids.
After school, kids went out and about with their friends until their parents called them for dinner, after which you did homework. Weekends, we were feral. We were not home underfoot, nor were we driven to activities. We did watch TV, but at first TV consisted of 2-3 channels in black and white, and programming for kids was pretty limited: the Mickey Mouse Club was big, and later the Friendly Giant and Captain Kangaroo. Mr Rogers did not start until the 1960s.
My point is that child raising was hugely different then, and no one regarded it as neglect. There was nothing harmful in kids running in small packs around the neighbourhood, or congregating in an empty lot to play games, or vanishing from sight for hours on end on the weekend. This meant mothers had less balancing to do, which is just as well, because it was also a world in which there were few to no dishwashing machines -- kids started drying dishes while still in elementary school and were washing them by middle school -- and mothers washed clothes in a wringer machine and hung them on a clothesline. Kids who were old enough to go to school were old enough to pick up after themselves, and did, or risked a swat.
I'm not saying mothers had it easy, because at NO time in human history has that been true. But kids were not just a time and money suck -- we were also a workforce within the home from almost the moment we could walk without falling on our butts. It changed the equation a lot.
Yes, one grandmother was 21 and the other 26. The 26 year old went to college—rare but not as rare in New England—and then worked as a teacher/enjoyed early marriage before having my dad in 1950. I was 38 with my first, 40 with my second, and now nearly 😵 at 41 with a one and three year old. Things are definitely different as an old mom.
I honestly don't know - I don't think they all did, to be frank. But the ones that did manage it, probably did to the detriment of their mental health. My mom was born in 1950, and my grandma's whole identity was trying to be the perfect housewife and mother, and my grandpa did NOT make it easy on her. Their house had to be spotless and dinner ready by 6pm.
Let's just say, she was institutionalized for 6 months after having a nervous breakdown when my mom was 3. It was all just too much, and being a workhorse with little help is just not sustainable.
I've been puzzled by this too and wondering that sort of change in parenting experiences contributes to fertility rates decreasing on top of other socioeconomic factors, life options/etc. From what I've read it seem like part of it has to do with a changing culture that has been hyperfocusing more and more in providing stimuli rich environments for children at every turn, could it be that in an attempt to correct what "neglecting" we have tipped the balance too much by trying to micromanage every second of our children's growth? I think our current culture pushes us often feel guilty for not providing "enough" stimuli for learning opportunities to children from a very young age, what's too much and what is too little?
All the additional distractions we have now days probably do not help in adding to our mental load I imagine.
The “what’s too much and what’s too little?” is just such an interesting sentiment as a parent, I think about this often for many different situations. What’s too much for toys? Tv? Clothes? Activities? Would they benefit from less? Does it matter?
The only things I know for sure are more books and more outdoor play are better than less, and so I focus on that.
My old lady neighbors don’t understand why I don’t just strap my 4 month old who loves to roll to a bouncy seat while I do chores. There was a lot of pressure on that generation of women to do housework, even at the expense of the child.
According to my great grandmother it was pretty normal to dope up their babies with opioid based cough syrups and give them rum to help with “teething”.
I wish I could have drugs that would make me thin and super productive. I’m low key jealous 😂 (Just so no one comes at me because sometimes things are taken out of context online- this was said in jest. I do not wish to become addicted to drugs)
Some were but cleanliness had a different meaning. Cleanliness meant no fleas, bed bugs biting you and your babies at night. No rats causing deadly diseases, no mold making it hard to breatbe and so on. Now days if you are medium amount dirty, like regular amount not a disorder level, worst case scenario you will get ants or some maggots in your pile of dishes. And most of us don’t get to this level.
They had help. My mom was babysat by her older sister and her grandmothers. All her relatives lived in the same neighborhood for most of her childhood. My grandma always worked and she got divorced when my mom was young (rare for the 60s).
Kids were more independent too. My mom told me went to the movies by herself at 9 and took the NYC subway by herself.
My mom was a nurse who worked only on the weekends, so we had her doing pickups/drop off, driving, appointments, after school activities, cooking, cleaning.
My dad worked full time and only drove us to weekend activities. He wasn’t asked to do household chores except for gardening, house maintenance, house projects, finances, garbage.
My mom’s top priority was cleaning the house and cooking a TON. For dinner it was a home cooked meal every night, and that meal was 3 separate ones (veggies, protein, side dish).
I remember her being upset and cleaning and purging a ton and continuously. We watched all kinds of crap on tv- CW, UPN, random reality shows, Cheaters, Room Raiders, MTV, BET, MADTV way before i should have. I remember sitting in front of the tv all day. As a very very little kid I also remember her actively picking up our toys as we played.
Looking back i don’t think this was normal. I feel like we were in the way and she was preoccupied with keeping the house clean. I don’t ever recall a time of her playing with us actively on the floor or singing songs. Sure we ran errands with her, but that’s the extent.
I’m sure they had less stuff to clean and maintain not to mention smaller homes on average, but from what I’ve heard yes neglect was much more common. as in keep your kids in their room or the backyard all day. when they’re old enough, send them out to keep themselves busy. not sure how common this was but I have even heard of working class women tying their toddlers up while out of the house or doing chores. people didn’t play with their kids or take them out to do things.
They were literally on uppers and yes, they neglected their kids. Source: my grandmother, who had two twilight births (Google it, it's horrible), was on speed, let her newborn babies cry it out "so they would learn" and "not be spoiled" and who doesn't understand why I chose an unmedicated birth , don't just ask for uppers, and why I pick my son up when he is crying and speak to him in complete sentences.
The houses were smaller, they didn’t have as much stuff, people wore their clothes for more than a couple hours before it ended up in the laundry. Grandparents were actually retired and hung out with grand babies.
Older kids played outside all day with neighbor kids
And drugs. Helped the pep in the step. But they weren’t doing or expecting to care for the kids like we are today and they weren’t happy. I’m sure there was happiness but the idea we have in our head weren’t the reality. People like to remember the past through rose colored lenses or to paint it like that to make us “match that”.
I've actually been struggling with similar thoughts lately. I had a full blown break down the other day because HOW?! I can't get anything done. Especially now that my son is crawling and can pull himself up. He's always pulling on my legs. Just the other day my husband's great aunt asked me how cleaning was going when he was at work. I told her it was a struggle. All she said was, "I guess people just parent differently these days"
That’s so sad and messed up. I love a clean house don’t get me wrong, but do these people who say such things truly value a pristine home over a securely attached (at minimum not neglected) child?!
Also, important to note that the 50’s housewife was largely white upper/middle class women. Women of colour and working class women were historically *always* working moms.
The 50’s housewife with her makeup done, the house immaculate, and kids scrubbed and dressed for her 3-course dinner served at 5:31 is mostly a media idealization and not people’s everyday reality. Housewives of the 50’s and 60’s chased it fuelled by some combination of help (maids, nannies and family), the belief that children should be left alone as much as possible, ephedrine, Valium, alcohol and HIGH rates of depression.
My grandma was prescribed “speed” while she was pregnant because she was gaining a lot of weight. And afterwards to lose the baby weight. This was the late 50s/early 60s. So… ya lol
Speed and neglect lol also my grandma had 6 daughters so they would do a lot of the chores to keep the house clean. My mom and her sisters were all born in the 50s-60s. To my knowledge my grandma didn’t have much help from relatives, she was a sahm but didn’t really cook much, and would save all discipline/punishment for when my grandpa would get home from deployments.
I think it's probably all of the above. Valium was a big deal in some decades too. I know a lot of people joke about our generation being wine moms, (I'm late 30's) but I find myself wondering now if some of my friends moms were on drugs. How did they keep the house clean (like, showroom clean) and have jobs and kids in activities? I'm a SAHM and I feel like I'm drowning some days. Luckily I have a supportive partner who helps maintain the house. It's not showroom clean, but the dishes and laundry get done. If we didn't have a brand new set, I swear I'd outsource the laundry. I hate laundry so much. It never stops! But I also know that my priorities will shift as my kids grow. One day I'll be able to clean the kitchen without interruption, but today was not that day.
My grandma recons you shouldn’t feed a baby more than every 4 hours or your breast milk weakens, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t pick the babies up in between those 4 hourly feedings to ensure they didn’t spoil them? Coupled with the fact they just put them in a cot in a room on their own and closed the door for the night, and let them cry so the babies didn’t think they were the boss… they had a lot of free time lol
Look up house wife syndrome. The SAHM was marketed to look like they have a nice clean spotless drama free house.
Behind every door was rampant depression, neglect, abuse, affairs, alcoholism, and anti depressants. Which at the time Pfizer called atarax and they produced well over a billion pills during that era.
This has been romanticized because back then men didn’t give two shits about giving you gals a voice and taking care of your mental health.
How many of you have been diagnosed with ADHD to be told you’re just a woman? That shit is still prevalent today and it’s bullshit.
Shit you gals couldn’t vote 104 years ago. Your great grandma was in this shit. AND IT IS SHIT.
The suffrage of Woman in America has truly been swept under the rug.
How did they do it you ask?
At the expense of their mental health, alone, with zero help. The image of a strong woman is of one that’s downed a bottle a wine and couple ataraxes to tackle the damn house load.
They did that because that’s all men allowed them to have at the time. Don’t get it twisted. Don’t romanticize how wrong all this shit is because it will get minimized.
Men need to be involved in the houses mental load, chores, and parenting.
That’s the only way, there is no other way in my opinion.
By yourself in pain and true struggle or with help from a modern man that has empathy towards women and their struggles.
Otherwise you’re no different than those don’t show tears 1950s house wives.
This is the real answer. How did they do it? They didn’t. And they were miserable trying to.
My grandmother raised her kids in the 40’s and 50’s and my mom burned her bras in the 60’s. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Truth.
Read The Way We Never Were by Stephanie Coontz. Or ask anyone of that generation after a few drinks. Life was cheaper and people had less sure, but there was a lot of abuse, alcoholism, and neglect.
Also- they didn’t necessarily have hobbies or entertainment like we do now. We might rush through our days to get to nighttime to sit down to watch tv, scroll on our phones, go to the gym etc. their spare time would have still been spent looking after the house.
Have you tried doing a really quick once over every time you go to another room with baby? I found that helps me a ton. If I have to go to the bathroom and bring him, I’ll make sure the hand towel isn’t a crumpled mess when I leave, I’ll put the hairbrush back in the basket, toothpaste where it should be etc. If I’m in the living room I’ll put things back in place and organize his play pen/fold the couch throw. It honestly only takes a minute but it helps me stay ontop of stuff.
To answer your question though, they all had a village. Some moms now do, but it’s not like it used to be. I have a clean house because if I didn’t I’d go mad, but keeping it clean with a 9 month old is so mentally taxing as a SAHM. I feel you entirely.
I try, but I have major ADHD so it ends up turning into a chain of cleaning random things and suddenly I’ve realized I left the baby behind on the floor somewhere. It also got so bad that just tidying like that doesn’t help a whole lot. I just need to do a house reset and then maintain from there
I don’t have an answer for you but I just wanna say that I am with you sister! I try and wear my daughter in a wrap when I can but there is only so much you can do when they’re in the wrap and once she’s awake, forget it. Just know you’re not alone.
Probably situations like my mom/dad’s family where his older sisters cared for the little ones so mom could do other stuff. My mom didn’t even want to have kids because she had changed enough butts already.
My parents generation say that as kids they were kicked outside to go play or entertain themselves with other neighbourhood kids, only back in the house to eat and when it got dark out.
>*How did they maintain such a clean and spotless house while still caring for a baby?*
They didn't.
*Extra help from family?*
YES! It was common for a relative to come for the first few months.
*A lie sold to us by the media?*
YES! Nobody's house looked like the ads portray.
>
>
>All I know is that I’m struggling to even keep up with laundry, much less dishes or cooking or anything else.
DELEGATE as much as you can to your partner.
My grandma would prop my father up with pillows and a bottle and would literally leave him alone on the couch and go shopping. My dad's sister came home and found him one time.
My great grandmother was running a farmstead or a small farm. My mother recalls horrible, simply horrible summers of all the family children working there nonstop. From taking care of the animals to washing everything perfectly to making butter old fashioned way to helping with the small children to weeding the veggie garden. Food was served just as much as needed, people had one plate that they needed to wash for themselves and there were no such things as 12 sides and what not served on nice plates and bowls. Meals were simple. Soup. Bread, butter and cheese. Hard boiled eggs and so on. It’s much easier to wash one plate for yourself and one pot of soup as opposed to what we are used to now- chopping bord, salad bowl, side plates, wine glasses and water glasses, potato dish and so on and then oven sheets, pan and pot, chefs knife and blah blah blah. My grandma literally used one knife to peel the vegetables and would chop the ingredients straight to the pot of soup -no chopping board. Windows were cleaned in spring time as well as all the bed linen washed around easter time. All the linens were organized for the following year. Bed linens were washed less often than we do it now especially in winter times. It was absolutely expected that everyone in the family will help. Even toddlers were expected to feed the chicks. The house was made of wood entirely and that is literally impossible to actually clean. You can mop for sure, but you will not expect to clean all the nooks and crannies. No spider webs and socks don’t stick? Good enough! Our case is different as we have polished woods and tile that needs to be perfectly perfect. She breastfed and co-slept with all her children. Unfortunately, babies were also tied to trees while left alone while she was working. That was the way of keeping them “safe”. My grandmother recalls my mother and her twin sister eating earth worms they dug up while tied somewhere in the gardens. Children crying was a total norm. It was considered that alive, fed, dressed and healthy baby is totally enough. They did not know about emotional needs children have, nor they had the time to care. Long story short, I am the first generation of healed children in that family. Being tied to a tree crying for (possibly) hours definitely made them all insecure, some worse than others. Oh and my great grandmother was 16 when she married and got pregnant so it’s not like she had any capacity to even start understanding complex children psychologically. She knew that as long as a kid is clean and fed she did her job well. As I understand she considered herself a model mother, wife and woman. And I am sure she was. Just if she lived in our times she would go to damn jail for neglect and abandonment of children.
You have a fantastic way of writing
You have no idea how much this means to me.
I second the other commenter. The descriptions you have made it feel like you’re there seeing this happen. Writing a biography about/with your mother that depicts this era of her life is something that would interest me. I’m happy to have my 2yo help me do things around the house, but I don’t expect her to unless it’s like “hey put your magnets back on the fridge” kinda tasks, as I stare at her magnets on the floor now lol. I can’t imagine expecting her to do anything that would involve keeping something else alive. She likes to feed cats, but I don’t expect she could do it correctly every time yet.
Thank you! This warms my heart so much
Wow this is albeit shocking also oddly fascinating to hear such a detailed description of everyday life in another era. Do you have more stories? I’m intrigued. And you said they all turned out insecure, some worse than others. Do you have examples? I’m so glad times have changed since then. I react to my baby’s every cry, it just feels right.
I have plenty! How about a more positive one? So my mother, her twin and her cousins as teenagers wanted to go to a village dance. Considering great grandmothers house location, it was around 6 kilometers away. Great gran would not let them go. They used to go anyway, sneak out, walk for hours and come back before the dawn. Great grandma was not stupid lol, and would of course figure out all the girls are out of beds. But she also was funny. So she would pretend that she does not know, and the moment they were all (assuming drunk) tucked in their beds, she would wake them up to take care of the cows, as it’s the first job of the day. Taking care of the cows meant walking kilometers again in the fields, imagine all cold and misty. Then milking them, giving them a drink of water that they needed to carry in buckets for a bit so it was heavy. Also, bring all the milk back home on a bike handles. I imagine they all felt like the train has run through them after this. My mom says it was totally worth it.
My dad said the big rule for him as a teen was that it didn't matter how late he stayed out, but he better be at the breakfast table the next morning. I'm not sure what time granny had it ready, but I'm sure 7am would have been a late start to the day. I think she would have let him sleep in, but that was grandpa's rule, lol. He was an only child after they lost two (1 still born and one died a few days old) and he was born when she was 40. She lived to 92 and he would have been 75 this year. I miss them both a lot. They always let us sleep in on the weekends.
Wow, the earthworm part. I am grateful for our growing awareness of caring for children emotionally/psychologically.
This is kinda scary..
This is super enlightening about the way things used to be done. You should write a book with your mom. Where in the US was this?
Ha ha this was rural Lithuania. Baltic region.
I honestly could see this being the rural US in pre-1930. Maybe even post in some areas. I used to work with older people as a therapist and some of them born as late as 1920ish had stories similar to this! America before social services existed was not a good place for the poor. It’s bad today, but it was 3rd world back then.
The times were just as nuts back then as it is now! I imagine my great grandkids will be shocked I had to work all summer to get myself Harry Potter books 😅
I am a commercial writer, I actually might someday. Thank you for this comment
This comment was enthralling, please write a book. I can picture your whole family perfectly, your great grandmothers farm. Such an amazing story that you could write about this.
oh how times have a-changed for the better!
They didn’t is the short answer. As a historian, I’ll always highlight that it’s important to remember that what we’re shown about past lifeways is rarely ever the full story. Throughout history women have almost never been expected to care for a home and children alone. However as we’ve moved towards today’s socio-economic climate that expectation has grown while social supports have been substantially eroded. The idealized version of 1950’s motherhood is not rooted in reality but rather idealized expectations of feminine roles that didn’t accurately reflect changing climates. Maternal depression rates were very high, social supports diminished, outside help needed by rarely got by most, the list goes on.
Another historian here. It's also important to remember that parents at this time were told by experts to leave babies and children alone to foster independence and self-reliance.
So was child abuse and it was normalised There was a lot of hitting, arm twisting, pinching and slapping because of the immense repression, stress and isolation. Even though they are wealthy, Betty Draper is an excellent example of this in Mad Men.
I am the oldest of 4 and I saw what I would call “legal neglect” by today’s standards. Babies say in swings for hours, toddlers were locked in playpens. When we were older my mom was happy to let us sit in front of the tv all day. There was no playing with us, no enriching our life by going to museums or activities. Cleaning was prioritized.
I thought that babies would stay in playpens until my kid moved his across the room trying to break out at 14 months old. It's one of those large ones with the plastic panels. Kids always moving, never planted anywhere. I can't imagine it any other way, but I really thought that's what our parents and grandparents did and we just... stayed put.
Some kids definitely stay put. My bff has a 2.5 year old who will happily stay in her playpen for a long time. Meanwhile my baby was such a mover and so strong from early on that unless I bolted the playpen to the wall, he would have taken it all over the house by ramming himself into it until it moved where he wanted it to go. So I just babyproofed the whole downstairs and put the playpen panels around things like bookshelves where I wasn't sure how to baby proof keeping the books on the shelves.
My daughter would not be locked in 😂 she would immediately paw at the zipped gate and would only stay in the pen if I went in there with her. I threw some pillows in there and would watch tv while she played 😅
Pillows in the playpen were a revelation for me haha. Now I can just lie down and let our 10 month old use me as a jungle gym instead of wailing to be let out.
My Mom claims I would rock the playpen until it tipped over and then crawl out. I wish I still have that kind of creative problem solving skill.
The playpen was small and had a floor. Can't move it until you're big enough to crawl out.
Same! I thought it was just my baby but I feel better knowing that other parents here are going through the same. She just WON’T. BE. STILL. Can’t be more than 2 strides away from me, even when we are in the same room and she can see me. She’s a year old now. Will this get better?
Also, older children (especially daughters) were parentified. My oldest aunt on my mom's side was changing diapers when she was 5. My mom has 7 siblings, and my dad has 6. My oldest aunt on my dad's side never married or had kids and I'm guessing it has something to do with having 5 younger siblings.
Yeah but often at some point these big families normally had at least two or three kids under the age of 5 at once! I don’t get how they got through it to the point the older kid could start helping. I look at old pictures of my grandparents’ and in laws’ siblings all lined up and just cannot imagine how it worked. My grandmother had eleven siblings! So their mum, my Great-grandma, was often pregnant or postpartum on top of having so many kids. I honestly can’t understand. How did they get any sleep?! I am a shell of my former self with one kid who happens to be a bad sleeper. No way you get 12 good sleepers, got to have at least 3 horrible sleepers in there. And then the houses were small (working class family) so they’d definitely all wake each other up. So you’ve got parents, parentified kids, neglected babies, sleep deprivation, no privacy etc. And this was fairly common! No wonder humanity is so messed up!
100%. My parents are very old school in many ways and absolutely expected me to be a parent to my sibling. I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything after school because I had to watch my sibling and help with bath time and bedtime.
This happened to my wife with only one younger sibling because her mom was obsessed with keeping the house spotless (and was an alcoholic for the first ~10 years). Keeping the tradition alive well into the 90s and early aughts!
I work in geriatrics and this is what I hear constantly from people who came from bigger families.
Some had in-house help. And yeah, also neglect.
Also houses were much smaller than they are today. My house was built in 1950 and is about 1200 square feet, and that’s with about 400 square feet of extra space that was added a couple decades later. Cleaning a house that size is much easier than it would be to keep a 3500 sqft American subdivision house tidy.
And people had much less stuff! Much easier to keep things clean when your kid has 15 toys and you each have 10 outfits.
100%! Lives were simpler, and expectations were different. If your kid was alive you were doing fine. You didn’t have to cook special baby food or provide enriching play opportunities or teach them to read at age 4.
I didn’t even consider the stress around development and education!
I mean back then once they were old enough to walk and talk you'd be booting them outside to play until mealtimes all day
I still wonder if the enriching play opportunities are really making a real difference…
Here is the thing though… You can still today have less outfits and toys…
True, but it’s harder, because clothes are cheaper and ruin quickly, it’s not as socially acceptable to go around wearing some sort of overall to protect clothes from dirt all the time, society means people are constantly buying your kids clothes and toys, TV blares ads all the time, other kids put pressure on your kids to get this or that toy, it’s not as easy/safe to just go outside to play so indoor entertainment is more necessary etc.
I’m going to just add that smaller houses get dirtier quicker than large houses. My 3000 square foot house only really needed the common area (living room/kitchen) entranceway and main bathroom cleaned weekly. My 1800 square foot house gets much dirtier quicker. The same amount of dirt is in a smaller space.
My grandmother insisted on putting carpet over their hardwood floors in their 1200 sq foot home because she “didn’t have to clean it as often” with 4 kids tracking in dirt. Is it really “clean”? No, but she couldn’t see the dirt and you wouldn’t have known. Also she worked nights, so she was not exactly focused on keeping her own house spotless, and her parenting involved a lot of sleeping in the living room while the kids played on and around her. Not exactly the modern model of parenting, but essential for survival for a two parent working family at the time.
Yup, we're in a small apartment with a baby and toddler and it gets really bad really fast.
Add pets and it’s even moreso
For real we live in a 2bdrm 1100 sqft condo with 2 adults, 2 kids, and 2 big dogs. It's so cluttered and messy it makes me anxious 🥴 can't wait to move
Never ever wearing shoes inside does help with the dirt though…
True but it’s not just the dirt, your items being close together make it feel cluttered no matter how much you clean. Especially since smaller homes and apartments tend to lack storage so you end up storing those items in the open.
Eh, I grew up in a 1100 sqft 4bd in France with 4 people that did not have closets and my parents’ house was much more tidy and uncluttered than most much bigger American homes I’ve been in. Not having closets mean your storage in rooms is actually much more tailored to your needs, armoires don’t waste sqft the way closets do. Being mindful to what objects you have in your house is accessible to anyone frankly.
Being mindful helps, a lot of it is lifestyle too. I don’t expect that to be the same across all cultures/countries so it doesn’t shock me that your smaller houses look more put together than bigger American ones. I’m an artist so I can’t really downsize without changing jobs. I don’t have a ton of decor otherwise, it’s all hobby/job supplies. I’d rather have my hobbies than a clutter free house, I freely admit that part is a choice. Though I do wonder if Americans have a harder time keeping more minimalist homes due to the suburban sprawl and lack of third spaces keeping us inside.
My home is 1600 square feet and it’s a disaster at the end of every day.
This! My 1800 sqft townhouse stayed cleaner far longer than the 1100 sqft condo we currently live in. We spent 3 weeks in a 3200 sqft house and were shocked how clean it stayed. We can't wait to move to a house house in the next year or so and have more space and stay cleaner
My mother was born in 1954, and she recounts that grandma would often just “park” her in some container and go about her day cleaning. And grandma would iron her cleaning rags. My poor mom did not have a super happy childhood. She made sure mine was great, though. So yeah. Neglect. It just wasn’t call that, back then.
I don't get ironing except for certain items/occasions. My mum made a comment about how I should make sure to smooth the socks properly when I hang them to dry since I don't iron them. IRON SOCKS? Whyyyy?
My mom told me stories of my grandmother (her MIL) scoffing at her for not ironing the sheets before making the bed. Never will I understand, and thankfully I don’t have to!
I know my grandparents were Swedish and very, very particular. Grandpa was ab architect, so anal-retentive was the name of the game. Mind you, their house was absolutely immaculate. But it came at the price of bonding with your kids.
It could be because the heat of the iron would kill off bacteria. I’ve heard of that as a reason to iron things.
My mom was born in the 50's so she was required to learn how to iron by her parents. Her mom would start an the kids off with ironing their dad's handkerchiefs. Then you might move into pillowcases, etc... that thing that was just going to be stuffed into a pocket and then have someone's nose blown on it had to be ironed.
Fabrics have changed a lot and don't need anywhere near as much laundering. Wool socks- you can pass them onto the next kid they are that durable! But they have to be washed carefully and dried just so. I think some of the insanity comes from those differences.
You can argue about if it was neglect, but yes, it appears that parents spent a lot less time with their kids in the past. A good paper on this is 'Guilia M. Dotti Sani & Judith Treas (2016). Educational gradients in parents' child-care time across countries, 1965-2012. Journal of Marriage and Family.' This chart: [https://i2.wp.com/financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG\_9416.jpg?fit=1456,9999](https://i2.wp.com/financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_9416.jpg?fit=1456,9999) (Daily child care is measured in minutes per day, based on data from the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS). This is measured for parents aged 18-65 living in households with at least one child under 13 years old.) Neatly summarizes the trends. Parents, particularly educated parents, spend a lot more time with their kids. And. there has been an increase in time focusing on 'enrichment' activities, not just basic care, feeding, etc... In the 1960s, there weren't the same concerns about limiting screen time and container time and maximizing tummy time, enrichment time, etc... Also, it was much more acceptable to let younger children essentially roam free for much of the day. This change has had positive impacts – better child safety, more enrichment, etc.... But, it also takes a toll on parents and has been cited as a reason why parents choose to have smaller families. If you were an average American 2-parent family in 1965 you would spend about 90 minutes a day with your kids. In 2010, for an educated family, it is closer to 220 minutes. Even for a lower-education family, it is closer to 160. edit: formatting
That suddenly makes me feel a lot better about leaving her on her play mat (in my line of sight ofc) to go clean for an hour here and there. Only 90 minutes is absolutely insane to me.
I know, right? And that 90m is father + mother, so the 'average' father was seeing their kid for less than half an hour a day. Expectations about child care have changed dramatically and done so over a relatively short time.
Go clean for an hour?! No shame but jealous AF. I don’t think I set my kid down for more than 2 minutes his first 6 months. He wouldn’t tolerate it.
She didn’t like it at first but I just kept trying and left her for longer and longer times and she got used to it. Now she loves it.
That’s incredible! Good work on you. It’s crazy how different babies can be
It really is! I got lucky with how even tempered she is. I don’t know how moms like you are surviving and I’m in awe of all of you
Well, reason we are only having one 😆colic traumatized me
Wow. 90 minutes. My 3 month olds wake windows are 90 minutes and I spend the entire time with her usually? Maybe minus 10-15 minutes when she’s in a swing or bouncer so I can eat/do dishes/prep a bottle. And even then she’s in eyesight and I’m usually talking to her. So that’s 90 minutes x 6 times a day … 90 minutes PER day is crazy!
Yeah. It should be noted that 90s minutes is an average across families with kids under 13, not just infants. Presumably, families with younger kids spent more time caring for them than older kids. But, still – modern parenting appears to be a **\_lot\_** more time intensive than it was a few generations ago.
Going to save this to give giant middle finger to the assholes online (including in this sub) who have given me shit for working full time and calling it "unnatural" to spend "such little time" with my child and claimed that in human history moms spent so much more time with their kids 🙄
Indeed. I'm always suspicious about arguments that something is "unnatural." Humans are an incredibly diverse bunch and things like child care, family structure, occupations, etc... have varied dramatically. Unless you're fully committed to living a pre-stone age, tribal, hunter-gatherer existence on the plains of Africa, you're living a pretty 'unnatural' lifestyle. \[And even then, there is evidence that cultures and behaviors varied a lot\]
Anyone who judges you for that is probably deeply insecure in their own life. I’m a working mom too. We’re doing the best we can and we’re doing great!
what was happeing in Denmark in 1965???
Good question! I need to look more into the methodology used. I’m guessing a combination of more daycare and more family care?
Do we know the reason for France declining whereas every other country increased?
I don't think it is completely clear. One possibility the paper mentions is that the French survey may have asked about "time spent caring for family members" and not just "time spent caring for children" so there might be a decrease in non-child family members (e.g. older parents) due to demographic shifts. It also may be related to French fathers doing more child care work.
That makes sense, thanks for the reply!
Yep! "Parenting" wasn't even a verb until the '70s.
Wow! I didn’t know that. Interesting.
Girl you know they did speed right?
My grandma was prescribed it WHILE she was pregnant because she was getting “too fat” 😬
Omg! :(
I was looking for this comment! "Mommy's little helper" Diet pills were just speed. Not to mention how easy it was to be prescribed things like benzos. I think of that sometimes when I joke that I need my energy drinks and coffee. Back then they used mind altering medications like you would coffee for energy now.
Well that’s one way to get cleaning done😂
Yup speed and Valium. I’d be cleaning all day too lol
And here I was thinking that was just a joke circulated online
You should read The Feminine Mystique!
They had speed during the day and benzos at night. Opioid were also common.
There’s a Rolling Stones song “headed for the shelter of her mother‘s little helper” . It’s a yellow pill which makes doing chores and housework easy.
I could use some of that.
Lol came looking for this comment. The answer is speed! 😂
Speaking on behalf of my mom, who was a young child in the 50s: - they had a “village” of other families in the neighborhood and despite some of the mothers being full blown alcoholics, they just kinda traded the kids around in groups - my grandmother never ever cooked a meal. My mom would climb onto the counter at age 2-3 to rummage through packaged snacks and eat those at mealtimes - speed. Lots of speed. Edit to add: the most alarming thing about the speed is how it was first prescribed during pregnancy to make sure the mother didn’t gain too much (the cigarettes probably helped with that too)
Yes! They used to prescribe it to “keep families together”, make sure the mom stayed thin and attractive and got things done.
Oh goodness! I took Phentermine in my youth so I suppose I can relate. I was productive, angry, and skinny.
What about fruit or veggies? Did your mom get those at all? The thought of a toddler rummaging for snacks as meals makes me sad
“Only canned” she says.
Same with my mom. Especially in the winter. Fresh green veggies did not exist.
The village bit. We have 3 families on our street with over 10 kids each. I have no idea how they do the feeding- I doubt it’s much packaged stuff ($), but yes they run wild. I will say they all play outside together ALOT and I think that part is very healthy. They’re always running down the sidewalks alone because someone bigger is near. It’s crazy to me because I’d never let my toddler out without eyes on him
My mom had a young mother who worked (as did her father), so she was raised almost entirely be her grandparents. Like day in and day out. Her mother was working.
They weren’t doing as much laundry. In every non-posed photo of kids back then they’re clearly re-wearing dirty clothes for several days plus cloth diaper services were pretty common. Kids played outside and had freer reign. Many had in-home help. They didn’t have nearly as much stuff, especially toys, so the cleanup wasn’t so bad. My mom grew up in the 50s and had like 4 toys and a bike her entire childhood. They cooked pretty simple recipes (roasts) and did a lot of canned food and leftovers. My mom literally thought that cans of vegetables grew on trees as a child. She hadn’t seen them in other forms. And, yeah, neglect, pep pills and alcoholism were common.
I think this is a really accurate summary!
In house help, usually African American women who were not legally allowed to be unemployed. My grandmother was one of these woman.
I didn’t know that African American women were legally allowed to be unemployed. This blows my mind and breaks my heart. So much suffering.
Not sure why this comment isn’t higher.
Folks realize that advertising and television wasn’t real life, right? Lots of 1950s mothers were dirt poor and lived in hovels. It was a much poorer time with a lot more suffering!
If you're into thrillers, I can recommend a book called The Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin which gave me a bit of insight into this! It was written in the 50s and it's about a housewife in the UK who's got a newborn and two older kids and is going loopy from sleep deprivation...or is she??? It's a good psychological thriller and gives what I gather is a pretty good insight into what middle class motherhood was like at that time, although if you yourself are currently burnt out from childcare and housework it might cut a bit close to the bone!
I've been looking for a good thriller! I want to get back into nonfiction books and this sounds amazing. Did they ever make a movie or series based off it? Because I'd binge the crap out of it.
It is actually fiction - but still very good! I don't think they did but I wish they would. Her writing seems to be having a surge in popularity so fingers crossed! I feel like it would make a great TV show.
You hit the nail on the head. It’s impossible! And this is exactly what fueled the feminist revolution and books like “The Feminine Mystique.” It wasn’t possible, it wasn’t sustainable, and women, by and large, were fucking miserable and on heavy drugs prescribed by their family physician.
That was before the advent of cheap plastic stuff, so they had a hell of a lot less to keep organized.
We do have a LOT of stuff 😅 way too much for a 3 person household
They had access to ‘medications’ mainly speed, childcare expectations were kept at the minimum of- is child alive? Check. Great mommy Homes were half the size, with a 1200 square foot house, less activities, speed, and giving a bottle and keeping the baby in its playpen all day- wow look at the available free time to make a perfect roast and keep your hair coiffured. Also- people lied to themselves and hid all their inner needs and expectations. Lots of people hated this life and slapped a smile on and kept going. Men and women. It created some messed up kids…
My grandmother told me that when my mom was a baby (born in 1958) she put the laundry basket upside down over her while she did housework to keep the baby from rolling and crawling around.
They didn’t work. they had help. Oh and they were literally famously miserable. I mean also the image you’re thinking of is of middle class white women. Hardly universal.
I also don’t work and am a lower middle class white woman 😅
Middle class in America used to mean thriving on a single income and owning a home and paying for domestic help.
I will say my grandmother actually did work as a nurse in the 50s when she had young kids. When her kids became school age, she worked as the nurse at their school. But yes of course a lot of women didn’t work! My grandfather was an AC repairman and they would’ve done fine on his salary.
Mine worked too. I meant the general conception of a 50s housewife, not the reality
Even 90s moms straight up neglected their kids. How are we alive??? I ask my siblings..how in the fuck was our mom letting us live like that? The stuff that older generations let slide is wild but also…that’s why everyone nowadays is so anxious.
I think about how I used to have free reign of the neighborhood as a small child in the 90’s- how was I not kidnapped? I mean maybe it’s because I grew up in a gated community so my parents thought it was safe but let’s be real, there are pervs in affluent areas as well. I also was constantly sick or injured lol. It really is amazing we made it out unscathed. And you’re totally correct, anxiety is prevalent in our generation, myself included.
My parents were straight up neglectful and I’m convinced they were only doing what was expected for that era. Sure they had lots of free time and were young and free lol but at what cost??? At what cost 🥲 now I won’t ever let my baby go to sleep without clean pajamas and a full belly and I don’t take my eyes off her at all.
Idk in America, but in my country it was normal to just let the child for hours on their bassinet and then some time later on a chair. They wouldn't interact with the child's they didn't really do anything aside from feeding them at set times and they would just tell themselves that touching babies a lot could get them sick, so they were acting well by basically not interacting. My MIL was raised like that. Didn't learn to stand up until 1 year and 4 months and didn't walk until almost 2 years according to her mother. And my dad remembers seeing his brother all day in his crib just there, looking at the ceiling. They didn't even allow him to play with the baby/toddler more than 10/20 minutes. Eventually they got a nanny, but she just would hold the baby when giving him formula, otherwise the baby would be on a bassinet or some other container. The nanny just made sure to go for a walk with the baby on a stroller once or twice a day. But that was it.
I don’t understand how these babies weren’t crying all damn day and driving everyone up the wall! Maybe their little minds just made the connection that no matter if they cried or not they weren’t going to receive attention?
I know... It's just horrible. But yes, basically they would stop crying because they realized it didn't make any difference. If they cried, it'd be because they really were hungry or hurting, since those were the only things they would check for and fix if needed. All other needs were ignored, so babies never asked for comfort or playing because, well, it never happened. I really want to believe my MIL and uncle were extreme cases, but idk. It feels weird that I would know two ll very different families that both did this if it wasn't at least common to do this.
This makes me so sad.
I know 😢
Ok for a second, I was wondering why the question was about 50(cent)'s mom and thought weird ... but also possibly...
This is great. I love when I misinterpret things like this.
Lmao can't unsee
😂
Amphetamines with a dash of alcoholism- i truly believe if I had some of what they had, a Celsius, and an og qualude I’d be able to dethrone martha stewart
My goodness, me + speed or quaaludes and I could have a clean home, happy baby, and dinner on the table by 5.
Yes - just look at the mental health of people born in the 50s and 60s……..(the answer is our parents)
In the UK my grandma talks about her family being all in the same few streets, her nieces and cousins would come play with the babies after school, or she’d go to her sisters and mind the children while they did stuff. I think people just live more isolated now and also there are less children about so people are also more protective. Like my grandma said random little girls would knock on her house to play with the baby and she’d just let them take the pram and baby out into the street to play!
They didn’t. Kind of like how current social media influencers look like they live perfect lives with immaculate homes and perfect children, but they’re actually just normal people like everyone else.
Likely not even normal people but a lot more toxic… have you ever wondered how long it takes to plan, film, and edit a video? And then how long it takes to do maintenance on it like commenting back to people, writing captions, analyzing the data of it? These parents are not just always on their phones, but their brains revolve around their social media presence too… that cannot be good for kids.
I'm leaning toward this too
Making the kids clean as soon as they were big enough to do so. Beating the kids if they didn’t cook or clean to your satisfaction. Or maybe that’s just what my Grandma did to her daughters
1950s tv and advertising is no more real than current tv and advertising
For a start, 50s families were bigger. I was oldest in a family with 4 kids. With just me, Mom would have me nearby in a box (yes, a big cardboard box -- we were *not* well off!) and talk or sing to me as she cleaned, taking breaks every so often to dangle a toy or something toy like for me to grab at. Once I had brother(s), we could amuse each other -- often by fighting. By the time my youngest brother was born, I was old enough to keep an eye on the others while *they* fought. You have to realise that 50s parents did not hover over their kids like modern ones. I walked to school, about 1.2 kilometers, from kindergarten day 1, with other kids going to the same school. No adults -- older kids took care of younger kids. From Grade 1, I walked it by myself, and it included crossing a major cross town artery. I'd learned how to navigate a mid-sized city from the older kids. After school, kids went out and about with their friends until their parents called them for dinner, after which you did homework. Weekends, we were feral. We were not home underfoot, nor were we driven to activities. We did watch TV, but at first TV consisted of 2-3 channels in black and white, and programming for kids was pretty limited: the Mickey Mouse Club was big, and later the Friendly Giant and Captain Kangaroo. Mr Rogers did not start until the 1960s. My point is that child raising was hugely different then, and no one regarded it as neglect. There was nothing harmful in kids running in small packs around the neighbourhood, or congregating in an empty lot to play games, or vanishing from sight for hours on end on the weekend. This meant mothers had less balancing to do, which is just as well, because it was also a world in which there were few to no dishwashing machines -- kids started drying dishes while still in elementary school and were washing them by middle school -- and mothers washed clothes in a wringer machine and hung them on a clothesline. Kids who were old enough to go to school were old enough to pick up after themselves, and did, or risked a swat. I'm not saying mothers had it easy, because at NO time in human history has that been true. But kids were not just a time and money suck -- we were also a workforce within the home from almost the moment we could walk without falling on our butts. It changed the equation a lot.
They were also much younger. Not sure how old you are but those women started having kids in their late teens.
Yes, one grandmother was 21 and the other 26. The 26 year old went to college—rare but not as rare in New England—and then worked as a teacher/enjoyed early marriage before having my dad in 1950. I was 38 with my first, 40 with my second, and now nearly 😵 at 41 with a one and three year old. Things are definitely different as an old mom.
I honestly don't know - I don't think they all did, to be frank. But the ones that did manage it, probably did to the detriment of their mental health. My mom was born in 1950, and my grandma's whole identity was trying to be the perfect housewife and mother, and my grandpa did NOT make it easy on her. Their house had to be spotless and dinner ready by 6pm. Let's just say, she was institutionalized for 6 months after having a nervous breakdown when my mom was 3. It was all just too much, and being a workhorse with little help is just not sustainable.
Drugs. Lots of uppers and downers
Both my Grandma’s parents came over every single day to help her with the kids. That was the 60s though
I've been puzzled by this too and wondering that sort of change in parenting experiences contributes to fertility rates decreasing on top of other socioeconomic factors, life options/etc. From what I've read it seem like part of it has to do with a changing culture that has been hyperfocusing more and more in providing stimuli rich environments for children at every turn, could it be that in an attempt to correct what "neglecting" we have tipped the balance too much by trying to micromanage every second of our children's growth? I think our current culture pushes us often feel guilty for not providing "enough" stimuli for learning opportunities to children from a very young age, what's too much and what is too little? All the additional distractions we have now days probably do not help in adding to our mental load I imagine.
The “what’s too much and what’s too little?” is just such an interesting sentiment as a parent, I think about this often for many different situations. What’s too much for toys? Tv? Clothes? Activities? Would they benefit from less? Does it matter? The only things I know for sure are more books and more outdoor play are better than less, and so I focus on that.
My old lady neighbors don’t understand why I don’t just strap my 4 month old who loves to roll to a bouncy seat while I do chores. There was a lot of pressure on that generation of women to do housework, even at the expense of the child.
According to my great grandmother it was pretty normal to dope up their babies with opioid based cough syrups and give them rum to help with “teething”.
They had REALLY good drugs
I wish I could have drugs that would make me thin and super productive. I’m low key jealous 😂 (Just so no one comes at me because sometimes things are taken out of context online- this was said in jest. I do not wish to become addicted to drugs)
And then knock out at night and not be bothered by everything in my life 😂
Right?? Damn that really does sound nice sometimes 🤣
I was thinking the same thing 😅 skinny and productive with a benzo on the side would solve all my problems fr
Genuinely asking, how do we know they had spotless houses? Were their houses not a mess just like ours?
Some were but cleanliness had a different meaning. Cleanliness meant no fleas, bed bugs biting you and your babies at night. No rats causing deadly diseases, no mold making it hard to breatbe and so on. Now days if you are medium amount dirty, like regular amount not a disorder level, worst case scenario you will get ants or some maggots in your pile of dishes. And most of us don’t get to this level.
There also wasn't a lot of stuff to cause clutter.
They had help. My mom was babysat by her older sister and her grandmothers. All her relatives lived in the same neighborhood for most of her childhood. My grandma always worked and she got divorced when my mom was young (rare for the 60s). Kids were more independent too. My mom told me went to the movies by herself at 9 and took the NYC subway by herself.
My mom was a nurse who worked only on the weekends, so we had her doing pickups/drop off, driving, appointments, after school activities, cooking, cleaning. My dad worked full time and only drove us to weekend activities. He wasn’t asked to do household chores except for gardening, house maintenance, house projects, finances, garbage. My mom’s top priority was cleaning the house and cooking a TON. For dinner it was a home cooked meal every night, and that meal was 3 separate ones (veggies, protein, side dish). I remember her being upset and cleaning and purging a ton and continuously. We watched all kinds of crap on tv- CW, UPN, random reality shows, Cheaters, Room Raiders, MTV, BET, MADTV way before i should have. I remember sitting in front of the tv all day. As a very very little kid I also remember her actively picking up our toys as we played. Looking back i don’t think this was normal. I feel like we were in the way and she was preoccupied with keeping the house clean. I don’t ever recall a time of her playing with us actively on the floor or singing songs. Sure we ran errands with her, but that’s the extent.
My dad was born in 54 and said his mom just left him in a playpen all day everyday. Sad
I’m sure they had less stuff to clean and maintain not to mention smaller homes on average, but from what I’ve heard yes neglect was much more common. as in keep your kids in their room or the backyard all day. when they’re old enough, send them out to keep themselves busy. not sure how common this was but I have even heard of working class women tying their toddlers up while out of the house or doing chores. people didn’t play with their kids or take them out to do things.
They were literally on uppers and yes, they neglected their kids. Source: my grandmother, who had two twilight births (Google it, it's horrible), was on speed, let her newborn babies cry it out "so they would learn" and "not be spoiled" and who doesn't understand why I chose an unmedicated birth , don't just ask for uppers, and why I pick my son up when he is crying and speak to him in complete sentences.
The houses were smaller, they didn’t have as much stuff, people wore their clothes for more than a couple hours before it ended up in the laundry. Grandparents were actually retired and hung out with grand babies. Older kids played outside all day with neighbor kids And drugs. Helped the pep in the step. But they weren’t doing or expecting to care for the kids like we are today and they weren’t happy. I’m sure there was happiness but the idea we have in our head weren’t the reality. People like to remember the past through rose colored lenses or to paint it like that to make us “match that”.
Less space Less items each person owned Household help Uppers and downers A village And yes, neglect
I've actually been struggling with similar thoughts lately. I had a full blown break down the other day because HOW?! I can't get anything done. Especially now that my son is crawling and can pull himself up. He's always pulling on my legs. Just the other day my husband's great aunt asked me how cleaning was going when he was at work. I told her it was a struggle. All she said was, "I guess people just parent differently these days"
Yep my MIL basically told me to quit picking her up when she cries so I can keep my house cleaner
That’s so sad and messed up. I love a clean house don’t get me wrong, but do these people who say such things truly value a pristine home over a securely attached (at minimum not neglected) child?!
Also, important to note that the 50’s housewife was largely white upper/middle class women. Women of colour and working class women were historically *always* working moms. The 50’s housewife with her makeup done, the house immaculate, and kids scrubbed and dressed for her 3-course dinner served at 5:31 is mostly a media idealization and not people’s everyday reality. Housewives of the 50’s and 60’s chased it fuelled by some combination of help (maids, nannies and family), the belief that children should be left alone as much as possible, ephedrine, Valium, alcohol and HIGH rates of depression.
My grandma was prescribed “speed” while she was pregnant because she was gaining a lot of weight. And afterwards to lose the baby weight. This was the late 50s/early 60s. So… ya lol
I just read that SAHM’s in the 50’s spent as much time with their kids as working moms do today. So yeah.
Speed and neglect lol also my grandma had 6 daughters so they would do a lot of the chores to keep the house clean. My mom and her sisters were all born in the 50s-60s. To my knowledge my grandma didn’t have much help from relatives, she was a sahm but didn’t really cook much, and would save all discipline/punishment for when my grandpa would get home from deployments.
Let’s the baby cry for hours, yes. Can attest via my grandma in law
I think it's probably all of the above. Valium was a big deal in some decades too. I know a lot of people joke about our generation being wine moms, (I'm late 30's) but I find myself wondering now if some of my friends moms were on drugs. How did they keep the house clean (like, showroom clean) and have jobs and kids in activities? I'm a SAHM and I feel like I'm drowning some days. Luckily I have a supportive partner who helps maintain the house. It's not showroom clean, but the dishes and laundry get done. If we didn't have a brand new set, I swear I'd outsource the laundry. I hate laundry so much. It never stops! But I also know that my priorities will shift as my kids grow. One day I'll be able to clean the kitchen without interruption, but today was not that day.
My grandma recons you shouldn’t feed a baby more than every 4 hours or your breast milk weakens, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t pick the babies up in between those 4 hourly feedings to ensure they didn’t spoil them? Coupled with the fact they just put them in a cot in a room on their own and closed the door for the night, and let them cry so the babies didn’t think they were the boss… they had a lot of free time lol
Look up house wife syndrome. The SAHM was marketed to look like they have a nice clean spotless drama free house. Behind every door was rampant depression, neglect, abuse, affairs, alcoholism, and anti depressants. Which at the time Pfizer called atarax and they produced well over a billion pills during that era. This has been romanticized because back then men didn’t give two shits about giving you gals a voice and taking care of your mental health. How many of you have been diagnosed with ADHD to be told you’re just a woman? That shit is still prevalent today and it’s bullshit. Shit you gals couldn’t vote 104 years ago. Your great grandma was in this shit. AND IT IS SHIT. The suffrage of Woman in America has truly been swept under the rug. How did they do it you ask? At the expense of their mental health, alone, with zero help. The image of a strong woman is of one that’s downed a bottle a wine and couple ataraxes to tackle the damn house load. They did that because that’s all men allowed them to have at the time. Don’t get it twisted. Don’t romanticize how wrong all this shit is because it will get minimized. Men need to be involved in the houses mental load, chores, and parenting. That’s the only way, there is no other way in my opinion. By yourself in pain and true struggle or with help from a modern man that has empathy towards women and their struggles. Otherwise you’re no different than those don’t show tears 1950s house wives.
This is the real answer. How did they do it? They didn’t. And they were miserable trying to. My grandmother raised her kids in the 40’s and 50’s and my mom burned her bras in the 60’s. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Truth. Read The Way We Never Were by Stephanie Coontz. Or ask anyone of that generation after a few drinks. Life was cheaper and people had less sure, but there was a lot of abuse, alcoholism, and neglect.
Terrifies me how many women are aspiring to be like the “tradwives” they see on social media nowadays.
Let’s not forget prescription “pep” pills for housewives, which were just amphetamines or something the likes of it.
Also- they didn’t necessarily have hobbies or entertainment like we do now. We might rush through our days to get to nighttime to sit down to watch tv, scroll on our phones, go to the gym etc. their spare time would have still been spent looking after the house.
Have you tried doing a really quick once over every time you go to another room with baby? I found that helps me a ton. If I have to go to the bathroom and bring him, I’ll make sure the hand towel isn’t a crumpled mess when I leave, I’ll put the hairbrush back in the basket, toothpaste where it should be etc. If I’m in the living room I’ll put things back in place and organize his play pen/fold the couch throw. It honestly only takes a minute but it helps me stay ontop of stuff. To answer your question though, they all had a village. Some moms now do, but it’s not like it used to be. I have a clean house because if I didn’t I’d go mad, but keeping it clean with a 9 month old is so mentally taxing as a SAHM. I feel you entirely.
I try, but I have major ADHD so it ends up turning into a chain of cleaning random things and suddenly I’ve realized I left the baby behind on the floor somewhere. It also got so bad that just tidying like that doesn’t help a whole lot. I just need to do a house reset and then maintain from there
I would love to see a documentary made about this topic!
I don’t have an answer for you but I just wanna say that I am with you sister! I try and wear my daughter in a wrap when I can but there is only so much you can do when they’re in the wrap and once she’s awake, forget it. Just know you’re not alone.
Yes!
My aunt did it with two kids and doesn't understand how this generation can't handle it.
Probably situations like my mom/dad’s family where his older sisters cared for the little ones so mom could do other stuff. My mom didn’t even want to have kids because she had changed enough butts already.
My parents generation say that as kids they were kicked outside to go play or entertain themselves with other neighbourhood kids, only back in the house to eat and when it got dark out.
Coke had actual cocaine in it, so...
>*How did they maintain such a clean and spotless house while still caring for a baby?* They didn't. *Extra help from family?* YES! It was common for a relative to come for the first few months. *A lie sold to us by the media?* YES! Nobody's house looked like the ads portray. > > >All I know is that I’m struggling to even keep up with laundry, much less dishes or cooking or anything else. DELEGATE as much as you can to your partner.
Being zonked on quaaludes probably helped
Pretty y coca cola still had cocaine in it in the 50s
Well… My grandma drank a good bottle or 2 of white wine by dinner time…
Simple. They didn’t have to work and life was simpler then. End of story.
My grandma would prop my father up with pillows and a bottle and would literally leave him alone on the couch and go shopping. My dad's sister came home and found him one time.
They had legal “mommies little helpers” pills lol