Are we looking younger than our mothers/grandmothers did at the same age?

One of my mum’s carers recently mentioned that she thought my sisters and I were in our 40’s and when asked how old she thought Mum was she said 70’s. Mum laughed and told her that she was nearly 90 and that all her children were in their 60’s. Which amused us all greatly even though my younger sister isn’t quite there yet - one month to go! 😂

Firstly I think dental health wasn’t even on the radar for the majority in the UK until the set up of the NHS. Even those who were better off were quite oblivious. Compare that to now…” Turkey teeth” and all those blinding white social media smiles!

But although Dental services on the NHS were always problematic now they have regressed and soon may vanish.

Secondly: “women’s problems” are dealt with quicker now with less embarrassment and more knowledge.
…and more domestic appliances equals less physical toil and drudgery.

IMO the horrid fashion ( think it was emulating our late Queen and other celebs) for wearing headscarves did no favours for even younger women. And their partner in crime the the blue/mauve rinses, shampoo and set or tight perm

Though always fashionable, it contributed to a stereotypical image.

I * am*talking about the 1960s here though specifically.
Definitely my Mum appears younger in the photos taken from the mid 70s onward.

I guess I must be as my mother died at 64 and I’m now a few days short of 82 ……can’t say more than that!

My paternal grandmother was a white haired old lady, complete with floral pinny. I remember being shocked to discover she was 57 when she died! My maternal granny was always an old lady, grey hair in a bun, black or ‘lavender’ clothes, and certainly never any makeup. I think she may have been 70 when she died.

knspol to a child or teenager anyone over 25 is over the hill!
‘‘twas ever the case…. I was the same and my mum had me at 40 odd.

I really did think she was so much older when compared with our more trendy looking short skirted ( female) teachers at junior school and some other kids parents were in fact much younger but not all by any means.

There were a lot of late or “unexpected” offspring in my schools cohort.

I still think that many women then did have a certain homogeneous older woman style at a relatively young age.

I was 80 this year …. When I said I’d had a “big” birthday they looked genuinely shocked when I said it was my 80th😊…. Maybe they thought it was my 90th!!😳😂

I think anyone dressing "too young" years ago would have that delightful Mutton Done Up As Lamb saying applied to them
Of course, times have moved on now, in all but the most antiquated corners...

Yes MissAdventure- anyone who referred to anyone in those terms around me would receive a swift response " who wants to be mutton dressed as mutton?"

petra

My mother was very stylish. She was the first person to colour my hair and pluck my monobrow ( Frida Kahlow had nothing on me) 😂
Back in time when smoking was the norm she smoked Sobranei cocktail cigarettes when her and my father went out at the weekend. The colours fascinated me.

Yes - buying a pack of fancy cigarettes was a party treat. I didn’t smoke regularly but loved buying these, in their pretty box!

It's really unpleasant.
My neighbour has said it to my face a couple of times, too!!!

My mother died when she was 71. She always looked young and glamorous. She kept out of the sun, didn't drink or smoke and took care of her appearance.

My siblings and I have all been hit with the looking younger stick. It's in the genes. I'm 64 and always alarmed by old so many people who are much younger that me look.

Shinamae

We have the benefit of make up and good skin care which our grandmother certainly did not have( or hair dye)
Also, they did not have the benefit of washing machines and hoovers, and other labour saving devices
I think our grandmother‘s worked so hard the last thing they thought about was how they looked..

My grandmother (Nan) died her hair before it turned grey. There was one occasion when I noticed she had grey hair coming through at the roots and I got told off for pointing it out! She always wanted to look her best, she would ‘starve herself down’ if she thought she had put on weight, she dressed really nicely and looking back she looked younger than her contemporaries. I don’t know if she always had a washing machine but after they moved back to the city when she would have been about 56-7 she had one then. Her daughter, my mother always looked glam too apart from during her third marriage to a coercive husband who deliberately made her look drab, probably because he knew he was punching above. Both of them were slim and I am not so I can’t honestly say I think I look younger than they did at my age. What I have noticed is that my granddaughter wears similar clothes to me! She only likes wearing leggings with long tops. She’s all about the comfort but she’s co-ordinated and obsessed with hair and makeup (she’s 12).

A dear friend at work always said that he had no problem with 'mutton dressed as lamb' but he drew the line at 'carrion dressed as mutton'!

I think a lot of the fact we look younger is our self worth, self assuredness and generally most of us have been working most of our lives. Some have more street cred and knowledge than any of my grandparents and even mother had. My mother was just like I am though. She never started to age until well in to her 80s but then due to an accident got very stooped very quickly. I am similar but that is due to a severe scoliosis. She always cared how she looked and wore makeup and nice clothes right to the very end as I probably will too.

My nan always said if she found a wrinkle she ate more to fill it out.

MissAdventure

It's really unpleasant.
My neighbour has said it to my face a couple of times, too!!!

Just WOW!…they actually said that to you?

there are some sad excuses for humans about.

Yes, it's only that my other neighbour commented n it, that it occurred to me how rude it is.

All those comments, for all those years, wasted, because I never really took any notice.

Both of my grandmothers looked very old and died around 65 yrs old, that was mid to late 1950s they had obviously had very hard lives both having 6 children too.

Today if a woman looks after herself and dresses well it takes 10 yrs off her easily

I think, too, that we older people (I’m nearly 84) have a wider variety of clothes available to us. I shop at White Stuff, which stocks clothes that would suit all but the really young. I remember shops that catered for older people with pleated, checked skirts and twin sets, etc. i don’t think there are any shops like that now, nor areas like that in department stores. As for shoes, I wear (I think they’re called ballet pumps)
or trainers, as do many much younger people. I’ve abandoned high heels, though, for safety and comfort reasons.
I used to think of people of my age as frumpy but everyone I know who is in her eighties now certainly doesn’t wear clothes that would identify her as old.

M0nica

Babs03 I used to care what I looked like, wearing high heels that wrecked my feet and pencil skirts that I couldn’t walk in but I just go for comfort and colour now I am older.

I do not think that caring how you looked ever meant wearing uncomfortable clothes. When I was working, a rare woman at management level in engineering firms I always dressed well, and it was commented on, but high heels, straight skirts never formed any part of my wardrobe. Jaeger suits and fashionable shoes, with tiny heels, usually Russell & Bromley, were my style and a good line in surprised hauteur should anyone ask me whether I could take shorthand or do some copying

This is doubtless true of many of our generation, Monica, but certainly did not apply either to my mother as a young woman or to my grandmothers.

My paternal grandmother, who died in 1966 when I was coming up for 15, wore long salmon pink boned corsets every day of her life, until her final illness kept her in bed. Her stay lace was about two yards long- I very much doubt the garment was comfortable, but she felt indecent without it.

I clearly remember my mother's difficulty in finding roll-ons or even bras that were particularly comfortable, and I have a very clear memory of my 14 year old selv rebelling against a roll-on that left marks of its elastication all the way from my hips to my pubic bone, as well as the marks caused by the attached suspenders.

A couple of years later, I forced my feet into pointed shoes that squashed my big and my little toes, but the were fashionable, so I put up with the discomfort.

I am sure I am not alone in this teenage behaviour.

Colette describes an actress of her acquaintance whose corset was so long and stiffly boned that it prevented her from sitting down. She only accepted parts that did not require her to sit on stage, and remained on her feet from early morning until late night! This would be in the 1890s or early 1900s.

Grey hair is the height of fashion these days! I add a wash in wash out blue tint which I'm told looks good. A neighbour adds a streak of pink to her hair.

My Mother also had a blue rinse. There was a product used for keeping laundry white - which added the stylish tint to hair.

I suspect that their skins were more wrinkled because they didn't know much about sun screen products.

I'm 67, been told I don't look it and I certainly don't act it!! I'm a tee shirt and jeans girl, but my late mother was was 89 when she passed away, very stylish and didn't look her age at all, lovely young skin and always smart, makeup in place before she ever left the house. Never bothered colouring her hair but it was cut regularly and always in place. I remember my grandmother who passed away at 64 and to me her and various people and family looked much older and dressed so much older.

It depends on your grey hair, my white round the edges and still dark brown in the centre is not a good look, which is why I colour my hair.

grandtanteJE65 I din't do uncomfortable clothes, even as a teeneager. I had 2 pairs of dtilettos, rapidly discovered how uncomfortable they were - stopped wearing them.

I wore a roll on when I wore stockings but ditched them all when tights came in. They were never so tight they marked my skin, as I said, comfort has always come first.

Neither of my grandmothers, who died 1958, 1970 wore stays. My maternal grandmother dressed well on a very tight budget, but as a professional dressmaker, could make beautiful clothes for herself, My mother, as I have said, also dressed very well.

I think the fact is at a nytime the range of clothes worn by women of all ages has always been very varied. Some wore corsets and stays, some didn't, some dressed well, some didn't, some cared how they looked, some didn't.

I have a photo l treasure. It is of my parents at their wedding in 1963 and has both sets of my grandparents on it. I am now older than all four of them were then, but I am sure I look younger. My two grandmothers and 46 and 54 respectively at the time and both are dressed very smartly in the style of the late Queen Mother. Both had permed hair, which was kept in shape by means of a weekly shampoo and set. I think people had an elderly mindset back then, which was nothing to do with a harder life. They made themselves old by their attitude towards what was deemed “suitable” for people of their age, especially when it came to clothing. The lack of natural teeth did not help, either. They were elderly at fifty and old by sixty. My mother, now in her early eighties, has always dressed in a classic style but still has most of her natural hair colour, which I have inherited. Certainly, when I see photos of my mother from twenty-odd years ago, or look in the mirror, I see her looking back at me.

I am so touched and teary eyed.