How life has changed

Zoejory

My mother was trotting around in heels in the 1950s, but at Heathrow Airport working for BOAC. She had her children, always born in February/March so as not to coincide with tennis season and continued working until she was 68. She'd have hated being at home.

I actually took time out when my children were small. I had about 7 years at home whilst DH worked. We were lucky that we could afford this. Not everyone could.

All my children are married now and the females all work. One of my sons was actually a stay at home dad when their girls were very young.

Every family works out what is best for them.

But that's the point. A lot of families can no longer do that. Regardless of whether they would prefer to have one parent at home or just working part time, that's often not an option any more.
It is good that women who would be unhappy giving up their job no longer have to do so. But it should not be at the expense of those who want to stay at home with the children.
But we still don't have a balance.

Agreed on all counts, M0nica, but many of the posts on this thread have been addressed to the mothers, not the fathers.

My mother was trotting around in heels in the 1950s, but at Heathrow Airport working for BOAC. She had her children, always born in February/March so as not to coincide with tennis season and continued working until she was 68. She'd have hated being at home.

I actually took time out when my children were small. I had about 7 years at home whilst DH worked. We were lucky that we could afford this. Not everyone could.

All my children are married now and the females all work. One of my sons was actually a stay at home dad when their girls were very young.

Every family works out what is best for them.

Do families work their finances so mothers are expected to pay for childcare? Surely in a marriage, whether their are children or not, money should be a shared resource, unless there is a very good reason for other arrangements.

We have always talked of 'our' money, so any cost associated with children and their care came out of 'our' bank accounts. We had sums of money allocated for personal expenditure, but, otherwise everything was joint.

I think it is rather sweeping to say that if someone (male or female) cannot commit to half the childcare then they shouldn't have children. I got married knowing that my DH was in a job that required a lot of travel, much of it at short notice and that the brunt of running the home and caring for the children would fall on me. But I always approached these things in a business like manner and saw my domestic responsibilities as being my contribution to the family business as it enabled DH to do his job, without domestic worries and to earn more. Therefore I had contributed to the family income and therfore what he earned was earned by us both.

Well said, Doodledog! I went back to work when both of my children were three months old - not because I had to, but because I wanted to. Being a stay-at-home mum would have literally driven me insane. I look back now and wonder how the hell I did it, but I'm glad I did. It seems that even now, in 2022, women just can't win either way.

Exactly Doodledog. I've paid my dues all the way. And still can't retire until I'm 67. And yet I know women that either never returned to work after children or who worked part-time who retired at 60.

Children have two parents.

Why should it be the mother who gives up her career and remains financially dependent on her husband? Why should it be 'working mums' whose wages are spent on childcare, rather than have the costs take out of the family income? Why should it be older women who struggle on partial pensions, or are forced onto benefits like pension credit because they didn't contribute to NI when they were able to work? Why should women who have no choice but to work make NI payments to cover those of those who can afford to stay at home and get theirs paid for them - particularly if those women then make sneering remarks about not knowing why the working mums have children in the first place?

As there are two parents, why shouldn't working fathers come in for any of this scrutiny? Should working dads not have children if they can't stay at home with them? Is it possible for men to 'have it all'? Or is it different if they do, because they are men?

I was fortunate that when I returned to work after 7 years out, I had a part time job that fitted in with school times and holidays.

DS, who was 7 at the time, completely forgot that I was going back to work. I had been working for three days, when he heard DH asked something about my job, that he looked at me with amazement and said 'Do you go to work as well, mummy?'

Mind you, he has never lived down the comment he made when he was first told that I was going back to work. He looked at me in horror and said: 'Who is going to cook my dinner?'

My husband was quite enlightened, he didn’t really do his share, but he worked a lot more hours than I did, at the weekends he did his bit.
But I think we’re just different, if for example, we were all at home, and he realised he needed to pop out, he would pop out.
If I realised I needed to pop out, it would be, oh do you think you could keep an eye on the children for half an hour? X is in her room, Y and Z are in the garden, and then a list of instructions, I would never just walk out and assume that was ok.

I was perfectly happy at home. I was well educated, but an educated mother is good for children and it meant I didn’t find it difficult to occupy my brain. Frantic looking for someone to look after them would have added tension to the situation. I see it all the time. I was there if they were ill, I was there when they got home from school, as my mother had been. It seemed important to me.

That was exactly how we viewed it. Money was very tight, but I think it is for working mums paying for child care too.

I did not see my education as wasted by being at home for 5 years. It got me back into my career when the time was right, and it helped me to enrich my children's lives in so many ways.

I cannot stand hearing fathers saying b they're 'babysitting " their own children. You would never hear a mother saying that.

Some things haven’t changed I recently heard a man, probably in his 30s, telling a friend that he helps with the housework and babysits, instead of he does his share of the housework and stays in when his wife goes out.

I gave up work when I had children, and never went back. My marriage didn’t exactly go wrong, but my husband died (cancer) when he was forty. I had two primary aged children, and I thought they needed me at home. We had good insurance, and financially it was quite manageable although obviously we weren’t rich. The first thing I did was pay off the mortgage with the lump sum from the insurance policy.

I was perfectly happy at home. I was well educated, but an educated mother is good for children and it meant I didn’t find it difficult to occupy my brain. Frantic looking for someone to look after them would have added tension to the situation. I see it all the time. I was there if they were ill, I was there when they got home from school, as my mother had been. It seemed important to me.

o me.

I took 5 years out from my career to be with my children - I know it is not fashionable to say this, but I could not see the point in having them if I was not planning to bring them up.

I went back to work part time and my OH and I shared their care with a bit of nursery thrown in and mutual help from other Mums.

I would have found it very hard to put the children into nursery when they were small, and we were lucky to find a way of not having to do this - but finances were tight, even though we had saved my salary and managed on my OH's in preparation for having children.

I know I was always lucky to pick and choose my hours around the needs of the children.
I did use nursery, but never full time, and I took all the children to school and collected them everyday.
That’s not to say it was all plain sailing, I’ve often had to take sick children into work, and if I couldn’t arrange holiday clubs, I’d have to take them to work.
My friend and I often split our days, I would work all morning while she had the children, and I would take over at lunch time.
My husband was pretty hands on with them, but he always worked long hours.
We employed many women over the years, and their money was just a bit extra, they certainly could manage without it, I don’t think you’ll find that very often now.

Even though I did not work for 7 years when my children were tiny. Having worked in my profession for 7 years before my break, I was confident that I had reached a level where I could return to it with relative ease. I also used the years at home to study for a further qualification and thanks to my pre-preparation, and an element of luck, I got back to work quickly and soon returned to my previous career level and then upwards.

Thank goodness life has changed. Women who work, at least in professional jobs, are less likely to be left in poverty if the marriage breaks down.

My university educated mum was thrown into poverty that she never managed to get out of when she and my dad divorced in 1970.

I've always worked, thank god, and therefore divorce was only a blip for me, financially, and I was able to drag myself out of it again. It would have been a lot less possible if I hadn't been in work already. Friends who were housewives, were very vulnerable when their marriages broke down.

Childminders were around in the 1980s thankfully and although finding good childcare was hard, I have never regretted not working. I've been able to be financially independent and comfortable. Unlike my mum.

‘Just a housewife’ - Elusivebutterfly??

Some of us in the 80’s (DD2 was born in ‘83) had no access to Nurseries or family help. Some, like me, whose DH worked away from home had the house to run and all the jobs associated with it, as well as looking after ageing parents and in-laws.
Despite having a good education and reasonable qualifications it was just impractical to find a job - no flexible hours in those days. I know employers around here weren’t happy with women of childbearing age anyway. It was a personal question often asked at interviews about having babies. However I enrolled DD2 into a private nursery when she was 2 and did voluntary work in those few hours.
Both my DDs work full-time now and juggle family life and my DGSs, who are both in nurseries. I help out whenever I’m asked, but both are able to pay for things they can’t manage - cleaners, decorators and garden maintenance.

Yes, OP how life has changed.

Monica absolutely correct that both parents should have equal opportunities in career paths. I think the point is more the pressure and necessity to do it at the cost to family life. I also truly believe some have children when they really shouldn’t because they really don’t have time or make time for them.

I agree with Luckygirl, VintageJazz and others

Some of my friends who have degrees and good qualifications never did go back to work after they had children.
Was their education wasted? Possibly although most, not all, contributed enthusiastically to society by doing voluntary work.
I went back after the youngest started school but it did take some juggling.

Back in the late 1970s, when I was returning to work after 7 years out, I used the time out to get further professional qualifications, that advanced my career quite rapidly when I did return
Some young parents (mothers) don't take any time out apart from the statutory maternity leave and they must find it stressful to juggle a career, childcare etc.
Perhaps they are wearing themselves to a frazzle for necessary financial reasons, if so I feel sorry for them.
If to advance their careers perhaps they could afford to pay for some more help which would benefit the whole family.

It seems impossible to get the right balance
I agree it is now, there is too much pressure on young women today.

Guardian 2001 - over 20 years ago!

Superwoman is a myth. Twenty-five years after author Shirley Conran made millions by telling us that life was 'too short to stuff a mushroom', new research shows women still believe they cannot have children and a career without feeling stressed, exhausted and guilty
Have things improved?
It wouldn't seem so.

I started work in a local bank when I was 16, in 1969. Was told after 5 years, I would qualify for a ‘marriage gratuity’ of £200. (Women were not in the bank pension scheme back then).

Five years away seemed like an eternity, but £200 back then would have been a deposit on a house. The thought of me being 21 seemed incomprehensible.

If I thought of the future back then, I had visions of being married with a couple of children, after which I would never return to work, just be a housewife and mother.

It didn’t happen quite like that, but sometimes it seems to me that in many ways it was easier when the man was the breadwinner and the woman the homemaker.

I know this concept is unthinkable and unmentionable nowadays.

Vintagejazz It doesn't strike me as logical anyway.

Nowadays, when women have been in the workplace for years, even decades, before they have children, what ever their level of work, they will have many years of experience in their job and for some, climbed a long way up their career laddes before they have children, so getting back on the run, admittedly a rung or two down the ladder, but quickly caught up, really ought not be a problem, especially if you use the time at home wisely to keep up with developments in your profession, perhaps obtaining further qualifications.

Back in the late 1970s, when I was returning to work after 7 years out, I used the time out to get further professional qualifications, that advanced my career quite rapidly when I did return.

Luckygirl3

Let us hope that the pendulum will drift to the middle at some point.

A lot of the discussions on Mumsnet are based on the idea that if you want to climb the career ladder you need to get straight back to work; and also that you need to keep up career wise in order to have some financial independence, should your marriage go tits up. Often when posters are saying they want to stay at home and look after the children they are counselled against that as they would be vulnerable if they found themselves single. Seems a bit pessimistic.

Yes I find that advice quite bleak and sad. Of course marriages break down but pre empting that to the extent that you force yourself to leave your children and go out to work, even though you don't want to, seems pessimistic and depressing.

Being the daughter of a working mother and a father, who in 1950, was perfectly happy to push a pram, change a nappy, shop, feed a baby. cook etc etc - a new man several generations ahead of the trend - I always found any tv programme I watched that based its premise on a home based or a working ditsy mother who did the housework while her idiot husband read the paper so alien, it probably contributed to my lack of interest in watching tv, which means i am also spared the reruns of those irritating series.

In the 1950s, when I was growing up I was quite clear that if I married and had children, I would want to get back to work as soon as possible and when that happened I was back to work when my DD was 4, that was in 1978, so I was a working mother throughout the 1980s My first job had hours that suited school times and DH and I portioned out our leave and signed the children up for sports classes to deal with holidays.

I am quite proud to look back over my family history on my mother's side and going back 3 generations to the 1870s, all the women, married or not, worked, often from necessity, but two generations, my mother and myself, from choice.

Agree Vintage. There’s no choice nowadays whether you would like to stay home or be in paid work. As others have said, expectations were also much lower in the ‘70s, most people would rent, many had second hand furniture and white goods, not many had phones and two cars were the exception rather than the rule. I remember women saying they worked for ‘pin money’, now they need to, to manage.