Do you still follow old routines your parents did years ago ??

My Mum and Dad both worked shifts, (Police and Nursing) so there were absolutely no set routines in our house.
They made sure that one of them was always at home with me, and in school holidays I went to my Grandparents who lived about 10 minutes walk away!
I even married a shift worker, and although I didn't work shifts per se, I did work what would be classed as unsociable hours, some late evenings, occasional weekends, including Sundays during the school summer holidays, so our life had no routine until we retired, and now we don't need routine, so we don't bother!

No I don't follow my lovely Mum's routines. Mainly because my ex husband worked different shifts every week. He also worked away for varying amounts of time, the longest being 6 months. I worked different shifts when I did nursing in Hospitals and Care Homes. My life at home was never routine after I got married.

K

A clue in your name
Tanjamaltejer , but before I read it - I was really intrigued by your language .

If it sounds like Arabic , but is written in Latin script so it has to be Maltese , right ?

No, my mother did everything by routine and I hated it. I haven't purposely avoided routines just never really kept to one (seems like a whole other pressure) - if something needs doing I do it. Same with dinner time, my parents had food at 1pm whether anyone was there or not!!! I can't eat like that - prefer to find out when everyone is hungry and then we eat.

We have a children's rhyme about this: It-Tnejn nibdew bil-ħasla,
It- Tlieta ftit mgħodija
L- Erbgha nsaqqu l-pjanti
Il-Ħamis naraw iz-zija
Il-Ġimgħa nsaqqu l-qsari
Is-Sibt nikinsu d-dar
Il-Ħadd nohorgu dawra,
U ngħidu ż-żmien kif tar!
...

Monday we begin with the laundry,
Tuesday we do the ironing
On Wednesday we water the plants
On Thursday we visit my aunt
Friday we water the plants
On Saturday we sweep the house
Sunday we go for a walk,
And wonder about how time flies!

These days I do things on an ad hoc basis.

My Mum also had set days for doing things when we were children, eg, Monday was wash day as it used to take most of the day (no automatic washing machines for us back then, but a wash tub with a spinning tub alongside it - hard physical work).
Tuesday would be ironing day, not sure what Wednesday was, but no doubt something like window cleaning. Thursday was dusting & vacuuming throughout the house, Friday was “town” day to go to the market for fish, fruit & veg and possibly material if Mum was making some clothes for us. Saturday was baking day and Sunday was prepping and cooking Sunday lunch (dinner) for 2 pm, and later prepping tea. She allowed herself a little rest to read, too.
In between times were daily visits to the shops for bread, supermarket essentials, pay the papers bill or other bills, etc, (Not milk, we had that delivered).
It makes me feel exhausted just relating to you what she did 😲😁.
I don’t have set days for most things, but do tend to change the bedding on a Thursday. Washing gets done as and when there’s a load (the beauty of the automatic washer). I think that’s the thing nowadays, certain tasks don’t take all day to complete like they used to do, so we can be more flexible as to when we do them, owning a car means trips to the supermarket can be whenever we need to go. Mum never had a car, so daily trips to the shops were necessary due to the need to carry the shopping by hand, not being able to load it all into the boot of a car in one trip.

My mum made jelly and blancmange in a rabbit shaped mould too! I don’t think I still have it, it was in her kitchen when she died. I think it was green. I didn’t do it - terrible mother! But by way of defence, I did at least make jelly and blancmange (from packets).

My Mum made Scotch pancakes the shape of chickens & made blancmange in a rabbit mould,both these things I have done for my children & grandchildren.

I am retired so I now do jobs when I want to or feel like doing them. I shop online when I need something. My 90 year old friend has to do her washing on a certain day, clean on a certain day and change her bed on a certain day. If I suggest going out on Wednesday she says no as she is going to Morrisons for her weekly shop. If I suggest going out on a Tuesday, she has to take her library books back.

I cannot understand it. I once asked her why she has certain days to do things and she told me that if she does not stick to her system she will get stressed.

When I was working I did have regular routines but now, I do things when I want to or feel like doing them.

I have set routines for business otherwise my customers would never get their orders!

So far as housework is concerned my mother had the same routines as many of you - washing on monday, ironing on tuesday and so on.

Housework has always had quite a low priority with me and involved a lot of procastination in the past. I dont have a routine for that, I just employ a cleaner who has their own routines.

Nope. I just see a need and meet it. I'll never achieve the sparkling home my Mum did. Nor do I want to. However it was a very happy diamond and I always tried/try to emulate that.

paris123

All interesting memories, thank you, im enjoying reading them. I also now remember the meals we ate that l still seem to usually still follow. ie sheppard pie on Mondays, stew on Tues, Toad in Hole on Wednesday, Thursday rest of stew made into suet pud, Friday is still fish chips mushy pea for him, salad for me,. Saturday we had and sometimes still do have, is boiled eggs and toast in winter and hm quiche in summer. Sundays l rarely cook a roast, its usually a hotpot, but l still do a old fashions high tea.
l remember when mom shopped for the weekend joint from our local butchers she always came home with a bag full of diff cakes etc week ,ie either custard tarts, or jam doughnuts ect. We never , ever had cake in the week but a few biscuits with a cuppa at bedtime. On Saturday when shopping she always bought her weekly magazine ie womens own, which she read with cuppa after the shopping. There was always a afternoon film on a Saturday (usually a comedy or cowboy film) which we kids watched if we couldnt go out to play in our large back garden.. l seem to have always been playing in that lovely large garden with the old apple tree at the top. l think l rarely stayed inside if the weather was ok. Sundays afternnon film was usually a serious black and white film . Our Sunday roast dinner was always at 2pm on the dot. After his Sunday morning gardening, dad went to the lovely old pub for a pint and would bring back for us kids a pack of sweets each. Saturdays we had our few pence pocket money for a comic and triangle paper bag of 2oz sweets and spent ages trying to decide what we wanted to buy from the jars of sweets in the shop lol. We had a local butcher, fish chip shop, newsagents, tiny supermarket and the chemist which l absolutely loved to go in as it smelled so scented with all the bathsalts, soaps etx on display. The pub was a large manor type building with a rose garden grounds to sit in, So lovely as its was only a 5 min walk from our house . It had an old fashion bowling green attached to the pub and we kids loved to sit in grounds looking though the rose fence watching all the old biddies bowling in their all whites..Mom would rest after the morning housework, Monday her hardest day with all the sheets on the line and do some knitting. or read her mag. Tea was always at 6pm, bedtime at 8pm where we could read our comics or Christmas Annuals or library books etc till about 9pm. Everything was so near to us, ie the schools, buses, shops and 3 lovely parks which had boating lakes and a ice cream cafe on a bank, The centre islands of the lakes were filled with Purple Rhododendrone One of the parks had a small nature area that was called a 'dingle' l wrote poem about it on a poetry forum and our american neighbours were fasinated as new heard of the term dingle.
l seem to still follow all these routines and meal plans without even thinking about it, after all these years.
ps please do forgive my spelling, my eyes are still bad and i' im too tired to look up the corrects...
im looking forward to reading more of eveyones memories.

Just wanted to say I absolutely loved reading your memories, you should write them all down for your grandchildren!

Fairycakes

I was only talking about this to my husband yesterday. I told him that when my mum was young, all the neighbours followed the same routines. There was a day for washing windows, a day for scrubbing doorsteps (and woe betide any that left theirs looking mucky 😆) days for laundry and shopping. My mum sounded nostalgic talking about it. I think routines are a positive thing. I try to follow a routine at home - not quite the same as in my mum's day. I don't scrub the doorstep - not yet, anyway 😆 but I follow a system of cleaning (Flylady) which is fun and gives a feeling of community. I wonder if it gave the housewives of old a feeling of community when they all did the same chores on the same day.

For me, i remember everything was routine in the 1950s, like a schools times table. But everyone who l knew was a housewife and non went out to work. So those who did, life was very different.
Shops closed half day weekends and all day Sundays. Milkman del 5 or 6am, post early morning and twice a day.
Pubs closed at 2 or 3pm Sundays.
Baby clinic's on Tuesdays. Markets on a thurs or Saturday.
Neighbours would pop in for a cuppa for 11's * never afternoons ) but stayed no more the 10 min for a quick gossip. Afternoons baby was wrapped up warm and taken to the shops in large pram or put out side in the garden.
All l remember is that everything had a set time lol.

My mother always washed on a Monday and ironed on Tuesday; apart from that I don't really know what she did the other days, as I was at school. She always baked on a Saturday morning, as I remember Saturday Club on the radio as I watched her. Always a fruit pie for Sunday, jam tarts, a treacle tart, sometimes a meat pie for Saturday lunch; and then she would make a chocolate cake for Sunday tea.

I used to have routines when I worked, but now retired I just do stuff as and when. She would think I was very slapdash!.

I was only talking about this to my husband yesterday. I told him that when my mum was young, all the neighbours followed the same routines. There was a day for washing windows, a day for scrubbing doorsteps (and woe betide any that left theirs looking mucky 😆) days for laundry and shopping. My mum sounded nostalgic talking about it. I think routines are a positive thing. I try to follow a routine at home - not quite the same as in my mum's day. I don't scrub the doorstep - not yet, anyway 😆 but I follow a system of cleaning (Flylady) which is fun and gives a feeling of community. I wonder if it gave the housewives of old a feeling of community when they all did the same chores on the same day.

gillyjp

The only routine (or maybe I should say ritual?) that has stuck for me is the making of tea. Boil the kettle warm the pot with a little of the hot water, add the tea, pour on the boiling water taking the teapot to the kettle. Brew for three minutes. I still have to have my tea made in a teapot. Really don't like teabag in a mug style. The only concessions to this is I use teabags now and don't bother with a teacosy. My mother worked from when I was 2 years old which was almost unheard of back in 1954. My father always helped with cooking etc.

You have reminded me of my oldest sister who still does that.
Shes in her 80's and refuses point blank to use tea bags, it has to be loose tea.
She always uses a tea pot and it has to be warmed first, then l teaspoon tea per person and one for the pot lol.
it has to be fresh boiled water. she still only uses china cups and sauces. Its a real tea drinking ritual when any one visits her.
Her last visit to me, l got out my tea service, just for her, but no teapot or loose tea. She wrote to say thank me for not serving her tea in a coffee mug, which she said her friends always do lol.
l have elderly 2 sisters and 4 brothers... l will have to ask if they follow our parents routines still. l know my oldest sister did, the 80 yrs, as l used to stay weekends when l stayed over night as a teenager l used to as baby sit her 2 children. l also remember l often visited her when she had her new baby and l remember she had wash on Mondays etc. l remember walking with her to the baby clinic on Tuesdays to get baby weighed on a large metal bucket scales after baby was striped down to his flannel nappy. It was like something out of 'call the midwife' lol.

My mother's routine was geared to the fact that the shirts my father wore in his practice and the towels and white coats from his consulting-room were picked up by the laundry on Tuesdays and returned on Thursdays. So laundry was sorted on Mondays, and the clothes that were washed at home were washed on Mondays. Bed linen and bath towels were changed then too.

The consulting-room and waiting-room were cleaned daily, hall and front door-step on Mondays and if needed on Wednesdays.

Our rooms were cleaned on Fridays, shopping done when my mother was out picking us up from school.

When I moved away from home I established my own routine, washing on the week-day when I had fewest classes to attend, shopping done on the way home from the Academy of Music, or while waiting for a practice room to be free (we booked them in advance), cleaning on Thursday evenings in the week where there were not concerts I either took part in or attended to hear my class-mates play in.

I stuck to the Thursday evening cleaning routine when I started working full-time and did washing either before going to work, or after I came home. Ironing whenever the washing was dry.

My mother had a routine ( not in the war years) Monday was washing day and the back kitchen floor was always awash from lifting the washing out of the boiler with two big sticks. When I was around I had to mop the floor ( I was hopeless) On Tuesday mum did the ironing and in Wednesday she covered the dining table in our only living room which had a black stove fire . First she woukd clean that stove until it shined with a poypt of something shich she called “blacking” and after that all the brasses she had.were on that table to be cleaned with brasso. Thursday was my favourite day as dad had half a day holiday (he worked at the co-op) This was after the war and mum sand dad took me into Liverpool city centre and we went to the pictures or if something was on that they fancied we would go to live theatre at the Empire. On Sundays we went to Knotty Ash to grandmas house where all my mums siblings, husbands abd children would gather for tea. In the summer we would meet at Lime Street station to catch the train to nearby beach resorts for the day. I loved thise weekends. I can talk as much as my mum and still use a lot of her sayings. I have quite a few of her brasses which are kept shining. But sadly she died in Australia at 50: of a chronic heart disease which I inherited but I was lucky and had a metal valve inserted for which I am very grateful. I loved my mum and think about her often. I think I am like her and as my sister always said “ you have a big mouth just like mum”

I didn't think I did, but then realised that I always put water in the kettle last thing before bed, for the morning cuppa.

Only routine I can recall was the washing was done on a Monday. Due to the amount of labour and time involved (old fashioned boiler, double washing sink and wringer) we always just had a really thick broth for our dinner. Suppose the pot was put on the stove and cooked away with little atrention needed. I don't follow tgat. A really big tradition was the cleaning of the house from top to bottom, everything inside out for New Year. All tge dirt of the old year had to be cleared out for the New Year's dirt to be allowed in. I did follow this for a few years once married but as I moved house quite a bit I gave up in the 70s. Or, I realised how stupid that tradition was.

The only routine (or maybe I should say ritual?) that has stuck for me is the making of tea. Boil the kettle warm the pot with a little of the hot water, add the tea, pour on the boiling water taking the teapot to the kettle. Brew for three minutes. I still have to have my tea made in a teapot. Really don't like teabag in a mug style. The only concessions to this is I use teabags now and don't bother with a teacosy. My mother worked from when I was 2 years old which was almost unheard of back in 1954. My father always helped with cooking etc.

We set up a new routine (timetable) during the first lockdown. What survives of it is home-made curry on Sundays, with the leftovers on Tuesdays, Saturday night watching a drama or film on TV Sunday nights an opera (we have a subscription to the Met), Tuesday nights a crime series. And we have always done the weekly accounts on a Saturday morning. I don't think my parents did any of these things. Husband does the washes on Saturday and cleaner does the ironing on Wednesdays. We have our own things we do routinely, like my Nordic walks on a Tuesday morning and his zoom classes on a Monday afternoon. We both do the supermarket shop on a Wednesday afternoon. So plenty of routine but our parents would not recognise our lives!

My sister can rembered eating different things on different days of the week. And my mum used to wash on a Monday iron on a Tuesday strip the beds on a weekend. Some I do without thinking it was a routine. Definitely follow Christmas routines though even polish my apples so they look rosy like my mum did!

No. I do my own thing, as and when suits me.

midgey

I remember my dad taking us to the sweet shop with our ration cards, buying our sweets in triangle bags. Saturday treat with dad!

I'd forgotten all about those triangular sweet bags, nice memory!