Why can't they cope?

Well, I suppose we were made of sterner stuff. I must admit my husband was also away, but 8n Africa we had crèches and kindergartens, we made it work.

I worked full t8me, always.

I think parents today have different expectations than we did - maternity leave and keeping your job open for you, maternity pay, nurseries available, school nurseries starting at 3 years instead of having to wait until your child was 5, holidays that are themed around families rather than couples, places to eat out ditto. Because my late DH and I didn't have childcare we didn't go out as a couple for many years until we could safely leave our DC at home (teens). Holidays were camping in South Wales. We only had a computer because DH was able to build one himself (and repair it). No mobile phones - DH had a pager from work but that was it. DC didn't get mobile phones until they could pay for them. My DGC all have a phone, laptop etc. I do admit I volunteered to babysit when DGC were tiny onwards so my DD and (now ex) SIL could have Friday night/Saturday day to themselves as this was something I never had with DH. I still babysit so DD can go out with her friends once a month or so - I think it is important that she can have a social life, she works hard in a demanding job to pay the mortgage (ex SIL has come out of work so he pays nothing) and bills. I think every generation moans - and the generation before thinks how on earth would they have coped with our lives.

I must admit, several young but distant relatives or children of friends post tales of parenting woe as if they are martyrs. They want recognition for doing the job that's been done for thousands of years - mostly in less comfortable surroundings.

Things like being woken in the night, getting up early for the school run, teething children, children being grizzly, sitting in on a Saturday night, not being able to go out etc. They are greeted with

"Oh poor you. It's awful. Are you OK hun?"

The replies of sympathy and horror make me smile.I want to say "Just get on with it! That's what you signed up for when you got pregnant"

It's the end of the world, isn't it?

Then they post about the bliss of packing the children off to the grandparents and having 'us time'. Or the holidays they have booked or the weekends away, minus children. Oh I am sure there are parents who have few luxuries but they all seem to post about their misfortunes and need recognition.

I really want to laugh but at times I get cross and hope they count their blessings. Child care/parenting has never been easy but we have a generation who seem to think they are exceptional and brave because they are coping with it.

Luckily I'm not a friend on social media of my AC. That saves us all from embarrassment.
My parents' generation had a hard time, no doubt, and thought we were snowflakes, probably.
We had a washing machine and our own house! We got to go out occasionally. We had babysitting circles and playgroups. We did DIY. It was mostly fun. I didn't stay in a hotel until quite recently because our holidays were always camping with all the kids and the dog.

Our AC do expect a different lifestyle. They are told you must have a new baby car seat incase a 2nd hand one has been in a crash. You mustn't have a 2nd hand cot mattress because it could harbour bacteria which could kill a baby.
Have you seen the price of new buggies?
It seems a pity that our "old wife" advice is less important than what they hear from the media.

MOnica My two children were born within the first four years of our marriage. My own mother's words will always stay with me 'You made your bed etc etc'. said to me when she was on one of her in/frequent ! visits and I had shed a few tears over both her GC full of coughs and sneezes and DH had been 'on call' and had worked through out the night
I accepted to have 'made my bed' but unlike my mother ,I vowed to be there for my own children. in whatever way I could. Why not?what parent would not want, for their children what they them selves not had.
In moderation' which like many things in life frequently ignored. Hence the word 'snowflakes'.
The ' view from the bridge' is of myself as a grandparent who has been happy to give ' support' to her children which I cannot see to be as' coddling.'.

Coy, My mum told me the same. Difference was she didn’t offer to have the children. Our ‘time together’ was in the evening, after the children were in bed, though we wouldnt have had the money to go out anyway. We literally had to count the pennies.

My stepson and his wife told us they didn’t have money to get a babysitter so they could attend my father in laws funeral which was a two hour drive from them. So we gave them money the sitter would charge for eight hours. They came to the funeral . The next weekend I see on FB pictures of their food they are eating at a fancy restaurant and of their hotel room they got for a get away weekend while the other grandparent babysat.
Our blood was boiling.

I do think some young parents today seem to expect to have 'free time', date nights, etc.

My mother who was born nearly a 100 years ago told me it is very important to have to time alone with your partner/husband when you have children. She helped me to have time off and I help my dd to have time off.

I also found when I was a young mother that I needed "me time".

But the main thing I get from this is that we are all different. In my lifetime I've met a mother of ten who still had her figure, her looks and her sanity and people who can't cope with just one child. Why a mother and her daughter being different should be generalised to a generational problem I don't understand.

I married and moved to Sweden didnt know the language for a year, didnt know anyone except my husbands family who were great, we had our Daughter a year later but I didnt have any help except when my Mum and Dad visited from the UK, I just got on with things, didnt actually think about it, its only when people talk about their experiences I realise what I did, must add my Husband was a gem,I wish he was still around.

paganqueen. I too have feelings similar to yours, sometimes making me feel very guilty as if I am being judgemental. I had a very tough time, dealing with a difficult husband while I was doing several jobs, then becoming a young widow and dealing with moving house and doing some difficult things to provide a home for them. Sometimes as I see how easy their lives are by comparison I just realise it is a totally different world now. Sadly they will probably never know what I went through. However, for me the worst thing is the feeling that we have very little in common now. Their outlook is so different.

My daughter gets or rather got, plenty of support from us. She has 3 children (their choice) and a husband who works two jobs. She has been doing a part time job (every other week 9.30 to 1.30). We've always been supportive - childminding the occasional weekend to give them a break, baby sitting and helping with ferrying them back and forth for swimming lessons. Financial support when we thought they might need it. However a few weeks ago the straw that broke the camel's back happened.

We went to help with their bathroom renovations. My OH (not her Dad incidentally) was in the bathroom from 10:30am all day cutting out old mastic remasticking and regrouting. While DD took youngest to Football I helped eldest GS with homework, then took their dog for a walk. Came back and cleaned the house. DD comes back eventually and I went to buy some bits for lunch which her OH prepared. She was very down and I know, like myself, suffers from clinical depression. Lots of tears and 'can't cope' moments. Finally got home and next day we see on FB pictures (posted by her elder half sister), DD having a whale of a time with drink in hand having gone out at 2..30 the next day while her OH struggling to cope with three children. They have this ridiculous idea that 'well the children have fathers why shouldn't they do their bit'. This half sister has been a constant bad influence on my DD throughout her life. I do regret not moving away to put some miles between them.

So we have a sort of stand off as we have now withdrawn all support as to be honest we feel cross and used. I brought up my two children as a single parent and not once would I dream of having this ridiculous 'me time' they go on about these days. I can only come to the conclusion that they are a selfish generation with only thoughts of their own entitlement.

I do think social media and advertising plays a huge part in this.

Adverts always show blissfully happy families, in frankly ridiculously enormous houses, with new cars, and angelic children. And although everyone knows they are not real life, I think it drip drip drips into the mind that "this is what everyone's life should be".

For the most part, people post the good part of their lives only - or fabricate tales of how good their lives are - and therefore everyone thinks that all their friends are living wonderful lives, and if their own situation doesn't match up, they feel as though they are failing.

I think "our generation" don't really understand the pressures and influences of social media, because we didn't have any of it. I also think a lot of us are too quick to condemn the "younger generations" because they don't have it as tough as we did and don't behave and react the way that we do/did.

Just because their tough times aren't as bad as our tough times were, doesn't mean they're not valid. No doubt the generation currently being raised by our own sons and daughters will also have their problems, which our offspring will roll their eyes at.

If we always agree with our AD’s then they will think they are always right, when it’s often not the case.
It’s a fine line between sympathising with them and telling them to get a grip!

My dh worked long hours I had two young children, it was tough but we managed. My mum bless her had arthritis she suffered very much. I had to get on with it.
In the 70s men didn’t do a lot in the family home anyway.

Maybe you could just gently point out that he has been working all day when when he looks after the child and try to change the subject when she starts to moan. It can get to be a habit and a difficult one to get out of, probably harder with Asperger's.
Would she withdraw contact if you didn't agree with the moans? I think in any relationship people have to be able to occasionally disagree as long as they don't do it harshly or make it sound like a personal insult but it can be difficult.

I was 31 when I had my first child. We had been married for 9 years when I had worked to put my husband through university. We then had to wait for a couple of years to conceive so had quite an affluent life style with time for myself but I was more than happy to give all this up when I had children.
I think general attitudes have changed.

I think one big difference is that increasingly women are having several years of independent living and freedom of choice - and "me time" before the children arrive, making it more of a wrench when they find themselves constrained. In my youth the pattern was that you were a financially constrained teen, then immediately went to being a financially struggling young mum, then when the kids left home you'd be in your 40s and that's when you'd have several years of gradually becoming better off and having more freedom. We didn't have those inbetween relatively affluent years like today's older parents, so we didn't feel we were giving up so much.

I cannot understand parents who want to have holidays without the children. We used to go camping every year in France, it wasn't too far from Holland, for three weeks and it was an absolute joy to be together as a family.
I had never heard of date night!

I had my first baby when living in Germany. It was sink or swim because I had no family to fall back on. Hubby worked full time, and didn't consider helping in any way. He never changed a nappy for either of the children. Babies were women's work. We didn't have holidays and had one car between us, which of course he took to work.

My own daughter has 4 children and a lot of help. She expects to have a date night at least once a week. They also go away for weekends on their own frequently. They have at least one holiday abroad on their own every year. This is what she expects and this is what she gets. - wowee!!!!

Todays parents have totally different expectations and I don't think that media has helped at all. They seem to feel that they can and should have it all instantly!
Bringing up children is never easy - even though some seem to expect it to be so! I was lucky that when my son was little (my marriage broke up when he was 10 months old and I had to return from Australia with him) my mum used to push me out the door every Monday afternoon so I could go into town on my own - she did similar for all her grandchildren, having them to stay at weekends etc.
After losing 2 babies before him, with stillbirth and miscarriage, I was just so thankful he was here that I never thought about "me time" so really don't understand the concept at all! You can only be supportive, that's all I guess.

I think there are too main differences between when we were young parents and our children's generation.

Most of us women had experience as baby sitters, or big sisters to younger sisters and brothers before we grew up and had our own babies. Nowadays a lot of young parents have literally no idea of the amount of work looking after a baby entails.

Our generation hadn't invented "me time" - any wife or mother who complained about not having time for herself would have been regarded either as incredibly selfish or as a bad manager.

Anyone else hearing echoes of mother or mother-in-law saying "If you planned your week properly, you would have time to do everything". I can hear my grandmother telling my mother that if she did the mending every Saturday night, it would always be manageable!

I don't think there is really anything, OP, that you can do about the moaning and groaning, because pointing out the realities of parenting won't make you popular.

When my younger daughter was 3 months old my husband took a new job 100 miles away and so we moved to a new area. I missed the support of my MIL. My own parents lived abroad at the time.

I can remember feeling lonelier than I ever had before then. We had very little money and it was very hard on my own with two small children. What I missed most of all was the emotional support.

When I look back on those years it is all a sort of blur, like the dark ages.

My own daughter has 4 children and a lot of help. She expects to have a date night at least once a week. They also go away for weekends on their own frequently. They have at least one holiday abroad on their own every year. This is what she expects and this is what she gets. There is still a lot of moaning about the burden of child care.

"Me time" !!!!! - certainly not a concept when I was young and bringing up a family.

But every generation has its different challenges I guess.

Lesley4357

I totally agree with you. I have a lovely friend who is just the same with her married with two children daughter. She is also like it with her cohabiting with two children son. Constantly texting and phoning each other. I have known her get out of bed at 2am and drive 400 miles to son when his car broke down and once when daughter was in another city 150 miles away and her boyfriend (now husband) had had an argument with his parents she called mum and at 1.00am she got out of bed and drove there and back. There are so many incidents of her getting calls over the most trivial nonsense. Even on holiday she is constantly on the phone to her grown up children. As you say, it’s co dependency and both sides feed off it.