My experience of mothering in the ’80s, compared to today

While I was busy in the ’80s as a mum, I was super lucky to have a retired English nanny living nearby who would come look after my boys for a few hours here and there. We loved this lady and the boys called her “our Kate.” Often, I had to do wages and pay bills for my husband’s business and run errands, or she would look after the boys while I volunteered at the local hospice.

I also had her look after my youngest son when the others were at school so I could join a craft class to make teddy bears. (You can see the results of my efforts in the photo accompanying this blog!). The class included a small group of women of all ages and that weekly catch-up was deceptively a saving grace for me as a mum. Part of it was doing a creative activity while having a chat and I realise how fewer mums today have that opportunity because it has gotten so much harder to keep all the balls in the air.

In traditional communities, women were surrounded by other women to help support them through all the challenges of life. We have lost that supportive village and yet raising kids is just as tricky.

In March this year, together with Dr Vanessa Lapointe and many wonderful helpers, we ran two one-day retreats for mothers. One of the exercises was to write on post-it notes the thoughts and feelings they had about being a mum (and you can read some of those messages in a previous blog I wrote about raising children who like themselves).

Those messages were heartbreaking as so many mums felt they were failing, that they were terrible mothers and that their kids would be better off with a different kind of mother.

I have been hearing this sense of overwhelm, exhaustion and failure increasingly from mums over the past 10 years. The mental load is a huge part of this sense of overwhelm and it causes many mums to lay awake for hours reviewing every decision they’ve made, beating themselves up because the kids didn’t eat broccoli at dinner, or berating themselves because they shouted instead of staying calm. Women are wired and socialised to want to continually improve who they are and how they turn up in the world.

PLEASE NOTE: I want to say here that in addressing this article to mums, I am not attempting to imply that dads don’t worry about their kids and I’d hate any man reading this to think that. Of course Dads worry and care – I talk to them about this regularly on my The Good Enough Dad podcast! It’s just that there is some evidence that shows that ruminating loops of worrisome thoughts seem to be more common in women than men. And I am writing this blog from my experience as a mum, to mums today. I hear a lot that dads tend to fall asleep much more quickly than ruminating mammas!

So what has made it harder for today’s mums in Australia?

I decided to do a comparison to how it was when I was raising my lads in the 1980s. They were born in 1981, 1983, 1985 and 1989. So I had little boys and primary school-aged boys right throughout that decade.

Sometimes my own sons have said to me, “How did you do it Mum?” Their dad was a busy country vet who was gone for long hours and so it was mainly me at home. I was very lucky that three of my best girlfriends were also having babies around the same time and so we spent time together at each other’s houses – especially when things were hard. My usual response to this question from my boys is, “well, you were outside a lot” – and they were.

On thinking more deeply about it though, I realise there were so many things that I didn’t have to contend with as a mother in the 80s, which today’s mums do have to contend with.

There was less pressure to be a perfect parent, or to be in a kind of competition with other parents raising kids. There was less judgement too.

I have often said what children need to grow and thrive has not changed. The world around our children and our families is what has changed.

Cumulatively all these changes impact the capacity for a parent to cope, and that’s not taking into account any major adversity. It’s also especially true for mums, who research consistently shows are typically the main organisers of the family.

What life was like for mums in the 80s:

• There were only a few parenting books.
• Nobody was really doing parent education or seminars.
• Play was valued.
• School started in Year 1 when kids turned six (it did vary in some states).
• Cassette players and VHS tapes were common (and taught us patience!)
• Halloween wasn’t really a thing in Australia.
• There was no NAPLAN.
• Book week was not such a big deal (I even forgot it once).
• No kids or adults used water bottles – we used taps or bubblers.
• No smart phones yet.
• There was no social media: No WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat or TikTok. In fact there was no INTERNET! That means…
  • No Black Friday sales
  • No QR codes
  • No iPads, tablets
  • No Dr Google
  • No YouTube
  • No gaming, Minecraft, Roblox
  • No digital news services
  • No Smart TVs
  • No streaming services
  • No AI – so no deep fakes or chatbots
  • No ‘influencers’
  • No Amazon
  • No 24/7 news cycle
  • No photo clouds (we had to get our photos on film developed, often at the local chemist)
  • No Bluey (can you even imagine??!)

Additionally:

• There was no botox or fillers.
• Only one note came home from school in the school bag, per family, each week. No constant messaging in group chats.
• It was common for kids to walk or ride home from primary school.
• There was a village.
• Neighbourhood play was alive and well.
• Kitchen appliances didn’t make noises.
• Road maps were in books – no GPS.
• There was no pilates (we had aerobics).
• Also, we didn’t have Sudoku.
• There were no podcasts, just radio shows.
• We paid cash as we didn’t have EFTPOS (or payments via phones, watches or rings).
• We had to shop in store. There was no ‘click and collect’ (although you could phone orders through to some shops).
• There were no Reality TV shows (and a LOT of bawdy British comedies).
• The main kids’ shows were Play School and Sesame Street in the mornings.
• Houses were affordable and mortgages could mostly be covered with one income. (Sacrifices had to be made when interest rates hit an all-time high, but some argue the hike wasn’t comparable to the current housing situation).

There are so many things in that list that make life a lot more convenient, but the double-edged sword is these same things often add to parents’ cognitive load!

I have already written about how when we give birth, we women take on another identity, one that is wired “to care” thanks partly to oestrogen, the bonding neurochemical. Navigating two identities can be tricky too.

As I wrote:

We now know that fathers can be the primary carers of the children and they can learn to ‘mother’ children for want of a better word. Being a caring human means that often most women will also be caring for their extended families, their parents, their neighbours and definitely their closest friends. To be a carer for all of these people requires constant monitoring of each of these relationships and all of the needs to be met in those relationships.

That’s a lot of mind space that gets taken up in ‘the need to care for others’ part of the brain.

Over-caring for others and neglecting ourselves is also common for many mums. If a woman experiences a sense of feeling unloved, or being not good enough, or not deserving of love (this was me), we can become both an over-carer and a people-pleaser. Heck, that really stokes the voice of the inner critic at night and it also stokes the need to review every decision we have made in any given day to see how we could improve or do it better. We are never enough!

It really is the world that has changed, which has created all these extra stressors for mums today, so maybe you can put the stick down that you beat yourself up with. My free audio might be helpful to turn off your inner critic!

Whether you’re a mum or a dad, or a step-parent, foster parent or kinship carer, your children just need a good-enough parent, around 30 to 40% of the time, to grow up to be okay. That assumes there is a secure, loving connection of course.

As you look at the long list above it might be helpful to work out which of those things is causing you the most stress and anxiety, and maybe try to tame that. There are lots of suggestions in this blog that may be helpful.

One thing that has research to support it is that gratitude first thing in the morning and last thing at night can make a difference. It’s simple, easy and worth a go. Heck, we even did it in the 80s!

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Image supplied by the author