moms today v their moms

Thank you all so much. You have all more or less told me exactly the same as my mom told me earlier. I need to cut myself some slack and listen to my instincts a bit more. The ironing and dusting will still be there another day but my kids will only be little once.

Jalima you are so right about those awful round robins some people insist on sending with their Christmas cards. Not sure which is worst the boastful ones or the ones which detail all their health issues and problems they have had over the year.
It's a great temptation to send them something totally over the top like a picture of my haemorrhoids or to say one of my children is in line for a Nobel prize.
But of course I don't.

Every generation has its pros and cons. At one point mothers were generally expected to stay home to be housewives/mothers now that is reversed. If you were someone who wanted a career and hated housework being a 50s woman may have been tough! If, now, you prefer to be a home-maker and bring up your children full time you may find that tough to achieve!

We need to get to a point of more mutual respect whereby we value individual's contributions to society equally and stop being so judgemental if people do not fit "our" view of the "right way" to be!

Because of my terrible upbringing, all I ever wanted for my daughter was to have what the other children had, as far as possible, be clean and tidy and have holidays, none of which I ever was/had. I had no ambitions for her to excel at school. She wants much more for her daughter, which is understandable.

Have confidence in yourself, if the advice is good then heed it, otherwise smile and ignore it.

As for FB - it sounds a bit like those round robin Christmas letters which make you feel so inadequate - if you let them!
You know the ones, Tarquin is off to med school after achieving 10* As at A level, Sophia is student of the year at her v expensive independent school and won all the rosettes at her gymkhana etc etc

We didn't have the internet, but I spent a lot of time in the early days of my twin babies' lives with Dr. Spock book in my hands trying to do it 'right'. And really I should have just been cuddling them. Throughout rearing my 4 children, I felt guilty all the time that I wasn't a perfect mummy. And that was without being told by peers on FB what wonderful things they and their children were doing!

Yes I would agree there is much more pressure on mums to be perfect these days. And to have all the very expensive equipment. The main problem is that there are so many ways of being perfect.

Aah yes all those perfect lives in the world of Facebook...

Mothers have always been told that they are doing everything wrongly. I'm 68, and I can remember being told that babies should: sleep on their stomach; not sleep on their stomach; have a fixed timetable; be allowed to feed whenever they want to; be allowed to cry themselves to sleep; be picked up and carried around permanently wrapped to you in some sort of shawl.... And so it went on through toddlers, primary school, teenagers.... Thankfully I was an older mother (for then) and had the confidence to do what I felt was the best for my children - who are now healthy well-adjusted men in their 30s.

Can I give you one piece of advice AeroplanesRoar. Ignore (and maybe laugh) at all the often stupid things you see and read, and do whatever you think is best for your children. Ham sandwiches are fine for children; a bit of dirt never hurt anyone - and may avoid problems like allergies; you don't have to continuously entertain them or have them going to activities - let them learn how to entertain themselves; just let them know they are loved and they can depend on you - and enjoy them growing into individuals who hopefully will learn to treat life with a certain amount of cynicism.

HAVE FUN

Life is much more stressful for Mums now I think. They are subject to much more peer pressure with social media etc. Children are bombarded with issues they are not old enough to deal with, and generally childhood is less innocent than previous generations. This is probably felt by each generation as it comes along but I do feel parents now have their work cut out to keep their children safe and give them a good quality of life.

Yes FB has a lot to answer for

One of the best things I ever did was wean myself off Facebook. It is the work of the devil. ?

I do think Mum's these days are under so much pressure, some that they cant do much about, job,time,money etc but there are pressures they can change and AeroplanesRoar you mention them in your post, Mums need to get off Fakebook, stop buying trashy magazines and stop watching zeleb rubbish on t.v.Surely they are old enough to ignore all the rubbish ?

Mams have always been told they're doing it wrong. Today it's by the media, facebook, know it alls etc. In the past it was our own mothers and grandmothers who told us we were doing it wrong. I was told by my mother that my girls would grow up to be juvenile delinquents (they're now grown up, respectable and have their own children). I was also told to dip DD1 dummy in whisky to help her sleep and criticised when I declined as I didn't really want to give my child alcohol. This offended the advisor who said that it hadn't hurt her children.

Listen to advice, smile sweetly and do your own thing. You know your child better than anyone else. Enjoy being a mum. It's the best job in the world.

My GP once told me, while I was feeling guilty, that 'A mother's place is in the wrong - or at least in her head it is!' ie, it goes with the territory!

To be honest whatever you do or don't do will be wrong or right to someone. Just do your best and to hell with what others think.