Mumsnet in the 1950s, what would it look like.

My mum was a mother in the fifties. I think she would have liked to discuss recipes. How to eke out the housekeeping. Childcare. She was a proud housewife and that was her career.
I was a first time mum in the late sixties. Similarly how to manage money was a big issue but my ideas on childcare were different.
I also expected to go back to work at some point so would have liked to discuss that. Mumsnet would have been a big help to me then.

Here's one which was laughed about in the eighties - I believe .
From a much earlier magazine :
Does one keep one's gloves on when eating scones with jam and cream ?
To which the reply was :
Unless one wants one's gloves to be soiled with jam and cream - they are best removed prior to eating .

My mum was a full time teacher by the end of the 1950's and politically interested.
But.....she hardly had any time for anything beyond home and work and 4 children.

Perhaps there would have been debates about whether mums should go out to work and how to manage? Whether Dad's should have to help out in the house and children?

I remember reading one of mum's magazines in the 50s. Don't let your DH see you without your hair done and makeup on and the house looking tidy. My mum always put makeup on just before dad was due home and we had to tidy our toys up as dad wouldn't want to come home to a mess.

And another , which has caused me much amusement and certainly the stuff of old magazine articles :

A Hyacinth Bucket type friend to my mother in almost inaudible tones .

Clarissa ,
does your husband bother you at night ?
My mother must have understood what she meant , but asked her to be more specific .
I mean , does he disturb you ?
Oh , I would dream of telling him , but he does snore occasionally.
No , I mean does he want relations ?
No , definitely not .
And wickedly , my mother asked her why ?
Well , Colin does .
Oh , really ?
He wants the light on and he wants me to dress up .
Dress up ?
In black suspenders and fishnet stockings with high heels and no brassiere .
When this lady left looking quite flustered with sex bomb stamp collecting/train spotting Colin (at best described as permanently terrified of everything ) I just couldn't imagine it .
As soon as they were out of earshot -my mother exploded into paroxysms of uncontrollable laughter and I'm afraid I did as well .

I think like most women today, my mother would have had no interest in Mumsnet at all. She had her work, a busy social life and a family. She was never a magazine reader, so she didn't buy or read women's magazines,

My mother worked whenever she could - my father was in the army so we constantly moved. My parents had an equal marriage. I can never remember my father sitting down doing nothing while my mother was doing any kind of work, whether cleaning, cooking or anything else. He would always be up and assisting. It sometimes drove her mad, although she never showed it. He was a hands on father, pushed prams, changed nappies.

My mother would be completely perplexed as to why I was on GN, she would feel I should have better things to do - but then I am a magazine reader, although house magazines, not women's magazines.

Going back to the 50’s and 60’s, one thing you wouldn’t have seen was the ‘f’ word being bandied about like it is now.

It seems everyday language on MN now.

I would have liked it to help me realise how to deal with my mother. She was my tormentor for 70 years. I looked after her until she died at 94. It was like being let out of prison when she went.

I got a sort of revenge by giving away her house that she tried to use a weapon throughout my life.

I think my mother in the 50s would have wanted to know how to stretch her money to make it last the week. In the 60s she would have wanted to know how to cope with wayward teenagers! In the 70s she would have asked advice about becoming a new grandmother.

littleflo

I would have liked it to help me realise how to deal with my mother. She was my tormentor for 70 years. I looked after her until she died at 94. It was like being let out of prison when she went.

I got a sort of revenge by giving away her house that she tried to use a weapon throughout my life.

I think this where Mumsnet and Gransnet excel. You can get support, other views and advice from people who may have the same problems.
It's sometimes good to share the rocky times we all go through with others and it's anonymous.

It's an interesting thought. You would think it would be all recipes and childcare, but - with a platform like an internet forum maybe many would start opening up and sharing about bad marriages and feeling trapped as well .........Which people didn't talk about in those days.

My mum was a nurse. Between that and looking after us she’d have been too busy. Evenings as I remember were taken up with financial management.
Although she did like to chat with real people, so who knows whether she would have used Mumsnet as a substitute if it had been available.

I was born mid 50s. My sister was born in 1959 which was the start year to "Call the Midwife" mum never recognise anything social from it.

She had 3 younger brothers and a younger sister so nothing really fazed her, I had an Uncle only 10 yrs older than me, she was good with children, she always said never forget what it was like to be young.
I expect the only people she would ask advise from were her similar aged SiL's.
We always had a holiday away for a week from when I was 5 she was brilliant with money.
She definitely would not dress up for Dad coming home from work, he always cooked Saturday and years later our Sunday meals, I can't remember her doing them at weekends.
She was never a push over as far as Dad was concerned, always her rules, but he was a sweetheart and out numbered by femail at home, he never stood a chance.

I would imagine the problem pages - "-My boyfriend wants us to go away on holiday, is this advisable, since we aren't engaged yet?"

AGAA4

I remember reading one of mum's magazines in the 50s. Don't let your DH see you without your hair done and makeup on and the house looking tidy. My mum always put makeup on just before dad was due home and we had to tidy our toys up as dad wouldn't want to come home to a mess.

Yes, that was very typical of the 50s, though I don’t think ,my mother was like that. Mumsnet in the 50s would have mostly about pleasing the menfolk.

I was a teenager in the 50s, and ardently read women’s magazines like Woman’s Own. My mother disapproved -she thought they were unsuitably downmarket.

I expect my mum would have been looking for people to have non domestic conversations with, she was a reluctant housewife so she definitely would not have been interested in those threads - maybe cooking if there were recipes for ‘foreign’ food, Greek, Italian etc., as she liked experimenting. Books, abstract embroidery, News and politics would be her bag.

That's a point - there was the snob factor then (sorry). With comments like "those type of people". I remember a documentary from the early 60s where two posh ladies were doing market research on all the women who came out of a hairdressers and saying oh yes she's a C2 definitely. C2 being skilled manual workers (or their husbands). C1, clerical and junior management, B intermediate management or a professional, A higher managerial etc. D semi and unskilled manual workers.

It went right through society I think - the whole class thing. So maybe Mumsnet in the 50s would have been seen as something the middle classes didn't do!

Wyllow3

My mum was a full time teacher by the end of the 1950's and politically interested.
But.....she hardly had any time for anything beyond home and work and 4 children.

Perhaps there would have been debates about whether mums should go out to work and how to manage? Whether Dad's should have to help out in the house and children?

Well, not in the 1950s in the Glasgow area where I was a child at that time.

The discussions as to whether mothers should go out to work did not start until the 1960s, and it would have been nearly 1970 before anyone dared hint that men should help out in the house.

I was flabbergasted when in a Glasgow corporation bus with my first ( so the year must have been 1967) when a man got on carrying an infant in his arms. I had never seen any man do so in public before. I wondered whether his wife was ill or dead, at the time, and if he had no mother or sister or mother-in-law to help with the baby.

Times have changed so much. Women's roles were seen very differently back in the 50s and a lot stereo typical male and female roles of the have changed dramatically.
Maybe in the 60s Someone may ask if it was ok to be on the pill.
In the 70's more questions about package holidays abroad or about how to buy a house. In the 80's maybe questioning about what is shown on TV.

Esmay

Here's one which was laughed about in the eighties - I believe .
From a much earlier magazine :
Does one keep one's gloves on when eating scones with jam and cream ?
To which the reply was :
Unless one wants one's gloves to be soiled with jam and cream - they are best removed prior to eating .

😂
Should one remove one’s hat in a tearoom?

Wyllow3

My mum was a full time teacher by the end of the 1950's and politically interested.
But.....she hardly had any time for anything beyond home and work and 4 children.

Perhaps there would have been debates about whether mums should go out to work and how to manage? Whether Dad's should have to help out in the house and children?

My mother went to work but part-time.

On Saturday mornings I was expected to make the beds from about age 11 and wash up breakfast dishes but my brother wasn't 🤔

My mother would be completely perplexed as to why I was on GN, she would feel I should have better things to do

Mine too although she might have enjoyed Ravelry.
Or the equivalent of Witzend's knitting threads 🙂

Allira

Wyllow3

My mum was a full time teacher by the end of the 1950's and politically interested.
But.....she hardly had any time for anything beyond home and work and 4 children.

Perhaps there would have been debates about whether mums should go out to work and how to manage? Whether Dad's should have to help out in the house and children?

My mother went to work but part-time.

On Saturday mornings I was expected to make the beds from about age 11 and wash up breakfast dishes but my brother wasn't 🤔

Ps at least that's what my brother told me.
🤔

My father was good at household tasks such as cooking, oven cleaning!

I assume the problems would be 50s-70s versions of today problems.

Mum wouldn't have followed MN or GN. She was busy with us (I'm one of many siblings), the garden, cooking, cleaning, sewing, Church (daily mass).

Dad drove us to/from school (a long journey), helped with our care when he wasn't at work, gardened, cooked quite well. Much as OHs now.