My mum had three kids too. How did she do it all back then?

"My mum thinks parenting in 2023 is harder than it was for her raising kids... but I'm not so sure," writes Karen.

Karen Bleakley

4 min read

May 23, 2023 - 1:11PM

High School

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My mum regularly tells me she doesn’t know how I “do it all” with three young kids. She seems to forget that she had three kids too. My dad worked long hours and left the cleaning, cooking, and most of the parenting, to her alone.

I often stop to think about the challenges she faced. How did SHE do it all with three kids in tow?

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Food shopping

When I was a toddler, we used to catch a bus to town to do our weekly food shop. While I order my food online, she had to shop with a wriggly toddler and then get us and all of the week’s shopping for a family of five onto the bus and carry it 10 minutes to our house.

I can only imagine how exhausting that must have been week after week.

Dishwashing

We didn’t have a dishwasher until I was a teenager, and my mum rarely asked any of us to wash up (and as kids, it didn’t occur to us to offer). I’ve owned a dishwasher for my whole adult life, and now our kids take turns to empty it so that takes the task off our to-do list (other than reminding them to empty it which, of course, takes up half as much energy as actually doing it!)

Laundry and drying

Growing up, we had a tiny washing machine that was on constantly. My mum always hung the laundry out to dry, even in the bitter UK winter weather when you lost the feeling in your fingers as you pegged it out. Even now, my dad still has no idea how to use the washing machine!

Today, we have a huge drum washing machine so we only throw it on a few times a week and, if it’s raining or we’re running late, we don’t think twice about using the tumble dryer to make life easier. Laundry is a joint effort in our house from washing and putting it out to folding and putting it away – it’s not all on me (if it was, we’d always run out of socks)!

Karen and her happy family. Source: Supplied

School runs

My mum walked me to the bus stop every day when I was in primary. She didn’t have a car, so if there was a special assembly at school, she’d walk 3km there and back. We didn’t live close to family, and my dad worked half an hour away so it was all on her.

We’re lucky enough to have two cars, so I’m able to drive my kids to school and my hubby does school runs when he can fit them in around his shifts. We often both go to school events as his shifts free him up during the day and I work from home – I love that we both get to be part of their school life.

Do we have things easier now?

On the face of it, everything seems easier now as our family life is more equal. Then I stop to think a little more. The truth is, it’s impossible to compare my mum’s life with three kids to my life with three kids.

So much has changed in the world and while we’ve made progress, we have different challenges that didn’t exist when I was young.

Parents often both have to work

My mum stayed at home when I was little and then worked a few hours a week for some extra spending money as I got older. Today, both parents in a household often need to work to afford a mortgage. That choice about whether to stay at home has been taken away from so many of us.

Unfortunately, a lot of the mental load still stays on the mums even though we’re working more than ever which means we can find ourselves frazzled.

We face different challenges with parenting

Parenting kids in the digital age comes with challenges. There is online bullying, social media, mobile phones and so much. It’s exhausting trying to understand the risks and keep our kids safe while allowing them the space to learn, make mistakes and become responsible young adults.

When I was a kid, we went out on bikes with our friends and came back just before it got dark – it was a much simpler time in so many ways.

Life remains hectic as Karen is now a mum to teens/tweens. Source: supplied

School communication and events

When I was at school, we had an annual sports day and a Christmas concert. Occasionally, I’d bring a printed letter home from school.

Now, we have cross country competitions, athletics carnivals, book day, heritage-day, anti-bullying week, beanie week, grandparent’s day, crazy sock day, school camps and all kinds of special activities. While these are valuable events, they create extra ‘stuff’ that parents (aka often the mums) need to think about and plan for.

Some weeks we can get 10+ emails from school! It’s a lot to manage and my mum definitely didn’t have this amount of school admin to juggle.

After school activities

When I was young, doing after school activities wasn’t that common. Now, my kids have friends who do 8 – 12 hours a week of dance, gymnastics or tennis. Many do multiple activities. This is a huge pressure on parents both time-wise (especially if you have two or three kids who need to be in different places) and financially.

Not to mention the whole extra layer of admin it adds to your lives (consumes, competitions, special events, rehearsal dates, performances…)

Motherhood’s evolving challenges

We don’t live our lives in the same way or with the same standards or values our mums did 40 years ago because the world is a different place now. I spend my days doing things that didn’t even exist in my mum’s generation so you can’t compare the two experiences of motherhood!

When our kids are grown, some of the challenges we face now will have eased. But as always happens, a heap of brand-new challenges will replace the old ones just to keep the next generation on their toes.