How did my mom do it

@drewc I DO remember the state of our house, actually. I remember the night before my dad would come home (fireman) my mom furiously cleaning and dusting and vacuuming at midnight waking us up, having to have a clean room and stand outside the door in the mornings for ‘inspections’, and when we got a little older, we had a daily list of chores.

This was the early 90’s, so lots of glass tabletops and accessories at our house, windex… cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming, dusting, laundry, dishes, getting dinner started for my mom, and my brother had to do the yard work.

My mom has commented to both my brother and I that we let our kids’ rooms be messy with toys etc everywhere… well yea mom but someday there will be no toys anywhere 😭😭 now my daughter is 13, the toys are gone. Replaced by piles of clothes and other crap yes, haha, but honestly who cares.

I also work full time and have a pretty large house and acreage with animals so I’m kind of busy and can’t stress over window tracts having dust in them. I’m just trying to get through the day and get enough sleep and raise good people.
 
@drewc Yes to this! The state of my house sometimes drives my mom crazy (she doesn’t openly say that but I can tell) but cleaning is not my priority. The house isn’t filthy but it is often messy and I honestly struggle every day worrying about how it should be cleaner and how our house growing up was so clean and neat. My mom didn’t work or worked part time growing up, so she definitely had more time to clean. I did confess to her recently how it’s something I struggle with every day because she is neat and organized as a person and I’m not and can’t keep a house like she did. She actually apologized and said she was sorry she made me feel that way and that looking back it was not that important. It really meant a lot to me and freed me of some of the mental burden.
 
@j2019 My mom did it by being totally emotionally unavailable, rarely if ever engaging in play with me, and believing that presenting yourself well was the way to hide all your faults.

In all seriousness, I learned a lot from my mom and still do. As many commenters are saying, it was a completely different world in the 70s/80s/90s. There was only your immediate experience; you didn’t get ‘influenced’ by dozens/hundreds other people daily. You weren’t “on-call” to the world every second.
 
@chris239 I came here to say that my mom managed it by having a closed off kitchen where she spent her evenings drinking a full bottle of wine while doing chores while us kids played on our own.
 
@j2019 I think most of the memories we have of our parents and how they parented are from when we were "older" kids. Like school age and above.
 
@gfb Yeah we aren’t at school age yet I’m just going off of what my mom tells me. She doesn’t scold me or anything she just says it seems like I’m struggling a lot more than she did.
 
@j2019 I think we as moms also tend to block out or forget how hard certain phases were. I’m only four years separated from it, but the newborn time now feels like a blur and I mostly remember the good stuff, even though I know at the time I was really struggling and exhausted. I would imagine in 20-30 years I might remember it as being much easier than it actually was, and my kid will never remember what a mess the house was at the time and how I barely had time to shower for days on end.
 
@j2019 I've been with my SO since high school. His mom insists he was always a dream child and she laughs about how he was a "spirited" toddler. When he was living at home she would tell me about how much of a nightmare he was during the toddler/small child age and I remember them constantly butting heads when he was a teenager. Mom amnesia is definitely a thing especially after grandchildren.
 
@j2019 You're just in the trenches. Pre school aged is hard. It does get easier (I have a kid in year 3, and one still in daycare). It's just while they're so young, they need you more. It's tiring.

Both my parents were nurses, my mum worked night shift for 10 years while the 3 of us were young. I'm not sure how she did it either, but same like you, home cooked meals, house was always clean, and they entertained quite a bit. On the other hand, I didn't really spend a lot of time with my parents (I'm also the youngest) and don't remember playing with them much. I'm sure my siblings taught me all the board games and we spent holidays mostly reading a lot.

With my kids now, I feel like I'm cleaning a lot but it's just to keep on top of things (no one would ever call our house spotless, haha! We also have pets). But I try to take them for a bike ride/to the park etc and we go camping a lot - those core memories are important! Not saying my childhood was bad, it wasn't; more that different families have different priorities.
 
@j2019 Not to undermine your mom, but I’d be curious to hear others’ takes on how much she struggled while you were little. She more than likely forgot. Don’t listen to her too closely - your experience isn’t abnormal.
 
@j2019 Listen to or read “being there” by Erica komasar LCSW you’ll quit and not look back.
I am (was) also a nurse and it has changed SO much over the last 20 years right along with the patients. I highly doubt given how things are now that everything would be perfect.
It doesn’t matter though. Quit so you can be the wife and mom you actually want to be.
 
@poorlittlerichgirl I’ll have to look that book up. My mom got burnt out of nursing towards the end of her career. She never wanted me to get into healthcare for that reason. She loved caring for her patients but the US healthcare system really made her want out. She said she would have never retired if there wasn’t so much preventing her from doing her job.
 
@j2019 Quitting to be a wife and full time mom because I CANT DO EVERYTHING has been the best decision of our lives and our baby never spent a minute in daycare. It’s not worth the stress, fatigue and chaos.
 
@j2019 How old is your kid? How old are you? How old was your mom when she had you?

The mom I remember was the mom of two elementary school kids, not two little kids. She was also a lot older than me…I always remind her that I have another 8 years, or at least until my little guy is in kindergarten, to achieve some semblance of physical fitness and a healthy diet lol

Also, what you remember as a child vs how your mom felt about it at the time might be very different. My children remember magical holidays. I feel…stressed. And we don’t do a ton, just like…the magical appearance of stockings and we hang some Christmas lights, not a whole production.
 
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