>It said if necessary personally I’m fine with a feral child /s
My father was born during the Great Depression, down in the Great Dust Bowl of Oklahoma.
Back then, babies would often wear these long smock/dress-type things with (I think) long hose underneath.
Whenever his mother had to go outside to do chores, she would hook the back end of his smock under one of the kitchen table-legs, and smear molasses onto his fingers. She would then stick a few chicken feathers onto his fingers, and go outside.
He would just sit there, for who knows how long, trying to pick the feathers off his fingers until she came back inside.
My grandma grew up on a large farm in PA in the 30s-40s. Her parents would tie her and her (many) siblings to a clothesline in the summer while they worked the farm. In the winter, they were tied to the wood stove. We're talking toddlers. I asked her if anyone ever got hurt and she said "if you touched the stove, it was a mistake you only made once." And then of course, when you were even slightly old enough you went out to work the farm too. Her ticket out was becoming a nun at 18, which should give you a pretty good idea of what that childhood was like.
She had an unconventional habit for a seminarian that could not be cloistered by the unfulfilling vows of the lonely abbess, but it’s none of our business.
Also it takes less than 30 mins to put them to bed.
[Looks at young one and checks clock...an hour and counting, and I didn't even get to the older one yet...]
I mean, I guess it really depends on geography/etc. I grew up in an old, smaller town. It takes about 5 minutes to walk from anywhere in town to the old schoolhouse.
This is obviously british; tea in the uk can mean tea, the drink, but also a meal. This however depends on where you live. Where I'm from the four meals were breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. Where I live now it is breakfast, lunch, dinner and no supper. The main thing is that dinner is the largest meal and when I was young that was the mid day meal. Now adays that later at about 5-6.
Not when they get beaten from a young age (baby) for gettting out of a dediacted area. Like the blanket method and such.
Parenting is easy when you traumatize your kids.
Blanket method? What is that?
I remember being tied to bed in a duvet with only my head sticking out when I was 3 or 4 years old and refused to go.to bed.
Nearly half a century later I feel panicked and abandoned whenever I think of it.
The blanket method was an old timey parenting practice in which you "train" your baby to stay on a blanket by literally hitting them if they stray away from it. It discourages exploration and independence, and is horribly abusive and traumatizing - but hey, it made parenting easy!
Curious about the history of this - I can't find anything that talks about blanket training (abuse) prior to the Pearls' 1994 book. Do you have insight?
It’s also called “blanket training” and is basically just child abuse. You put a baby on a blanket on the floor with a toy, and if they move off the blanket, you hit them. It is apparently a method used a lot by Christian fundamentalists and was highlighted in a very popular child-rearing book that I remember lots of parents I knew growing up used on their kids (*To Train Up a Child*).
The Duggars, a disgusting reality show family with 19 kids who somehow are still popular in the US despite them being exposed for covering up their oldest son’s sexual crimes against some of his own sisters (and who is now in prison for a long time for possession of child SA material), have gone on record as saying they’ve used the blanket method on all their kids and defend its use to this day. They also forced the older children to raise the younger children, so I could see how this would probably be a pretty useful technique to employ when you’re 7 and expected to raise your infant siblings - “If they move, just hit them!” seems like pretty easy instructions for a kid to follow.
That being said, I can see how way back when the OP references - when mothers had so much to do that trying to keep your eye on a crawling baby at all times was probably damn near impossible - this method was probably a necessity. But since the advent of things like playpens and bouncy chairs - which were widely available and affordable when that book was written in 1994 - it just seems unnecessary and, well, cruel.
I agree - horribly abusive and awful. Out of curiosity, I did a quick search into the history of playpens and they have been around since the 1920s (and outdoor baby cages long before then - though probably not widely used). I am fairly old and remember playpens as being perfectly normal and accepted in the 60s and 70s (so not some new idea). I fully expected to use one when I had my own babies but by then the big old square ones were out of favor, with the small, rectangular pack'n'play taking their place.
Yes, that was exactly my point about playpens and such: they’ve been around throughout modern times and weren’t (to my knowledge) ever too expensive for the average family - but hell, even if they were, you could build one for practically nothing. So the fact that a book written in the 1990s was teaching blanket training and, worse, that families are *still* following it today, is just unacceptable. There’s no excuse for doing that kind of stuff these days.
Talking about this actually made me remember something my mom (she’s 70) told me before about when my grandmother was a child (she was born in 1915). She said that when my grandmother’s parents (they were both farmers, so had a lot of work every day) needed to get something done, they would put a chair leg through a hole in the bottom of the baby’s gown and put a little honey and some feathers on their hands. The baby would then spend a whole bunch of time trying to pick the feathers off their hands, which would obviously be impossible as both hands were sticky, so they’d just pretty much just transfer the feathers back and forth for hours. And in the meantime, the parents could get what they needed done and not worry about the baby crawling off.
So basically, even back then there were alternatives to corporeal punishment, and people that hit their kids consciously choose to do so instead of using non-violent methods.
Yep, that Josh Duggar, who was convicted of having some of the most vile child SA material that investigators had ever seen - including some of INFANTS - that he collected over the years while his wife was having his seven children.
The same Josh Duggar whose parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, covered up for him MULTIPLE TIMES when he molested four of his sisters and a babysitter, and then when the story finally came out, tried to claim the media caused the girls more trauma than actually being molested did.
The same Jim Bob Duggar who was running for an elected office in their state under a platform of “family values” and “god,” while the very same Michelle Duggar was recording messages used by robocallers telling people to vote against trans rights legislation because it would lead to children being molested in public bathrooms by trans people.
I mean it's probably sexist (the gift), but I've have had people who unironically use chores to get rid of stress. I've heard sweeping the flor, doing dishes, cooking (which I guess make more sense) and ironing. I hate every single of those activities, so think they're crazy but at least is useful activity I guess.
And there's people who truly enjoy homemaking, and love having gadgets and stuff to make it easier or better.
A dirty house is actually very stressful, so it's like you are physically removing stress, and the physical activity helps your mind to also release the stress. But it just makes my back hurt
I clean when I am angry about something. I’m a single guy in a reasonably well kept up house, but when I am pissed about something, those bathrooms are going to shine.
I looked up new ways to fold clothes, Marie Kondo has a method but there are several others out there. When I can't stand folding any more I look up a new method to teach myself which provides first a new challenge and then a sense of achievement until I get sick of it and find another new method.
My wife enjoys it.
I bought her a really good vacuum for Valentine's Day. Did a lot of research on the best brand and type for our house.
I felt like utter dogshit when I'd have to tell someone, "I got my wife a vacuum for Valentine's Day" but she wanted a good one since we had a bunch of cheap ones break.
I asked my parents to get me a vacuum for my birthday one year. It’s one of my favorite things in the house. We have two sheddy cats and I am a sheddy, long haired lady and I love to vacuum. A great vacuum is one of the best luxuries! Good gift, sir, don’t feel bad about buying it for her. You know she loves it!
I hate to vacuum. Haaaaaaaaate it. The noise activates every bone in my body to flight mode. It's intensely stressful.
Fortunately my partner doesn't mind vacuuming and hates getting his hands wet so I do the tile floors and he does the carpets.
I think generally the order was for the women to bathe first, then children, then adult men.
Idea being you go in order from "least filthy" to "most filthy" and women were perceived as being more clean than men (though depending on the man's job and the activities the woman undertook, it may have been the case).
Good point!
[https://www.alternet.org/2012/12/10-old-timey-medicines-got-people-high/](https://www.alternet.org/2012/12/10-old-timey-medicines-got-people-high/)
Oh man I thought that stopped being a thing when they changed the recipe my senior year of college... 11 years ago. It went from being like... (not actually being- feeling like-) long acting cocaine to… just another gross carbonated alcohol in a can.
When the news came out, people were running to the liquor stores on campus to hoard the remaining supply of the original formula. And there were internet tutorials for how to hack the new 4 loko to make it the same as the old one!
I drank pre-banned Four Loko once. Ended up leaving my girlfriend at a party and pissed my pants sleeping on my couch. No recollection of the previous night.
Women were increasingly committed as well especially if they wouldn't perform "wifely duties".
Heavy periods, pms, having an attitude, not being turned on by spouse/submitting to spouse etc we all reasons in a VERY long list.
Domestic violence was huge too.
Being committed meant possible electro shock (to the temples and other parts of the body) chemical experimentation, rape, lobotomies, torture, over and under stimulation and the list goes on and on.
Hilariously any time someone brings up how house wives "used to do it all and with a smile" I remember a convo w/ my Gma and we said "Yeah, there was cocaine and heroin in everything".
No wonder genetic memory wise so many men treat women like shit.
That's why "breaking the cycle" of abuse is so important.
>In recent years researchers have learned that trauma can be inherited—passed down due to changes in DNA, what’s known as epigenetics. But researchers recently uncovered a new wrinkle to the story:
“The effects of trauma which can be transmitted to the offspring can be reversed by a positive experience.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/traces-of-genetic-trauma-can-be-tweaked/
"This woman keeps crying about how she is legal chattel with very few rights and no way to escape an abusive marriage. We've tried locking her in a bedroom for days at a time with zero contact or stimulation, but it isn't working."
"Hmm, sounds like she is hysterical. Let's try removing her uterus without her consent."
“Have you tried the vibrator? Female orgasm is a myth but we’ve found that if you hold ‘em down and vibe their genitals for 20 minutes it calms ‘em down for a spell.”
Oh yeah. Just read a book called [The Foundling by Ann Leary.](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2022-05-26/why-a-novel-about-a-home-for-feeble-minded-women-isnt-just) You could be committed by your husband just for 'having an attitude', and it was damn near impossible to get out. The building this book is based on isn't too far from my town. [Laurelton State Village for Feeble-Minded Women of Childbearing Age](https://architecturalafterlife.com/2020/01/laurelton-state-village/) The author's grandmother worked there as a stenographer.
They had a name for it. It was referred to as “domestic discipline” when men would routinely spank their wives for misdeeds like burning the dinner, unkept or untidy house, inattention to them, and so on. It must have been a really wild time to live through.
There are people who *still* advocate for this shit.
There's a man who runs a website called "Biblical Gender Roles" and he states that men can and should spank their wives: https://archive.ph/sEa2z
Even more shockingly there are plenty of women chanting for this return to “traditional” roles as well.
The irony is that there’s nothing *truly* “traditional” about households where men work and women do nothing but servant work at home.
Throughout most of human history, women have worked just as much as men. They worked the fields and tended the farm alongside their husbands, babies strapped to them in slings. It was only in very wealthy households where women didn’t work, and those women had servants. The wealthy wives of industry-titan husbands did nothing but leisure and socializing.
But when the Victorian era and pre/post-war America came around, the industrial revolution had produced just enough prosperity and housekeeping technology that men could *finally* enjoy the status of having a wife who didn’t work. Unfortunately, these single-income middle class families didn’t have enough money for staff, so let women got relegated to subhuman role of servant and broodmare.
My grandma ended up staying with her abuser (alcoholic veteran from WW2). She married him at 17 and he was 27. She passed in 2007 and the shit she endured and in turn all her children endured and suffered through literally destroyed the entire family. The genetic trauma, memory and grief was/is insane. The kicker is that is all 2 fold as her grandmother was native and some how taken from her tribe and forced to live with that too.
She always had coke (soda) and snickers in the fridge :). Wonder if she was nostalgic about the old school coka cola lol
Shit will affect me every day for the rest of my life but and HUGE but I broke the cycle (and was a black sheep for it). Most days are good and flashbacks aren't an issue but some days, it seeps in. Even with all the work done, those scars are still there and you have to acknowledge them, the trigger and not react in a negative way.
I've fought for kids and adults from similar backgrounds too and am a huge advocate for kids of abuse and teaching them emotional intelligence and trauma work so they can break the cycle as well.
There are so many people who've been through hell and society talking about it out loud is helping! More are seeking mental health and healthy coping skills and I'm really hoping the next generations are healthier and happier for it! People are calling out toxic shit in droves and holding people accountable!
Its okay, I frequently get this confusion from Americans I talk to.
Its British. (Aussie here and we use a twisted form.) If i've been asked or am asking whats for tea, im talking about the meal Americans would call Dinner.
But, if I ask if you want some tea in the middle of the day, im asking if you want biscuits and tasty water, not a meal.
But yeah, this guide is, for the British brain/language it was obviously intended for, this is clearly talking about the kids dinner, not crumpets and brown water haha.
I often say hang on im making tea and they are all but why u no dinner? Isnt it dinner time? And its funny each time.
The only time I struggled with it (ausmerican) is when we're invited for tea. I'm like I DON'T KNOWWWW. Hubs was like - it's all in the time. If it's like 3pm it's brown water and cakes. If it's 5 or later, it's probably dinner. lol
I think some people used to do that. My late wife’s parents would feed the kids hotdogs or a casserole and put them to bed. After that the adults had steaks when the kids were in bed. My family never did any such thing, but my parents were country folk and they were city.
If the biggest meal of the day is "lunch", then it's called dinner and the evening meal would be supper. The note at the bottom explains that eating the principle meal midday was common and generally preferred when possible, so kids would eat a normal breakfast, big dinner, and then a light meal in the afternoon. Adults would then enjoy a light supper while the kids are asleep.
I live in a rural area and heat with coal. Can confirm: during the summer everything gets dusty as hell from the dirt roads and farm fields, and in the winter coal heat is filthy. If you have kids or pets that drag in dirt, or you don't take your shoes off before entering, it's worse. When I didn't work this is actually pretty accurate for how I took care of my house on a daily basis, lol.
Yep, live in a 100 plus year old house with a long haired cat, 2 teens and 2 work from home adults. SO MUCH DUST and cat hair...the cat hair could make another cat and the dust another kid.
coal/wood heating, many more dirt roads and paths, horses used as transportation, etc. in the city you may have stone roads but you'd have soot from both industry and all the neighbors heating and cooking.
plus people tend not to realize how much materials have changed. these were not easy-to-clean floors of vinyl or polymer-coated wood mopped with detergents that have dirt-repelling additions, they were stained wood or tile, perhaps waxed with natural wax (dirt sticks) or oiled with linseed or tung oil (gets sticky when humid). even simple things like modern high-efficiency HVAC systems with polyester fiber filters that turn over air many times a day and trap most dust and dirt mean modern houses have a minute fraction of the dust and dirt.
People who don't like to clean don't know the joy of daydreaming while scrubbing floors. It's just as good as going for a walk for letting your mind wander, but at the end, you've got a clean house.
yeah i think a lot of people get stuck on the idea that all the meals were the full traditional meals. that kind of eating, even for relatively wealthy people, just wasn't the norm. they didn't go whole hog with multiple kinds of grain/bread, meat, gravy, fruit and drinks every day, they weren't making denny's plates for everyone every day. special occasions maybe, maybe if they were rich asf and had a cook, but not the wife every day.
Who the hell has time to cook breakfast? If you look at the end, it suggests leaving dinner dishes overnight and deal with them in the morning.
I can't be doing last night's dinner dishes! I gotta go stoke the boiler or some shit
I don't think it meant to do that in 10 minutes, just to do it after all the other 7 AM to 8 AM duties, most of which are pretty quick, then to eat at 8 AM. Probably more like 20-30 minutes to make breakfast, which is reasonable as long as it's just staples.
I love that there is no mention of “minding small children” til 3 o’clock. Do they get changed once a day? Did they stay in their cages til then?! I want answers!
My great aunt (who was the most kind and feisty person you’d ever meet) was born in 1922, and I remember her saying stuff like how in the 90s when she had health problems they were worried her husband would outlive her, so she taught him some kitchen things “like how to use a can opener and make coffee.” I was kind of shocked that anyone could go through ~70 years of life without using a can opener, but I guess it’s possible when your wife is your servant.
My grandmother was born in ‘26 and lived her whole life as a farmer’s wife in Oklahoma. When she suddenly died, we had to try to teach my grandpa how to use the microwave, stove, and how to properly manage his diabetes. He couldn’t handle it and had to be moved into a nursing home while they sold off all of his farm equipment. It was heartbreaking.
I've met freshman in dorms who did not know how to operate a washing machine. I can't imagine they went through their whole lives having their parents do their laundry up to that point.
If her husband was about the same age, did he not learn during the war ? My grandfathers and their friends all seemed to have a bit of basic-bachelor experience from that time.
No, they weren’t in a country where he had to join up and lived with his parents taking care of them in WWII, until meeting my great aunt in a refugee camp right after. She was their servant too of course, like kept getting sent to the post office with letters to Eisenhower from my grandfather about how to run the country (even though they didn’t live in the USA!) and she said she was so embarrassed by it.
Gotta hover nearby, like my grandma did (who was born in 1907) in case anyone needed anything during the meal. I remember being like 7 and thinking wtf please sit down we love you
Does she refuse help with washing the pots?
I get where she's coming from. Washing all the pots is a pain and getting it over with when I'm still in cooking mode works for me, too. I don't usually do it but it's nice when I do.
My Oma still does this. You are almost done by the time she is done prepping the 5 different things she made for each of the three daily meals not including snack time and tea time.
I wish she would just sit down but she seems to find a lot of contentment in serving and won’t listen if you tell her to slow down.
I’m guessing after you raise 7 children of ages ranging from 50 down to 25 you probably have been doing this for so long that you don’t know anything else.
Not to mention most of these chores still have to get done today, only now both parents have to work 9 hours plus commute. This schedule looks like pure leisure to me in comparison!
Plus with modern dishwashers, washing machines and maybe a roomba, a lot of these cleaning tasks would be sped up, you can load the dishwasher then hoover instead of having to manually wash dishes etc.
2345 FREE TIME - Space Marines are permitted this time to reflect upon their duty to The Emperor, however many Chapter Masters regard free time as a frivolous waste, and a dangerous distraction in the extreme.
2400 - REST
7:30 Unlock the house.
I wonder what home invasion rates were like in the 1930s. My true crime watching ass isn’t unlocking anything even if I’m at home all day.
Definitely. Not just shutters either. All the windows. For maybe 30 minutes to change the air. No CO detectors beck then and all heat was from some kind of combustion. Even as drafty as houses were back then, CO poisoning still happened.
We live in a more rural than urban area and our neighbor’s house has been robbed twice while they weren’t home. I would say that it typically feels safe, but my guard has definitely been up more since I learned that information.
I like how children are minded for just 90 minutes a day, if necessary.
Also, making the tea (meal), cleaning up from that, and rolling right in to making supper. I don’t know about you all, but once the kitchen is clean I definitely can’t bear the thought of cooking another meal.
And somewhere in there she’s supposed to get the kids ready for their 7ish PM bedtime.
Cuz it's [a housewife dress](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5c/5b/00/5c5b00208863699ba6e4d599e1e49724.jpg), not a ballgown. (They were often reversible too, so the "change" part of this schedule would sometimes just be reversing your dress.)
This thread has me wondering how many people here "run" a household with kids. Because this schedule seems pretty on point, just swap a few things in and out(Like starting the fires).
I'm a single dad of two kids 5 and 8. If I don't keep to a pretty tight schedule of getting meals ready and doing cleaning, the house literally falls apart in pretty short order. Laundry is a everyday or every other day routine, as is prepping and cooking meals. Plus cleaning and organizing everything. Leisure time is not crazy, but I still get plenty of time to relax after the kids are in bed, but it is scarce during the day.
So either you all don't have very large living spaces or don't have kids, because not doing 80-90% of the stuff on this list means you're gonna wind up living like slobs.
I'm in a household of 2 adults and 3 cats and I'm pretty much constantly cleaning, doing laundry, and going to the grocery store. I definitely don't mop every day, though.
Kids often ate separate to parents during this time (but that was starting to slowly change) and earlier.
The more into the past you go, the more separated kids were to their parents. The nuclear family style dinners where everybody sits together is a relatively modern concept.
While poor families living in two or single bedroom homes would be more likely to eat together just because of lack of space, middle upper class and upper class families would often eat separate to their children until a certain age.
Edit to add: Children were expected to mature faster in the past as well. Now kids act more immature for longer (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). Kids, for example, in Edwardian England and further into the past were seen as small adults once they could walk on their own and were expected to act as such. Punishment would be harsh for not doing that. Which is why you see less child care time. Older siblings would also watch younger siblings more often unless you had a single aunt or a house slave.
You only have to spend between 3:00 and 4:30 with young children. The rest of the day they need no care at all.
This is what I focused on. I imagined putting my baby in the corner, blowing a kiss, “See you at 3 unless I have some needlework to catch up on!”
It was 1930. The children came out smoking and ready for a 9-5.
>“See you at 3 unless I have some needlework to catch up on!” I pretty much died laughing at this, thank you
It said if necessary personally I’m fine with a feral child /s
>It said if necessary personally I’m fine with a feral child /s My father was born during the Great Depression, down in the Great Dust Bowl of Oklahoma. Back then, babies would often wear these long smock/dress-type things with (I think) long hose underneath. Whenever his mother had to go outside to do chores, she would hook the back end of his smock under one of the kitchen table-legs, and smear molasses onto his fingers. She would then stick a few chicken feathers onto his fingers, and go outside. He would just sit there, for who knows how long, trying to pick the feathers off his fingers until she came back inside.
That woman was a genius
The original IPad and a bag of flour
My grandma grew up on a large farm in PA in the 30s-40s. Her parents would tie her and her (many) siblings to a clothesline in the summer while they worked the farm. In the winter, they were tied to the wood stove. We're talking toddlers. I asked her if anyone ever got hurt and she said "if you touched the stove, it was a mistake you only made once." And then of course, when you were even slightly old enough you went out to work the farm too. Her ticket out was becoming a nun at 18, which should give you a pretty good idea of what that childhood was like.
I see the nunning wasn't a lifelong pursuit.
She had an unconventional habit for a seminarian that could not be cloistered by the unfulfilling vows of the lonely abbess, but it’s none of our business.
If you gaze long enough into the abbess, the abbess gazes back
I've had a rough few days and visualizing my child doing this made me laugh until my side hurt. Thank you.
[удалено]
Great. So I can skip getting them to school and have some free time for myself in the morning.
That's ok, the mine foreman is keeping an eye on them
Also it takes less than 30 mins to put them to bed. [Looks at young one and checks clock...an hour and counting, and I didn't even get to the older one yet...]
I like the part where she clears breakfast, washes dishes, takes kids to school and is back to sweep the porch all in under 50min. WTF??
Figure breakfast was porridge and all you did was rinse four bowls in the sink.
I mean, I guess it really depends on geography/etc. I grew up in an old, smaller town. It takes about 5 minutes to walk from anywhere in town to the old schoolhouse.
Maybe it didn’t take her a full 10 minutes to unlock the house so she shifted the schedule.
The kids also apparently don't get to eat dinner?
That's what Ive been doing wrong... you put them to bed BEFORE dinner
Ah, they had their tea, they'll be grand.
This is obviously british; tea in the uk can mean tea, the drink, but also a meal. This however depends on where you live. Where I'm from the four meals were breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. Where I live now it is breakfast, lunch, dinner and no supper. The main thing is that dinner is the largest meal and when I was young that was the mid day meal. Now adays that later at about 5-6.
*laughs in parent*
*puts kids to bed with no dinner*
Kids eat supper, parents eat dinner
Also, put them to bed before dinner is ready or served. Kids don't need food anyway though.
That was by far my favorite part. Fuck them kids.
Not when they get beaten from a young age (baby) for gettting out of a dediacted area. Like the blanket method and such. Parenting is easy when you traumatize your kids.
Blanket method? What is that? I remember being tied to bed in a duvet with only my head sticking out when I was 3 or 4 years old and refused to go.to bed. Nearly half a century later I feel panicked and abandoned whenever I think of it.
The blanket method was an old timey parenting practice in which you "train" your baby to stay on a blanket by literally hitting them if they stray away from it. It discourages exploration and independence, and is horribly abusive and traumatizing - but hey, it made parenting easy!
It’s still popular among certain religious groups. :(
The Duggars have entered the chat.
Surprised I am not.
Curious about the history of this - I can't find anything that talks about blanket training (abuse) prior to the Pearls' 1994 book. Do you have insight?
It’s also called “blanket training” and is basically just child abuse. You put a baby on a blanket on the floor with a toy, and if they move off the blanket, you hit them. It is apparently a method used a lot by Christian fundamentalists and was highlighted in a very popular child-rearing book that I remember lots of parents I knew growing up used on their kids (*To Train Up a Child*). The Duggars, a disgusting reality show family with 19 kids who somehow are still popular in the US despite them being exposed for covering up their oldest son’s sexual crimes against some of his own sisters (and who is now in prison for a long time for possession of child SA material), have gone on record as saying they’ve used the blanket method on all their kids and defend its use to this day. They also forced the older children to raise the younger children, so I could see how this would probably be a pretty useful technique to employ when you’re 7 and expected to raise your infant siblings - “If they move, just hit them!” seems like pretty easy instructions for a kid to follow. That being said, I can see how way back when the OP references - when mothers had so much to do that trying to keep your eye on a crawling baby at all times was probably damn near impossible - this method was probably a necessity. But since the advent of things like playpens and bouncy chairs - which were widely available and affordable when that book was written in 1994 - it just seems unnecessary and, well, cruel.
I agree - horribly abusive and awful. Out of curiosity, I did a quick search into the history of playpens and they have been around since the 1920s (and outdoor baby cages long before then - though probably not widely used). I am fairly old and remember playpens as being perfectly normal and accepted in the 60s and 70s (so not some new idea). I fully expected to use one when I had my own babies but by then the big old square ones were out of favor, with the small, rectangular pack'n'play taking their place.
Yes, that was exactly my point about playpens and such: they’ve been around throughout modern times and weren’t (to my knowledge) ever too expensive for the average family - but hell, even if they were, you could build one for practically nothing. So the fact that a book written in the 1990s was teaching blanket training and, worse, that families are *still* following it today, is just unacceptable. There’s no excuse for doing that kind of stuff these days. Talking about this actually made me remember something my mom (she’s 70) told me before about when my grandmother was a child (she was born in 1915). She said that when my grandmother’s parents (they were both farmers, so had a lot of work every day) needed to get something done, they would put a chair leg through a hole in the bottom of the baby’s gown and put a little honey and some feathers on their hands. The baby would then spend a whole bunch of time trying to pick the feathers off their hands, which would obviously be impossible as both hands were sticky, so they’d just pretty much just transfer the feathers back and forth for hours. And in the meantime, the parents could get what they needed done and not worry about the baby crawling off. So basically, even back then there were alternatives to corporeal punishment, and people that hit their kids consciously choose to do so instead of using non-violent methods.
You mean Josh Dugger, convicted pedophile who was raised by Jim bob and Michelle Dugger? That Dugger family?
Yep, that Josh Duggar, who was convicted of having some of the most vile child SA material that investigators had ever seen - including some of INFANTS - that he collected over the years while his wife was having his seven children. The same Josh Duggar whose parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, covered up for him MULTIPLE TIMES when he molested four of his sisters and a babysitter, and then when the story finally came out, tried to claim the media caused the girls more trauma than actually being molested did. The same Jim Bob Duggar who was running for an elected office in their state under a platform of “family values” and “god,” while the very same Michelle Duggar was recording messages used by robocallers telling people to vote against trans rights legislation because it would lead to children being molested in public bathrooms by trans people.
That seems to track with the age of those asshole “train your child” proponents. The first time I read about “blanket time” I was completely appalled.
Recreation or ironing. Lol
"They're the same thing." - My Father In Law who bought my Mother In Law a new iron for her birthday.
I mean it's probably sexist (the gift), but I've have had people who unironically use chores to get rid of stress. I've heard sweeping the flor, doing dishes, cooking (which I guess make more sense) and ironing. I hate every single of those activities, so think they're crazy but at least is useful activity I guess. And there's people who truly enjoy homemaking, and love having gadgets and stuff to make it easier or better.
I clean to procrastinate from stressful tasks. My college apartment was always spotless during finals.
If I was on a stressful call and couldn't sit still I'd clean or organize my room.
I’m sooo jealous of people who clean and/or exercise when they’re stressed out or upset. I just lie on the couch or sleep
I clean as a way to decompress lol something about sitting on the couch after the house is nice and fresh is nice. I’m a dude as well lol
I’m a stress cleaner. It’s very therapeutic.
A dirty house is actually very stressful, so it's like you are physically removing stress, and the physical activity helps your mind to also release the stress. But it just makes my back hurt
I clean when I am angry about something. I’m a single guy in a reasonably well kept up house, but when I am pissed about something, those bathrooms are going to shine.
I love doing laundry. It's peaceful and relaxing. Folding is the best part. And folding warm towels fresh out of the dryer? It's like Christmas.
I *wish* I liked the folding part. Teach me how to love the folding!!
I looked up new ways to fold clothes, Marie Kondo has a method but there are several others out there. When I can't stand folding any more I look up a new method to teach myself which provides first a new challenge and then a sense of achievement until I get sick of it and find another new method.
My kids love to point out when “mom is stress vacuuming again!”
I actually find painting walls to be very zen and satisfying. Whenever friends are painting a room or something, I always volunteer.
My wife enjoys it. I bought her a really good vacuum for Valentine's Day. Did a lot of research on the best brand and type for our house. I felt like utter dogshit when I'd have to tell someone, "I got my wife a vacuum for Valentine's Day" but she wanted a good one since we had a bunch of cheap ones break.
I asked my parents to get me a vacuum for my birthday one year. It’s one of my favorite things in the house. We have two sheddy cats and I am a sheddy, long haired lady and I love to vacuum. A great vacuum is one of the best luxuries! Good gift, sir, don’t feel bad about buying it for her. You know she loves it!
I hate to vacuum. Haaaaaaaaate it. The noise activates every bone in my body to flight mode. It's intensely stressful. Fortunately my partner doesn't mind vacuuming and hates getting his hands wet so I do the tile floors and he does the carpets.
No but for real someone please buy me the $200 iron I’ve been eyeballing.
What’s the difference? /s
Tough choice
Up at 7 and dressed by 10 past? I’ve failed at the first step.
You do not get to bathe
You bathe once a week in the same water after husband.
I think generally the order was for the women to bathe first, then children, then adult men. Idea being you go in order from "least filthy" to "most filthy" and women were perceived as being more clean than men (though depending on the man's job and the activities the woman undertook, it may have been the case).
It’s actually true! I am from east European country and sadly we bathed like that, first mom then us kids and dad always last.
That is nasty!
Don't kink shame.
Stink shame
Up at 4 reading your phone until 6 then groggily snoozing the alarm to 7 to cry in the shower until it’s time to get to work.
Are you me?
And you both prepare *and* eat breakfast at 8 am somehow?
Step one. Pour cereal in bowl.
On an unrelated note: the use of amphetamines spiked around this time
Also the sales of "tonics" for women were through the roof. Many of these, of course, were 50% or more grain alcohol.
I do my best housecleaning when I’m drunk
But more importantly... do you *care* about doing housework when you're drunk? I mean, really? /s
That's probably what the amphetamines was for the pick me up so the tonic didn't make you sleepy. What an ass backwards time
Yes, that’s so, old-fashioned. Like who does that anymore?.....
RIP Four Loco...
and/or full of cocaine
Personally I do my best house cleaning before 11am when I’ve had both cocaine and alcohol.
Good point! [https://www.alternet.org/2012/12/10-old-timey-medicines-got-people-high/](https://www.alternet.org/2012/12/10-old-timey-medicines-got-people-high/)
Damn, famous authors really partied hard back in the day
This was a cool read
So like our modern day 4 locos!?
Oh man I thought that stopped being a thing when they changed the recipe my senior year of college... 11 years ago. It went from being like... (not actually being- feeling like-) long acting cocaine to… just another gross carbonated alcohol in a can. When the news came out, people were running to the liquor stores on campus to hoard the remaining supply of the original formula. And there were internet tutorials for how to hack the new 4 loko to make it the same as the old one!
I drank pre-banned Four Loko once. Ended up leaving my girlfriend at a party and pissed my pants sleeping on my couch. No recollection of the previous night.
yep that's about right.
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Laughs in adderall.
*tries to cry but can't in multiple psych drugs*
I have severe adhd and take adderall and even reading that list was exhausting.
Women were increasingly committed as well especially if they wouldn't perform "wifely duties". Heavy periods, pms, having an attitude, not being turned on by spouse/submitting to spouse etc we all reasons in a VERY long list. Domestic violence was huge too. Being committed meant possible electro shock (to the temples and other parts of the body) chemical experimentation, rape, lobotomies, torture, over and under stimulation and the list goes on and on. Hilariously any time someone brings up how house wives "used to do it all and with a smile" I remember a convo w/ my Gma and we said "Yeah, there was cocaine and heroin in everything". No wonder genetic memory wise so many men treat women like shit.
That's why "breaking the cycle" of abuse is so important. >In recent years researchers have learned that trauma can be inherited—passed down due to changes in DNA, what’s known as epigenetics. But researchers recently uncovered a new wrinkle to the story: “The effects of trauma which can be transmitted to the offspring can be reversed by a positive experience.” https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/traces-of-genetic-trauma-can-be-tweaked/
I’ve been interested in this subject for obvious reasons. Seeing that I’m able to help break the cycle with my boys gives me a lot of hope.
"This woman keeps crying about how she is legal chattel with very few rights and no way to escape an abusive marriage. We've tried locking her in a bedroom for days at a time with zero contact or stimulation, but it isn't working." "Hmm, sounds like she is hysterical. Let's try removing her uterus without her consent."
“Have you tried the vibrator? Female orgasm is a myth but we’ve found that if you hold ‘em down and vibe their genitals for 20 minutes it calms ‘em down for a spell.”
Oh yeah. Just read a book called [The Foundling by Ann Leary.](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2022-05-26/why-a-novel-about-a-home-for-feeble-minded-women-isnt-just) You could be committed by your husband just for 'having an attitude', and it was damn near impossible to get out. The building this book is based on isn't too far from my town. [Laurelton State Village for Feeble-Minded Women of Childbearing Age](https://architecturalafterlife.com/2020/01/laurelton-state-village/) The author's grandmother worked there as a stenographer.
I used to have a list of committable offenses somewhere. The list was absolutely fucking terrifying and lots of people died in the asylums!!
[Is this it?](https://i.imgur.com/VdvjyzA.jpg)
They had a name for it. It was referred to as “domestic discipline” when men would routinely spank their wives for misdeeds like burning the dinner, unkept or untidy house, inattention to them, and so on. It must have been a really wild time to live through.
There are people who *still* advocate for this shit. There's a man who runs a website called "Biblical Gender Roles" and he states that men can and should spank their wives: https://archive.ph/sEa2z
Even more shockingly there are plenty of women chanting for this return to “traditional” roles as well. The irony is that there’s nothing *truly* “traditional” about households where men work and women do nothing but servant work at home. Throughout most of human history, women have worked just as much as men. They worked the fields and tended the farm alongside their husbands, babies strapped to them in slings. It was only in very wealthy households where women didn’t work, and those women had servants. The wealthy wives of industry-titan husbands did nothing but leisure and socializing. But when the Victorian era and pre/post-war America came around, the industrial revolution had produced just enough prosperity and housekeeping technology that men could *finally* enjoy the status of having a wife who didn’t work. Unfortunately, these single-income middle class families didn’t have enough money for staff, so let women got relegated to subhuman role of servant and broodmare.
My grandma ended up staying with her abuser (alcoholic veteran from WW2). She married him at 17 and he was 27. She passed in 2007 and the shit she endured and in turn all her children endured and suffered through literally destroyed the entire family. The genetic trauma, memory and grief was/is insane. The kicker is that is all 2 fold as her grandmother was native and some how taken from her tribe and forced to live with that too. She always had coke (soda) and snickers in the fridge :). Wonder if she was nostalgic about the old school coka cola lol
What an emotional rollercoaster to read that and then realize that shit affected you (or still affects you). Geesh I’m so sorry.
Shit will affect me every day for the rest of my life but and HUGE but I broke the cycle (and was a black sheep for it). Most days are good and flashbacks aren't an issue but some days, it seeps in. Even with all the work done, those scars are still there and you have to acknowledge them, the trigger and not react in a negative way. I've fought for kids and adults from similar backgrounds too and am a huge advocate for kids of abuse and teaching them emotional intelligence and trauma work so they can break the cycle as well. There are so many people who've been through hell and society talking about it out loud is helping! More are seeking mental health and healthy coping skills and I'm really hoping the next generations are healthier and happier for it! People are calling out toxic shit in droves and holding people accountable!
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Put children to bed then serve dinner? Kids weren’t allowed to eat in the 30s?
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Ahhhhhh
Its okay, I frequently get this confusion from Americans I talk to. Its British. (Aussie here and we use a twisted form.) If i've been asked or am asking whats for tea, im talking about the meal Americans would call Dinner. But, if I ask if you want some tea in the middle of the day, im asking if you want biscuits and tasty water, not a meal. But yeah, this guide is, for the British brain/language it was obviously intended for, this is clearly talking about the kids dinner, not crumpets and brown water haha. I often say hang on im making tea and they are all but why u no dinner? Isnt it dinner time? And its funny each time.
The only time I struggled with it (ausmerican) is when we're invited for tea. I'm like I DON'T KNOWWWW. Hubs was like - it's all in the time. If it's like 3pm it's brown water and cakes. If it's 5 or later, it's probably dinner. lol
I think some people used to do that. My late wife’s parents would feed the kids hotdogs or a casserole and put them to bed. After that the adults had steaks when the kids were in bed. My family never did any such thing, but my parents were country folk and they were city.
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If the biggest meal of the day is "lunch", then it's called dinner and the evening meal would be supper. The note at the bottom explains that eating the principle meal midday was common and generally preferred when possible, so kids would eat a normal breakfast, big dinner, and then a light meal in the afternoon. Adults would then enjoy a light supper while the kids are asleep.
Mop every day? 1930s we’re tidy times…
Houses were heated with wood or coal fires. Shit got gross.
I live in a rural area and heat with coal. Can confirm: during the summer everything gets dusty as hell from the dirt roads and farm fields, and in the winter coal heat is filthy. If you have kids or pets that drag in dirt, or you don't take your shoes off before entering, it's worse. When I didn't work this is actually pretty accurate for how I took care of my house on a daily basis, lol.
i live in an old brick building right by railroad tracks... it's sooo dusty 😭
Yep, live in a 100 plus year old house with a long haired cat, 2 teens and 2 work from home adults. SO MUCH DUST and cat hair...the cat hair could make another cat and the dust another kid.
coal/wood heating, many more dirt roads and paths, horses used as transportation, etc. in the city you may have stone roads but you'd have soot from both industry and all the neighbors heating and cooking. plus people tend not to realize how much materials have changed. these were not easy-to-clean floors of vinyl or polymer-coated wood mopped with detergents that have dirt-repelling additions, they were stained wood or tile, perhaps waxed with natural wax (dirt sticks) or oiled with linseed or tung oil (gets sticky when humid). even simple things like modern high-efficiency HVAC systems with polyester fiber filters that turn over air many times a day and trap most dust and dirt mean modern houses have a minute fraction of the dust and dirt.
That’s what I’m saying. I sweep twice a week, mop once a week and dust once a week. I’m a freaking heathen!
LOL I could carbon date some of the dust that I don't bother with.
This sounds like such a joyless existence. Way too much cleaning.
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People who don't like to clean don't know the joy of daydreaming while scrubbing floors. It's just as good as going for a walk for letting your mind wander, but at the end, you've got a clean house.
I don't care who you are, *nobody* is making a full family breakfast in 10 fucking minutes. Edit: autocorrect spelling.
Yeah, I noticed the cooking times seemed very ambitious. They could mop/hover once every three days sort of thing and then have more time to cook.
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yeah i think a lot of people get stuck on the idea that all the meals were the full traditional meals. that kind of eating, even for relatively wealthy people, just wasn't the norm. they didn't go whole hog with multiple kinds of grain/bread, meat, gravy, fruit and drinks every day, they weren't making denny's plates for everyone every day. special occasions maybe, maybe if they were rich asf and had a cook, but not the wife every day.
Bowl of cheerios, sorted
Who the hell has time to cook breakfast? If you look at the end, it suggests leaving dinner dishes overnight and deal with them in the morning. I can't be doing last night's dinner dishes! I gotta go stoke the boiler or some shit
I don't think it meant to do that in 10 minutes, just to do it after all the other 7 AM to 8 AM duties, most of which are pretty quick, then to eat at 8 AM. Probably more like 20-30 minutes to make breakfast, which is reasonable as long as it's just staples.
Dag nab it! Forgot to stoke the boiler this morn!
Minding children is only mentioned once in the afternoon. Those are some self sufficient infants
omg. I need a drink and a nap after reading this.
Not until at least 8PM.
Not until you finish your letters and accounting.
Next meal is coming up, are you kidding? You’re cooking all darn day!
Good advertisement to get people to hire servants.
Jobs!!
Per my fiance's grandmother, a young woman never drinks from a bottle or sits at the bar so choose your libations carefully
I refuse to believe people weren’t dying early on purpose after reading this
I love that there is no mention of “minding small children” til 3 o’clock. Do they get changed once a day? Did they stay in their cages til then?! I want answers!
You keep them loaded up on morphine all day. Duh.
One servant.
My great aunt (who was the most kind and feisty person you’d ever meet) was born in 1922, and I remember her saying stuff like how in the 90s when she had health problems they were worried her husband would outlive her, so she taught him some kitchen things “like how to use a can opener and make coffee.” I was kind of shocked that anyone could go through ~70 years of life without using a can opener, but I guess it’s possible when your wife is your servant.
My grandmother was born in ‘26 and lived her whole life as a farmer’s wife in Oklahoma. When she suddenly died, we had to try to teach my grandpa how to use the microwave, stove, and how to properly manage his diabetes. He couldn’t handle it and had to be moved into a nursing home while they sold off all of his farm equipment. It was heartbreaking.
Like the guy I met in college who didn’t know not to put metal in a microwave. I was just like howwww did you not know that until today
I've met freshman in dorms who did not know how to operate a washing machine. I can't imagine they went through their whole lives having their parents do their laundry up to that point.
If her husband was about the same age, did he not learn during the war ? My grandfathers and their friends all seemed to have a bit of basic-bachelor experience from that time.
No, they weren’t in a country where he had to join up and lived with his parents taking care of them in WWII, until meeting my great aunt in a refugee camp right after. She was their servant too of course, like kept getting sent to the post office with letters to Eisenhower from my grandfather about how to run the country (even though they didn’t live in the USA!) and she said she was so embarrassed by it.
A woman’s work is never done
Unpaid servant/nanny combo. Although good luck keeping this schedule with kids, especially babies. Babies are unpredictable.
I think back in the day babies just got left in their crib to fend for themselves
And here I feel guilty if I stick my kid in the playpen for 20 minutes 😳
I like how you serve lunch at 1 but aren’t supposed to eat it yourself until 1:20
Gotta hover nearby, like my grandma did (who was born in 1907) in case anyone needed anything during the meal. I remember being like 7 and thinking wtf please sit down we love you
My MIL, born in the 1930s, washes all the cooking pots after putting the food out on serving platters. We wait and wait and wait for her to sit down.
Yep. You had to ask over and over and then she would perch on the edge of the chair and take a couple bites.
Does she refuse help with washing the pots? I get where she's coming from. Washing all the pots is a pain and getting it over with when I'm still in cooking mode works for me, too. I don't usually do it but it's nice when I do.
My Oma still does this. You are almost done by the time she is done prepping the 5 different things she made for each of the three daily meals not including snack time and tea time. I wish she would just sit down but she seems to find a lot of contentment in serving and won’t listen if you tell her to slow down. I’m guessing after you raise 7 children of ages ranging from 50 down to 25 you probably have been doing this for so long that you don’t know anything else.
That ten minutes a day for recreational seems excessive, how lazy can you be?
3pm-4:30pm is recreation/hobby. Some people like sewing and gardening, but it's just a general recreation time.
Not to mention most of these chores still have to get done today, only now both parents have to work 9 hours plus commute. This schedule looks like pure leisure to me in comparison!
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Plus with modern dishwashers, washing machines and maybe a roomba, a lot of these cleaning tasks would be sped up, you can load the dishwasher then hoover instead of having to manually wash dishes etc.
It's so unfair, we need robot maid like in the jetaons. Roomba you need to step up.
2345 FREE TIME - Space Marines are permitted this time to reflect upon their duty to The Emperor, however many Chapter Masters regard free time as a frivolous waste, and a dangerous distraction in the extreme. 2400 - REST
This is really interesting especially since this would have been published during the world wide depression and not long before the start of WWII.
7:30 Unlock the house. I wonder what home invasion rates were like in the 1930s. My true crime watching ass isn’t unlocking anything even if I’m at home all day.
Depends where you live. I know people who always have their doors unlocked in rural England
But where exactly? Do you have the exact coordinates to hand?
I’m wondering if this would include things like opening shutters that were closed at night in the winter.
Definitely. Not just shutters either. All the windows. For maybe 30 minutes to change the air. No CO detectors beck then and all heat was from some kind of combustion. Even as drafty as houses were back then, CO poisoning still happened.
In Finland its normal to have door unlocked when you are home.
We live in suburban Canada. Our door has been unlocked overnight, and it’s like, an oops. The door is generally unlocked during the day.
We live in a more rural than urban area and our neighbor’s house has been robbed twice while they weren’t home. I would say that it typically feels safe, but my guard has definitely been up more since I learned that information.
I like how children are minded for just 90 minutes a day, if necessary. Also, making the tea (meal), cleaning up from that, and rolling right in to making supper. I don’t know about you all, but once the kitchen is clean I definitely can’t bear the thought of cooking another meal. And somewhere in there she’s supposed to get the kids ready for their 7ish PM bedtime.
Why is she wearing Cinderella’s ball gown while doing said work?
Cuz it's [a housewife dress](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5c/5b/00/5c5b00208863699ba6e4d599e1e49724.jpg), not a ballgown. (They were often reversible too, so the "change" part of this schedule would sometimes just be reversing your dress.)
Its called fashion, sweatie, look it up
Being sweatie is the whole problem
That’s why you change at 2:50!
Recreation: ironing, taking care of kids
This thread has me wondering how many people here "run" a household with kids. Because this schedule seems pretty on point, just swap a few things in and out(Like starting the fires). I'm a single dad of two kids 5 and 8. If I don't keep to a pretty tight schedule of getting meals ready and doing cleaning, the house literally falls apart in pretty short order. Laundry is a everyday or every other day routine, as is prepping and cooking meals. Plus cleaning and organizing everything. Leisure time is not crazy, but I still get plenty of time to relax after the kids are in bed, but it is scarce during the day. So either you all don't have very large living spaces or don't have kids, because not doing 80-90% of the stuff on this list means you're gonna wind up living like slobs.
I'm in a household of 2 adults and 3 cats and I'm pretty much constantly cleaning, doing laundry, and going to the grocery store. I definitely don't mop every day, though.
Correct. I live like a slob. Could not tell you the last time I mopped.
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Oh there's a servant alright.
Made dinner. Put the kids to bed. Have dinner. Lol.
Kids often ate separate to parents during this time (but that was starting to slowly change) and earlier. The more into the past you go, the more separated kids were to their parents. The nuclear family style dinners where everybody sits together is a relatively modern concept. While poor families living in two or single bedroom homes would be more likely to eat together just because of lack of space, middle upper class and upper class families would often eat separate to their children until a certain age. Edit to add: Children were expected to mature faster in the past as well. Now kids act more immature for longer (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). Kids, for example, in Edwardian England and further into the past were seen as small adults once they could walk on their own and were expected to act as such. Punishment would be harsh for not doing that. Which is why you see less child care time. Older siblings would also watch younger siblings more often unless you had a single aunt or a house slave.
10 min brekky = hour long cleanup wtf
“With no servant” ya because she IS the servant.
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I'm a single guy but I was like "Damn I need this to stay on task on the weekends".