“mutton8

In another thread you have asked what people's earliest memories are and you remember starting school in 1936 which must make you at least 80 years old. When you got married and started a family it was a very different world. Very few women worked after they started a family (unless it was a little cleaning job or bar work in the evening when their husbands came back from work) and there was no such thing as maternity leave and women got paid less than men for doing the same job.

Another issue was housework and cooking was so labour intensive. Making coal fires, washing in a dolly tub, no fridges so shopping had to be done every day, cooking everything from scratch. Have you forgotten all this?

Another big difference was, in those days we were only starting off the 'consumer society' and there was very little for people to want to buy so there wasn't the urge to earn more money to provide the family with all the expensive electrical stuff that they want now. I am not saying that this was better - just different.

Also, there are lots of families out there whose parents and grandparents look after the kids for free while they work. Not every working family is paying for childcare.”

“For the life of me I cannot understand why anyone would have a baby and then have to spend all their wages paying someone else to look after it. Working mums miss out on so much when their children are small.
Career mums seem to want it all but one day they`ll realise that they simply cannot give 100% to either work or child.
Having said that, I think that society dictates the way we live to an extent and women are being encouraged left, right and centre to be high fliers.”

“g69 - no I have'nt forgotten the conditions you have described, like boiling a kettle and cooking in a York range oven not to mention mangles and ration coupons!
I gree with about the 'consumer society and wonder if people are any happier than we were in the 30's and 40's.”

“g69 - I forgot to add that the subject of the post was about deciding whether the wives, ( in those days anyway!) worked or stayed at home. That was a decision we had to make in 50's when condition er not that dissimilar to the present.”

“mutton8

What post war conditions are not that dissimilar to the ones today?

Equal pay for women? typing pools? labour saving devices? mangles and dolly tubs? steam trains? foreign holidays? larders? fridge-freezers? rationing? fast food outlets on every corner? gramaphones? ipods? telegrams? email? children in bare legs in the snow and rain? lycra? coal fires and belching smoke? gas central heating?”

“mutton8

" wonder if people are any happier than we were in the 30's and 40's."

Some people will have been happier, some won't. It depends on the individual's circumstances but don't forget, people in those days had no concept of what the future held so accepted coal fires, outside toilets and a weekly bath in a zinc tub as the norm.

However, if you transported a young person from today back 70 years I bet they would be very unhappy to lose all their comforts and if someone from then was sent to 2012 I bet they would be very happy indeed.”

“The artificial forcing of equal rights has borne some fruit in rebalancing society.

Unfortunately... this has resulted in a doubling of the available workforce during a period when the need for labour has reduced. Less demand should equal lower wages, but we can't let that happen or the whole house falls down.

The market always finds a way though... the most natural system is for a family unit to only have one parent working at a time, and the economy changes to fit that model. Since nothing is being created by childcare (just a shift in responsibility via cash) it will adjust to be equal to the value of the average working person.

Now we also have money being given to families to subsidise childcare, it means that there is technically an overpayment to the family unit for the amount of work that they do, so the excess labour which has resulted from having both parents working is then spread across society via increased taxes.

Basically... any systemic excess paid to families for having children will result in a 'cost' to us all. (this does not include maternity/paternity leave which is an extension of salary rather than a susidy given to parents).

If you can't afford 'em, don't have 'em.”