I ATTENDED the christening of a friend's baby at the weekend which saw three generations of her family gathered together for the celebrations.
Sitting at a table afterwards with my friend, her mother and her grandmother, we got talking about raising kids and which era was the toughest to bring them up in.
The conversation got quite heated at times, as each mother argued her era was the worst.
My friend said today's modern times were the hardest era to raise children in. Her mum, who raised my friend in the 1970s, said that era was the hardest time to be a parent. Her grandmother, who raised her mother in the 1950s, declared that was the hardest time.
I just sat quietly in the middle and said nothing as they made their cases. It got me thinking: if there was a prize for the toughest mum, who should hold the trophy for the mum raising kids in the hardest era.
The 1950s were a tough enough time for mums.
Men were little involved in the birthing process. They smoked cigars in the waiting room while women did their 'women's stuff' – as in delivering their offspring in another room.
There were no nail imprints in dad's hands and no dads being subjected to very bad language or dramatic declarations from mum during the delivery in those days.
Dads had it good.
Men did very little around the house: that was 'women's work', back in the day. The thought of dad taking the baby off mum's hands so she could get some sleep would have been unheard of.
So far, 1950s mums are front-runners for the trophy.
However, when 1950s mum was doing her 'women's work' – cooking, cleaning, running the house – she would often times just wheel junior outside in his vintage pram and leave him there so she could get on with it.
These were the days when mums were told that babies needed daily doses of fresh air to thrive. And presumably the days before kidnappers.
Disposable nappies were not yet invented in the 1950s, so poor mum would have relied on towelling nappies which needed washing and soaking between wears.
1950s mum would have spent most of her day washing the perhaps 30 soiled nappies junior would produce, the air in the house thick with an aroma akin to the portaloos at Glastonbury.
No wonder 1950s mums tried to potty train their children at ridiculously early ages, some at only a few days old.
And baby food was also something best left in the era. There were no vegetable lasagna purees in handy glass jars to pop open and spoon into the mouth of a hungry infant.
The 1950s mum would make the delicious sounding Shin Soup, made from bone broth, or perhaps Tripe, which is the actual stomach of a cow.
In parenting books of the era, 1950s mums were told not to give their baby 'tea, coffee, beer or wine of any kind', not to be 'a martyr to your baby' and not to pick baby up if he cries stating 'a good lusty cry is excellent exercise'.
Apart from all the toxic nappies, tripe and the dads not pulling their weight, the 1950s mum had it easy. But maybe not as easy as the 1970s mum.
The 1970s mum opened the door to their child when they were five or six and sent them out to play. These were the days before paedophiles, murderers or kidnappers were invented. Children came home when they were hungry.
1970s mums ruled the roost with an iron fist, or rather a wooden spoon. 1970s dads tended to be out at work a lot and even the sight of the wooden spoon was enough to make kids get into shape and behave.
1970s mums and dads gave birth to the 'free range' style of parenting. Kids were mainly left to their own devices. Input into school was asking if you had your homework done.
1970s kids did not expect to be entertained and there were no expensive clubs to send them to. They looked after themselves, essentially.
Kids wore hand-me-downs and no mind was paid to if they were girl's or boy's clothes and they had no schedules.
1970s mum was afforded a lot of spare time in which she could listen to her Bay City Roller records or widen her flares by another six inches.
1970s mums had it easy.
I think I agree with my friend. Today is the toughest era to raise kids in.
There might be more equality with regards parental responsibility and there might be a little more money floating about, but there are many more dangers to be worrying about in this modern era.
As well as the usual concerns us mums have to concern ourselves with, we have added modern dimensions: cyber bullying, danger on our streets, terrorism, paedophiles – the list is endless.
Every era indeed has its challenges. I think, to be fair, the trophy should just be passed down through the generations, to save arguments.
