housewives back in the days

Back in the days, when I was a little girl, people didn’t just show themselves to just anyone in what they wore around the house.

I remember my mum riding her bike in her narrow skirt and tailored jacket, all dressed up for a trip to the store; her skirt so fashionable and smart and narrow her knees thwarted by every turn of the pedals.

The heels on her shoes cleared the asphalt with just about an inch and her hair was always impeccable, in spite of the wind. No sensual mane flowing freely in those days. No way.

In those days people dressed up and looked presentable when going to the store. Even if they were just to buy a pack of gum. The housewives in my neighborhood used to spend their days, doing their thing, wearing hair curlers, often under a very nicely tied scarf, in case they had to rush off to run some errand.

The hasty visit to the bathroom to remove the hair curlers, run a brush through their hair and then spray it with hairspray, hard as enamel (and smelling like it too), was a common ritual before leaving the house or open the door when someone unexpectedly rang the doorbell.

The exception was for those daily set chores like picking up the mail (at a set hour), hanging laundry (I don't even have a line, I have a drying tumbler) and other things they had to do just outside the house, where they didn’t risk meeting anyone other than other housewives, looking and wearing the exact same thing they did themselves.

They wore aprons and house coats, protecting their clothes from getting stained or wet when cooking and cleaning and polishing.

I remember the lemony smell of furniture polish and the odour of pine from the soft soap; which was used to clean just about everything. They didn’t have spray-and-mop, no wet wipes, no deodorizing air freshener: In those days they didn’t need it because the house was clean and smelled like it.

They didn’t have an income themselves, but to a large extent they administered their husband’s income. Making ends meet. And someone was always at home when the kids got back home from school. They did a tremendous contribution to family, local environment, community and society, taking care of not just their own family, but keeping an eye on everybody they could see when looking out their windows or from their garden.

Today I get the impression at home mums are very busy outside the home: going to lunches, training or whatever they feel like doing when they have time on their hands.

I miss the mums from my childhood. I miss feeling secure and taken care of, and at the same time I sometimes wonder if they were happy?

I mean, today we take it for granted that women in Norway have a job of some sorts. When I was a kid a house cost 4 times one average income. Today an average house costs approximately 4 times two average incomes. A family needs two incomes to have the same standard of living as they did 30+ years ago.

We don’t bother to dress up to go to the store, or to have impeccable hair at all times (not even at work!), we drive everywhere and instead of protecting our clothes from occasional stains we change clothes, choosing from our extensive wardrobes.

We know all the tricks how to make house chores fast and easy… and we still end up in a stress mess wondering how to get time for it all. But we do. At the end of the day we add and subtract activities to our daily lives which makes us feel happy, and we buy whatever aid needed to help doing whatever seems like a needless waste of time. Like cleaning robots.

I know that when I was a kid, my parents remembered their childhood with the same sentimental mind I remember mine. And what we remember, and tell stories about, are most often the people who used to surround us.

They say everything was better before… not sure before what, but I do know it was before something.