“If there are to be constant and bitter recriminations over the state of the house, better, for the man’s sake, the children’s sake and the woman’s sake, a dingy room where peace and quiet are than a spotless abode where no love is.”
Chapter 2, Round about a Pound a Week by Maude Pember Reeves, 1914.
This book is a report on 42 working-class families in 1910 Lambeth (England) who pay rent, eat, and stay clothed on one pound a week and with up to 10 children in the early 1910s. (That’s about $120 US in 2010 equivalent, or about $6200 a year). Book available at Internet Archive.
Read it and you’ll never feed your son a banana or have a glass of milk without remembering it. You are rich as a queen, my friends!
How I wish I had learned this while raising my family. I am so afraid their predominate memories are colored with my yelling. My grown-up kids have learned that the time they spend with the children engaging them in activities is far more important than following around the clutter in frustration. I now have a totally different mind set. When I enter a cluttered home with the confusion of happy children playing I now think, “They are doing what’s most important”. Bless you young mothers, you are raising a valient generation.