Madge Bumstead
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Just bought myself a new pair of jeans!
It's The 1970's... What Are You Doing?
- Thread starter Madge Bumstead
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Madge Bumstead
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Liz, I was giving thought to all of the experience I got growing up with baby siblings in the home, helping my mom with their care. By age 8, I was making bottles and changing diapers, it made me a good babysitter when the time came, and all of the hands-on experience I gained from caring for baby siblings and babysitting for moms in and around the neighbourhood made me a better mom.
For years, Friday night was babysitting night for me. Mom and dad did their weekly grocery shop every Friday night, so there I'd be at home babysitting my baby siblings. I did it all, I prepared baby bottles from scratch and warmed them in a pot on the stove, and once I had the youngest of my baby siblings in their baby cribs, bottles were given and pants (diapers) were changed.
No Pampers in those days, at least not in our house, my mom used old-timey cloth diapers and rubber pants, as did all of the moms I babysat for. I remember how I'd rub the business end of the diaper pins through my hair a few times before applying pins to diapers. Those pins would slide through the multiple layers of cotton like a hot knife going through butter! Even double and triple diapers were no match for pins that had been rubbed through ones hair before using!
I'd finish off the bedtime routine with a bedtime story that I delivered while sitting on an old blue antique wooden chair that sat in the nursery, a chair my mom regularly used when handing down a spanking.
I never earned any pay when babysitting my baby siblings, but when mom was able to she would give me a little money towards something I had on layaway, or she'd surprise me with something special. For me, just knowing how much it helped my mom and dad out by me babysitting for them was pay enough.
Liz Adams
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Lovely memories Madge. I can clearly remember my youngest brother being born the most as I was 8 and I totally fell in love with him.
I was like another mother to him. I can recall all his little milestones , sitting up , crawling etc. Actually , he never crawled properly , but dragged himself along the floor comando style which was very apt as he was obsessed with you soldiers and all he ever wanted to do was join the army ( which he did).
I looked after the young ones a lot especially on a Saturday as my mother had a second hand market stall.
I hope, looking back , that they have good memories of all I did with them.
Madge Bumstead
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Oh, Liz, your mention of Saturday reminded me of Saturday cartoon mornings in our house. Mom and dad would be in bed enjoying not having to scramble being the weekend and all, and being the early-riser that I was back then, I'd get up and start a pot of coffee for mom and dad, then once the coffee was ready I'd work on getting everyone up from their beds and cribs, ushering them down to the TV room.
The younger ones dragging their little quilts behind them while hugging their stuffed teddies and animals. They loved the drapes closed so the room was dark, and would often make themselves a little fort or hiding place under the coffee table using their quilts to cover the table so they had a warm and cozy place to peer out of while watching cartoons.
I still remember it like yesterday... Scooby-Doo, Fat Albert & The Cosby Kids, Looney Tunes - Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, The Pink Panther Show, The Jetsons, Schoolhouse Rock, and the list went on. I've forgotten more than I remember.
Good memories indeed...
Liz Adams
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Fab memories.. but here's the question .
Who did you have stuck on your bedroom wall ?
For me it was Donny Osmond and the Bay city rollers lol.
Madge Bumstead
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Sadly, mom didn't allow us to pin things to the walls, but I had a mad crush on Parker Stevenson.
Friends of mine had Kiss posters, and a mix of other fan-favourites on their walls.
Liz Adams
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Not heard of him. Can't recall seeing him over here.
Tell you what they did show here though ,
"The Partridge family".
Sad to think David Cassidy is no longer with us.
And all the girls wanted to look like Susan dey. She was lovely looking.
Mary Stetler
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But now when I have to pee....Just bought myself a new pair of jeans!
Mary Stetler
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70's! Out of school, first real apartments in Milwaukee. Married, first baby, death of husband. Worked on a dairy farm, then horse farms got my own first horses....
Nicole Oakes
Active member
I had a family of my own, and 2 kids and hanging my own clothes on the line and to this very day I would do it all over again if I could. Love the fresh smell of clothes from off the line.
Madge Bumstead
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How I loved the Partridge Family!
One of my all-time favourites from back in the day! I used to dream of travelling with the family in that old school bus, thinking how much fun it would have been!
Madge Bumstead
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Oh yes, Nicole, I'm with you 100%!
I've been line-drying for over 40 years now and am still as delighted today as I was as a young child, climbing into a freshly changed bed with sheets fresh off the clothesline! The fresh clean scent, the crispness, nothing compares!
As a mom, having a clothesline was a must have for me, though I'm going back to the 80's and 90's. Nonetheless, not only would I have been lost without one, as a fulltime homemaker, not having one wouldn't have been an option.
Fast-forward to 1983, my first was born. I used cloth diapers and rubber pants, and wouldn't have dreamed of diapering the old-fashioned way without a proper clothesline at my disposal. Nearly a decade later (1992), baby #6 arrived, and with just 13 months separating my youngest two and both in diapers and rubber pants, I was busier than ever changing and washing diapers, and being able to pin-up all those diapers and rubber pants on the clothesline to dry on laundry day was the best!
I so miss the days when nearly everyone had a clothesline and used one.
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Liz Adams
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That's sad about your husband.
Liz Adams
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LOVE hanging my laundry out. It's one of the simple pleasures in life.
When I got my first house I was so excited to have a large garden with a washing line that I couldn't wait to hang the laundry out.
Problem was it was February and it all froze LOL.
Liz Adams
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It was great .
Then of course there was "Charlie's Angels" and all the girls were rushing out to have haircuts like Jacklyn Smith or Farrah Fawcett.
It's all coming back to me now haha.
Madge Bumstead
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Gosh, the memories, in some ways it seems like a lifetime ago, and it was in many ways, yet some days it seems just like yesterday.
Oh yes, Charlie's Angels, The Rockford Files, Love Boat, Taxi, Three's Company, The Odd Couple, Kojak, The Streets of San Francisco, and, and, and!
Gosh, the memories, in some ways it seems like a lifetime ago, and it was in many ways, yet some days it seems just like yesterday.
Liz Adams
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Great days Madge.
And what about the toys/ gimmicks ?
Did you have clackers over there ?
Solid balls on strings . They got banned here as kids all over the place ended up in A and E with broken wrists LOL.
And space hoppers, pogo sticks , stilts, swingballs and so on and so forth...
Madge Bumstead
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OMG, we had Clackers, Liz! Ouch! And my poor parents ears, us kids clacking those glass balls together for hours upon hours!
Neighbours had a pogo stick and stilts! The stilts I tried but could never get the hang of.
I remember baby cousins of mine having one of these! Twang, twang, twang, twang, twang, with every bounce!
Milly Robertson
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I could never get the hang of stilts either.
Madge Bumstead
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The whole balancing thing I was never good at, and being afraid to fall didn't help either, but the neighbours kids could walk around on them just like it was second nature to them!