I started off the day with a breakfast menu straight from the pages of the February 1947 issue of Better Homes and Gardens. It's one of three menus in an article called "Why Don't You Eat a Good Breakfast?" The author presents profiles of three fictional Americans - the reasons they don't eat breakfast and some purportedly practical and tasty solutions. Here's an excerpt from the first profile:
Case of Mrs. F. . . .
Mrs. F. is overweight, yet has many colds. Her usual breakfast of coffee, frosted sweet rolls (350 calories each) is short of proteins, vitamins, minerals...
While hanging wash, Mrs. F. feels chilled, starts sneezing. Her resistance is low (studies show possible relation between resistance to tuberculosis and foods rich in protein, Vitamins A and C). [Way to scare the skirts off your readers!] A breakfast of fruit, enriched cereal, and egg would have given her food essentials for morning tasks.
Interested in a dieting fad, she decides to skip breakfast entirely, has to draw on her reserves of fat for heat and energy every morning. In a short time she suffers from a fat shortage, marked by constant hunger, lack of pep, vague discomfort...
Woman weighing 130 pounds, keeping house, has a daily energy requirement of about 2,300 calories. Milk is a must.
Suggested breakfast
1 slice canned pineapple with sirup
2/3 cup oatmeal
1 cup whole milk for cereal
1/4 cup coffee cream
2 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon butter
2 slices toast (enriched white bread)
Coffee
I did make a couple adaptations. Used 1% instead of whole milk with my oatmeal and coffee. Skipped the buttered toast entirely. But then I'm not yet doing the kinds of hard physical labor Mrs. F. was doing in 1947. After my morning chores, I was free today 'til this evening. Stay tuned for Mr. F.'s breakfast issues in an upcoming post...
My routine is going to see a few adaptations of its own during the next two weeks. My sister is taking her youngest home on Wednesday to spend several days with our parents, so I'm going to be playing substitute mom for my older niece. On weeknights, I'll be picking her up at her grandmother's when I get out of work and staying at her house until my brother-in-law gets home from work around 10:30. And because of the way his work schedule falls, I'll have her both days next weekend from 9:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. It's going to be lovely to spend so much one-on-one time with her, but I am going to be one tired chickadee by the time I crawl into bed each night. (She's only two years old and a ball of energy!) As for housework --- my goal is just to keep things running at the level they have been while all this extra work is afoot. No more new missions until my sister is home and I've had a day or two to recover. If I can keep everything running "as is" for the next two weeks, I'll be very proud.
I may have to shift some of my daily chores around a bit, though. Which is something I need to be able to do with any routine. I want to be sure that I still have some empty-ish time slots left over in every week so that I can make some adjustments when something social comes up or when family calls. As comforting as it is to have an appointed day and time for every chore - and as critical as that is while I'm trying to make habits of these chores - I need to build some flexibility into my schedule so that unexpected things don't trip me up. I think that's going to be key to getting through the next two weeks and getting through life, period. A 1940s housewife would have needed some flexibility herself for that monthly club meeting or when her spouse or child was sick at home and needed extra tending. The daily stuff needs to get done no matter what, but the weekly stuff needs to be more portable. What do you think?
9 comments:
It seems like you already have a lot f the cleaning habits ingrained, so I wouldn't worry too much about taking some time off of that for family. I doubt a housewife of the '40s with a toddler would be able to do all of that too if she had a job outside the home as well (you know, if she weren't middle class and actually had to work).
Your whole project has inspired me. I've started with making myself prepare and sit down to breakfast before work (I too could not usually stomach food at such an hour) and have added tidying the bedroom to my list. The bedroom is still a pit, but the little bits each day are adding up enough that Spouse (who is not allowed to clean the bedroom because it' mostly my crap and I don't want him touching it because I'm neurotic that way -- he can clean the rest of the apartment) has commented on how much better it's looking. In a month or two I might even be up to the weekly schedule bits!
I remember when my oldest nephew was that age. I loved keeping him but, I was always glad to give him back to his parents so I could get some rest!
i'm fairly certain that the American Home Journal suggests that schedules be flexible around young children... and I'm sure they had to be flexible in case an unexpected guest stopped by
Most of the vintage homemaking books I have recommend a shorter routine when you have to care for a child. Have fun looking after your niece.
What amazed me about the post was the recommended calorie intake for a 130 pound woman. It just goes to show how much physical work a woman must have done back in the day.
I'm really enjoying your blog btw.
Teru, I'd say the morning and evening routines around here are becoming habits, but there are still times when I heave a mighty sigh and think to myself for a moment about skipping it - just this once --- something keeps me in the game. So maybe not quite ingrained yet! And the weekly stuff? I still have to stay very focused every day one what needs to be done this day and what needs to be prepped for the next day's work. I'm really hoping that some day this will come more naturally and I won't have to think so hard about it!
Glad to hear that you've been adopting a routine of your own and have been getting some great feedback!
Hairball, I don't know how my sister does it without having a place to escape to like me! (She has a two year old and an eight month old - plus three pets.) I come home from her place sometimes in the middle of the afternoon and just have to curl up and nap for an hour or two! It's hard to imagine being able to do any kind of housework amidst that kind of hubbub, but I suppose that's what housewives have been doing since time immemorial...
Weenie_Elise, I'll bet there was a bit of an unwritten code amongst housewives. No callers on Mondays or Tuesdays. You stay home and do your wash and ironing, and I'll do mine! Houseguests must have been tough to work around, though, no matter what day of the week it was.
Dulce, it is a large number of calories compared to what we're used to seeing today! They certainly recognized just how critical having enough "fuel" was for doing a job like housekeeping. Thanks for your kind comment about my blog!
You're going to have your hands full with that little baby! Good luck Jitterbug! Can't wait to hear some of the stories about it.
Wow, I think I am a little envious of you. Ever since starting my project, I keep thinking, someone in my position would certainly have a child. I am not sure if they logic my hubby and I have used thus far in our decision to not have child would have existed then, I don't know. I think we would have both still been logically in our approach, but with the post war need to 'repopulate' would it even have been a discussion? Or, would it just have been a matter of course? I know how sounds bad, but it is unfortunate that I can't 'rent a child' for a month to see how much more taxing my 1955 day would be with a child about. My vintage friend and I were talking kids the other day. She is only engaged and they want children one day. She says she really wants to dress them as vintage as she can as often as she can, but we both have never raised children so obviously we have NO idea how hard it is, though we do realize it IS hard. Very interesting indeed!
Hi 50s Gal
I read your comment about planning a family in the 1940s and thought I might respond. I collect household management books, but also what were popularly called "marriage books"...a mixture of homemaking manual, childcare manual and s*x manual. Most of these books have a large and detailed section on contraception, and reasons to plan or space a family. Family planning was very accepted, it seems, although my books from the late 1940s, early 1950s, were slightly different in tone, often calling for women to settle down and nest, it was still rather expected to limit one's family.
Emer, thanks for the well wishes!
50s gal, one of the neat things about The Manual (you may have already found this section) is that they actually come up with some pointers for doing housework around a child, i.e. letting them "help" in little ways, making sure there are some toys or books kept in the kitchen so little Patty can amuse herself while Mother slogs away.
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