What are some of the chores that a single mother might have to do around the house?

Question

I need to know anything and everything about the life of a single mother in the mid 1800's. Anything will work......Please and Thank you!!

Answer 1

Probably not much different than now. Since most were widows, they cleaned, cooked, and some may have run boarding houses.

Answer 2

Most single mothers were sent away to have their child and the child was put up for adoption, thereafter, the single mother was treated like a leper and no long acceptable to society. A single widow was a different story, she was protected by the community and was allowed to work, her chores were providing a home for her and her child....meaning she was responsible for everything.

Answer 3

Single mother or married mother - doesn't matter, we females still get stuck with the vast majority of housework, even if we also work outside the home. Just try imaging all of the chores we have today, without any of the modern conveniences such as automatic dishwashers, washer/dryer, vacuum, paper towels, disposable diapers, electric irons, dust busters etc. and you'll have some idea of the overwhelming work for those who couldn't afford servants.

Answer 4

Actually, women did most of the work back in the 1800's. They completed probable close to hundreds of tasks per day. They were expected to do the following:
- Cook
- Harvest Crops
- Laundry
- Crafting
- There are lots more too but I just cannot think of them right now.

Hope this helps and Good Luck.

Answer 5

Yeah single mothers weren't socially acceptable at the time. But there was plenty of work for the house wife considering there was not much in the way of modern convenience.

Answer 6

There were no single mothers as we know them. A woman who got pregnant out of wedlock went to a "home" to give birth and the baby was given up. If her husband divorced her, he very likely got custody of any children. If she were widowed and unable to support herself, she would likely be taken in by a family member in the hope that she would remarry.

So let's look at the case of a self-supporting widow. Depending on whether she was urban or rural and what skils she had, she might make a iiving by midwifery, by taking in washing, by dressmaking, by running a boardinghouse. She had to split kindling, lug in wood and keep the fires going in the stoves or fireplaces. She cooked with wood in summer as well as winter. She did laundry by hand, once a week, for which she had to heat water on the stove. She heated a flatiron to iron the clean clothes. She may have made her family's clothes, and she certainly mended them. She swept and scrubbed. She prepared three meals from scratch. She baked her own bread. She used a privy and bathed once a week, again, in water she heated herself. She likely had a garden and root cellar and canned the vegetables that couldn't be stored or pickled. She probably had a herb garden as well, mainly medicinal herbs to treat her own family. If she lived in the country she may have had a few hens and a cow; she milked twice a day, made butter and sold it, and sold eggs tool. It was unlikely that she had a hand pump in the kitchen; she probably drew and carried water from a well. She might have spun wool and certainly knit socks, hats and mittens for her children. The children, of course, took up some of her time, but as soon as they were old enough, they helped with household chores. Oh yes, and she washed diapers by hand. (I knew an old woman in western Maine who had had four diapers for a child: at any given moment, one was on the child, one soaking, and a couple hanging to dry on a line in the kitchen. And this was in the mid-1900s!) Because candles were expensive and kerosene lamps only for the rich, she probably went to bed when it got dark and was up before the sun. Life was basically a day-to-day struggle to survive and there was little time for leisure. And I'm sure I've forgotten a few things, like soapmaking and such!

Answer 7

1800s -- who was a single mother then? If their husband died early they married someone else.

Answer 8

She did everything... she was ostricized by her family and community (unless she was widowed).. she was more than likely living completely alone, or with a horrible man... women at this time just didn't do that as they do now.. it's was not socially acceptable at all.

Answer 9

i don't think there were very many single mothers during that time.

Answer 10

there were no single mothers in that period, not socially accepted.