what did women do at home during the progressive era , along with watching children?

Answer 1

Progressive era? I'm guessing you mean during the rise of feminism to whit:
They did not have wall-to-wall carpet and rugs were usually beat with a rug-beater.
There were no microwave ovens.
Few had refrigerators and depended on "ice boxes".
There was no 'dry cleaning to pick up.
There were not permanent pressed anything.
Laundry was done with a tub and scrub board, unless the family was well off, then they had a wringer-type, manual washing machine. Many were powered by a gasoline engine.
Sewing machines were non-electric, if the family could afford one.
Clothes were often made by hand.
Often there was a garden to hoe, cows to milk, chickens to feed, eggs to gather, canning to do along with making everything from scratch (no instant anything).
Many had to build a fire in the wood-burning cook stove on which to cook meals.
Some had to bring in water from the well.

This is not all-inclusive but it'll give you an idea of how spoiled people are today. My girlfriends daughter (10) was complaining a couple of days ago about having to wait for fruit to grow and waiting three minutes for something from the microwave. She also had no idea where milk originated.

Answer 2

gossip with neighbors when they have the chances while the husbands were out to bring home the bread. I think they keep the house clean, and cook dinner too. That's how it should have been. Ever since we start having more women in the work force, our cultural values had been shift backwards. Children are no longer being watched with that high quality mothers touch anymore. Baby sitters can't give similar quality care like the real mother do anymore. young people today, I don't know, their social behavior has vastly changed over the years before my eyes. It's strange. Good enough, yes?

Answer 3

As a young woman I was a traditionals stay at home wife.

My days never ended and, if one does the whole housekeeping thing correctly there is never enough time in the day to get everything done. At that time, women cooked from scratch, played with their children, mended clothes instead of replacing them, cleaning the house was a different sort of experience back then-it meant you created a comfortable home space for your family, kept a garden, and belonged to several organizations at a time, not just the PTA.

It was the stay at home's job to keep the household expenses down, pay the bills and balance the checkbook, to look for bargains, to shop for everything, to hire and supervise servicepeople, to run errands, sit in waiting rooms with sick children, have the cars serviced, clip coupons and maintain a certain appearance for the world. Women were expected to arrange for entertaining friends and business associates, for volunteering at hospitals and at schools whether or not we had children, and we did.

I was a young wife in the 1970s. Right on the cusp of change. I didn't care for women's lib and I still don't.

I was sent to college for one purpose, not to meet a husband but to be able to converse with my future husband on an intelligent basis.

I have since collected several business degrees and have achieved both financial and personal success.

The whole purpose of the women's rebellion was simply to allow women to have a choice in how they lived their lives. To be able to pursue a career if they so chose, to be able to jump out of airplanes or go backpacking across Europe-alone-if they so chose. It was all about choice. It was never an either/or situation for any of the women who went through it, it was never about which role was better, it was always about giving a woman the right to be able to choose her own life. And to change her mind and choose a different life.

I do not believe we have made any progress at all, as I don't know very many woman who have any choice about how they will live their lives.

This is not the direction women thought their lives would take, it isn't the one my great grandmother dreamed of when she supported women's vote, nor what my mother imagined when she got her first job (which she did not even consider getting until my little brother was in school full time). I certainly didn't expect the life I have had and, as a woman who has been availed of all of the advantages of the progressive movement, I think our social system is much poorer for the changes we have seen.