What was family life like in the 1930s and 1940s?

Answer 1

Your question is broad; so much was different then, and very different than today.

First, extended families often lived in the same house-- mom, dad, kids, with one set of grandparents, possibly an aunt or uncle as well. Houses were usually frame, and often coal heated with a furnace. In big cities, families often lived over the business they ran. Poorer families were often crammed into small residences or apartments. Some single persons, widowed or otherwise without family became boarders in private persons' homes who rented out the upper rooms of the house and shared the kitchen and bathroom, and living room or parlor.

The father was the bread-winner; moms stayed at home and didn't mind--back then--being called housewives.

Children were expected to go to school, high school and often, college. Kids were expected to get good grades and to graduate. But many kids also worked in after-school jobs and full days on weekends.

Most families had some type of vegetable garden to supplement what they had to buy. A good yield could feed a family all summer, plus have enough for canning for winter treats.

Meals were always sit down, at home, with the whole family present usually. Dinner time was shortly after Dad arrived home from work. Everyone stayed at the table through the meal and kids had to ask to "be excused"--to which the parent could say yes or no. During the meal, everyone shared what went on in each person's day.

But, in other families, children didn't grow up with this kind of stability or structure. Some families experienced terrible poverty, divorce, death of a parent, abandonment by a parent/spouse leaving just one parent to raise the kids. Some kids were sent to children's homes and lived under State care. Other children went to live with extended relatives.

No one had TV yet, but almost every family had a radio. Usually after dinner, families gathered around the radio to listen to shows, from westerns to dramas.

Most children shared a bedroom with siblings. Buck beds were great for multiple kids and limited space. Kids read books, comic books, or made up stories to tell. In daytime, marbles, hopscotch, jumprope, "building" things, and just hanging out with friends until dark was common--- only after kids completed their chores, though.

Chores got assigned and split by sex -- girls dusted, vaccumed, washed and ironed clothes, as examples, while boys took out trash, cut the lawn, etc. I was told a cute story about "chores" my grandmother did. Her mother would send her to the grandmother's house where she washed dishes, dusted, scrubbed floors, etc. For a day, she got 0.50 cents, which she gave to her mother when she got back home. She did this from age 8 to age 14, every day. But she said she realized that both her mom and grandma were poor and figured out her mother gave the 0.50 cents to her own mother to give to her for the work... so it was the "same" 0.50 cents going back and forth from the mom, to the grandma (the mom's mother), to the grandchild, back to the mother, who'd give it back to her own mother to begin the whole process over again. Each of them just kept a week's worth of coins on hand so my grandma always got paid, but the women never "paid" any money, really. This "trick" seemed to be humorous to my grandmother as she remembered her childhood.