(lively music)
- Hi guys, welcome back to my channel!
In today's video, I'm going to be doing
a day in the life of a 1960's housewife.
My 1950's video went down so well,
that I thought I'd go ahead and do the next decade.
And I'm so excited because the 1960's, especially in Britain
was the most iconic decade for so many reasons.
The music, the fashion, the protesting, the free love.
But the majority of women with young children
were still housewives, so I'm gonna go through
what they would eat, what they would do,
how they would clean, et cetera.
So I really hope you enjoy this and I'm so excited as well
because this is also a collaboration
with four other YouTubers.
We have decided to take on all of the decades
so I will put all of the links in the description bar below.
But Brittany, from Bits of Paradis,
will be doing the 1950's.
I'm obviously doing the 60's.
Elle Lindquist will be doing
a day in the life of a 1970's housewife.
And then Shaylee, from Shaylee and Baby,
is doing the 1980's.
And finally, Ariana Pflederer will be doing
a day in the life of a 1990's housewife.
So we have so many videos for you
so if you like these kind of videos,
please check out the links down below.
So without further ado, let's step back in time.
- [Emily] So I'm starting out the day
with a cup of tea and also an English breakfast.
After the two World Wars, tourism really started
to pick up in Britain and this became
like a normal breakfast to have in a hotel or a B and B
and that is why it's called an English breakfast.
And then people started to have it more and more in the 60's
so this morning because I was having this,
which was actually so filling,
I thought I'd let Jackson try bacon
and that it what he thought of it.
After breakfast I went to get ready
and put on a full face of makeup
and also try to perfect the beehive hairstyle.
(retro music)
- Hey, I really tried, but my hair
just does not want to be a beehive.
This is like as high as I could get,
pushing it up with pins.
But apparently the bigger the better in the 60's
and some women would want to keep their beehive so perfect,
they would actually sleep sitting up. (chuckles)
So I don't think this would do very well in the 60's.
But it's gonna have to do for today.
And now onto fashion and in the 60's,
Mary Quant invented the first ever mini-skirt,
which was the first of it's kind.
It was several inches above the knee
and made women feel free and able to walk around freely
without a long skirt on.
The mini-skirt was a really big deal in the 60's
but because I'm just doing housework today,
I'm just going to wear jeans and this gingham shirt
which I thought was quite 60's
and my pathetic beehive which is just getting
flatter and flatter as the day goes on.
So Jackson's just gone down for his morning nap,
so I'm going to get on with my cleaning duties.
In the 1960's, most women with families were housewives.
Lots more of them started to working when
their children got to the teenage years,
but because my children are young,
I would've been a housewife.
And on average they would clean about 44 hours a week.
And nowadays in 2017, we clean on average
about 17 or 18 hours a week,
so it is a lot more than I clean at the moment.
So I have lots to get on with.
And I know that I have to do the dishes by hand
because dishwashers really didn't become a thing
until the 1970's, 80's, so yeah, here we go.
So I'm gonna start getting those dishes done from breakfast
and it's funny how you don't realize
how much you use something until it's gone.
I really missed my dishwasher.
Luckily, there was washing machines in the 60's
so I could put a load of laundry on.
And then I'm going to try and tackle the toys.
In the 60's, children probably wouldn't have had
these many toys, but they did start to get more toys
because the war in England was over in the 50's,
people did start to get more toys
and give kids more attention.
And then I'm just going to straighten out
the rest of the house.
(lively music)
For Jackson's outfit, I've dressed him in
the most baby-ish outfit that we have for him.
Nowadays, babies dress like little adults,
but back then, they really would've dressed
a lot more like babies, in something like this.
And then I'm gonna take Jackson outside.
Back in the 60's, children spent so much time outdoors.
There were T.V.s at home, but they still encouraged children
to play outside, so I'm gonna take Jackson outside.
Right, so we're now gonna pop to the shops.
Back in the 60's, housewives would go
to the store every single day to get supplies for dinner.
They had very small fridges and no freezers
so you had to go everyday.
So I'm just gonna go there now
and I've got something fun planned for dinner for tonight.
Once I finished at the shops, I also did the school run.
And when we got home, I encouraged the boys to play outside.
We had a game of dodge ball
and then I just tried to keep them outside
away from their iPads, away from their tablets and things,
as much as I could.
And it was really cute,
they invented this game with the acorns.
They were collecting them and putting them into Tupperware
and throwing them and just playing with them.
And they were occupied for ages outdoors.
Once we got back inside,
I decided to put on a film for them
and Mary Poppins was actually released in 1964
and my boys have never seen it, so I put that on.
It didn't actually hold their attention for that long,
but it gave me a chance to try and tidy up the house
because again, in the 60's,
the idea is that your house would be nice and tidy
for when your husband gets home from work.
So I try to just do the dishes, wipe down all the surfaces,
and start to think about preparing dinner as well.
And I'm making a 1960's starter and it's so random.
You need cheese, pineapple, a grapefruit, and toothpicks.
You just stick half a grapefruit on a plate like this.
Get some cubed cheese and then also some pineapple slices.
Stick them onto a toothpick
and then stick that into a grapefruit.
And honestly, I find this so odd
cause it just wasn't a thing where I grew up in Canada,
but this was the height of sophistication in 1960's.
- [Emily] Here, try it.
- Mmmm!
- [Emily] Do you like it?
Yeah? It's good?
And I put cheese on it too.
Well, the boys seem to like it and for their dinner
they're having spaghetti bolognese.
And I'm gonna have the same when Matt gets home from work.
But before the 60's, there was no pasta in the U.K.,
but the 60's saw foreign food, like Italian food
and Indian food, come to the U.K.
It sounds silly calling it foreign,
when it is such a staple now,
but it really was quite fancy at dinner parties.
After dinner, I'm gonna take all of the boys up
and give them all baths so that they're all nice and clean
and in clean pajamas for when my husband, Matt, gets home.
And while I'm with them in the bathroom,
I'm gonna quickly try and freshen up my make up and hair.
Typically, women would do this about 15 or 20 minutes
before their husbands would get home
so that they would look all fresh.
(lively music)
And oh my goodness, how cute is Jackson's walking?
He literally started this week
and he is getting so confident.
I'm so proud of him.
- Hi, do you remember I did go swimming again at school,
but I had my snack too.
- You had swimming and a snack at school?
- When I went back to school.
- That's good isn't it?
Was it fun?
- Guys, watch this.
Pie face. (banging)
- [Emily] Then I'm just going to try to get
all the boys to bed and then come downstairs
and set the table and get everything ready for dinner.
So Matt's home now, so I'm hoping to show him my starter.
This was the height of sophistication in the 1960's.
Will you try one? (chuckles)
They might stab him.
Like it?
- Hmm.
- Do you?
- Lovely cheese. - The boys liked it.
Do you like it?
Ahhh, it's a winner!
(lively music)
It's just weird.
It's just weird that you put it in a grapefruit as well.
After that, I'm gonna need a drink.
And back then, wines like Chianti, Blue Nun,
and Rose Matias got really popular.
Here is the spaghetti bolognese for Matt.
I've also got some garlic bread
and of course, my starter as well.
So I'm just gonna go ahead and eat this,
but this is actually a normal dish
that we would have all the time, followed by profiteroles.
This was a big one in the 60's.
Obviously, I didn't make this by hand,
but I reckon M&S was around in the 60's as well.
So it's the next day now and I wanted
to update on how I found my 1960's day.
I really enjoyed doing this one.
I loved researching it.
I found it so interesting.
I was obviously doing a housewife version,
but when I was looking into it,
it was saying that the teenagers in the 1960's
were so much more free and it was
like love and rock and roll and everything
because the parents of those teenagers
had been through two World Wars so they were a lot more
like relaxed, less strict, and were like to their kids,
like enjoy life almost.
So that is why everything went crazy.
And I find it interesting as well that fashion changed
so much in the 60's compared to the 50's,
like mini-skirts would've been like disgusting in the 50's,
but then they were completely accepted in the 60's.
And I thought it was quite cute they were actually called
a mini-skirt because the inventor of them, Mary Quant,
her favorite car as the Mini.
So that's why she called it a mini-skirt.
So I thought that was really cool as well.
I really liked again that, as a wife, you kind of like try
to get the house looking nice and try and make yourself
like freshen up a bit, almost like care a bit more about
impressing your husband, whereas, like nowadays,
it's like, hi, I'm in my pajamas just looking disgusting
at the end of the day.
So I quite liked that.
Again, I didn't like the pressure though of having
to have a clean house.
Like, they did so much cleaning
and obviously they didn't work back then.
Most women didn't work.
Cause I work now, I like do the bare minimum in a way.
Like, I'll do one weekly clean and then just like day to day
so I could never keep up their cleaning schedule.
I really miss the dishwasher.
I really miss the tumble dryer, again.
But I love the music though.
The Beatles became a thing, the Rolling Stones.
So all the music in the 60's was amazing.
Yes, well, I hope you enjoyed this day.
Let me know what your favorite part was
in the comments below and give it a like
if you want me to go ahead and do the 1970's.
And make sure you check out the other people
in this collab who have done the other decades
because they are such good videos.
So all the links are down below.
Thanks so much for watching!
Bye, guys!