Were grandparents super heroes?

Did you ever wonder how come our grandparents used to raise 5 or more kids and they always looked happy and elegant in the pictures while we suffer raising 1 or 2 kids. Were the kids quieter at that time, was life easier, were the living expenses cheaper, how did they do that? We know for sure that kids are kids even if these generations are more aggressive, but a baby is a baby and he will always be dependent and demanding. It is not that long times ago babies would go to the kitchen and feed themselves. On the contrary if you think about it, there were no facilities like our days. Think of the kitchen appliances alone, everything was done manually by hand. Technology now makes things much easier and some tasks take no time at all if you just use the right tools.

Ok so what was it then? My mother used to tell me that when they were young, their parents would go everyday to the grocery stores to buy fresh veggies and fruits to be cooked on that day. Imagine someone going to buy molokhyia (real thing not the frozen one we cook), clean it and prepare it to be cooked for a family of 7 averages. Yeah, I just realized that even the amount of food must have been a challenge itself. Now we cook only for ourselves; mostly a family of 4 where two kids can barely eat so you end up cooking small portions. Ok so what was it that made them do it while we can’t?

Not to forget the expenses, even if life expenses were cheap, they took so little money as well. I hear in the movies that one would take 20 LE as a monthly salary. Apart from always failing to make sense of that, still a father was expected to take care of a big family of 7 average. My mind can’t make sense of this, 20 LE for everyday life expenses, schools, transportation, health care and the list goes on! I don’t believe in things like old days were blessed but our days are cursed; I think every age has its own challenges which people have to defy.

Maybe the secret was in our grandmothers themselves. Were they less complainers, did they have more energy? Maybe we are drained these days because our life surroundings are so stressful. Maybe because we have to work, so we can barely be up to leading two roles; a housewife and a career woman. Maybe being enclosed with technology, social media and internet is making our life tougher while we think it is the opposite. Maybe life was simpler before globalization and now we are more exposed to the world so we always fail to satisfy our needs. Maybe we have greater dreams than our grandparents so we waste so much time chasing them. I don’t seem to have an answer… If you do; tell me what you think?