Simplicity!

My great grandmother had to drag her rugs outside and beat them with a rug beater.  Pump water into a container in her sink and heat it on her cook stove if she wanted to do dishes.  Chandeliers were gas.  Central heating meant stoking the furnace with coal and carrying out the clinkers.  Washing was done with a tub and a stick and a centrifuge that rocked the house if it wasn't bolted down.  Food was kept cool in a new fangled icebox that required the iceman to come almost daily.  An operator connected her by phone with friends and she had a scratchy wireless or wind up Victrola for entertainment.

Her great grandmother mother didn't have to deal with most of those aggravations.  Life was simpler, smaller, much more basic.  You were born and you worked as hard as you could until you died.  You tied the babies to their cradles, or trees while you worked so they wouldn't wander off into the woods, or walk into the eternal fires that were necessary for washing, cooking and heat.  Sometimes you just tied them to your apron strings, but then they might dig up the seeds you were planting, or eat the plants you were weeding. 

Children were seen and not heard because they too were working as hard as they could from the moment they were old enough to watch the baby under them and no one had time to tend crying children.  They were too busy just trying to keep them alive.

Simplicity is highly over rated sometimes.