Prarie Life

I caught about 45 seconds of Little House on the Prarie today while my boyfriend napped while flipping channels(does this annoy anyone else? They hold the remote, then fall asleep...) Anyway, what were these women doing where they were literally cooking all day? I cook from scratch a good portion of the time and dinner takes an hour at the most. The only thing that takes longer than that is a pot roast, but it's not like you're actively cooking that entire time. Not to mention there were like 80 kids, so couldn't someone else stir the dinner? Why were they always in the kitchen?