re: When men worked and women took care of the family. Are we better or worse?

It's a mix. On one hand, both of my parents had to work and weren't there a lot. OTOH, I wouldn't trade being a latchkey kid for anything. They couldn't afford day care, so I walked home from school, made a snack, and did whatever I wanted for a few hours. Starting at 8 years old, I was even left at home alone all day during the summer. I'd get my chores done, then do whatever, including going for an unsupervised swim. My parents rarely even knew where I was from 1982-1992, but they knew that I was resourceful and would always make it home before dark. As a result, I've always been halfway feral and completely self-sufficient. Also, being alone doesn't bother me a bit. I think that helicopter parents are a large part of why kids are so soft these days.

Negative. That and lack of fathers around.

Listen to Merle Haggard “Are the good times over for good”

quote:

---

In the 70s/80s, no one had that. You might have one piece of crap car for the family and a 1500 sf ranch for 5 or 6 people. No cell phones, internet, cable, etc. No eating out, one trip to the grocery a week, if you ran out of what wanted to eat, tough. If a teenage wanted a car, he/she worked to buy it.

---

This is the truth along with the other latch key kids that we were in the 70s and 80s.

Problem is retirement.
Pension plans were available a lot more in corporations.
Retirement is a lot harder in today’s world when the wife stays at home unless your household spends money like it’s the 50s, 60s and 70s.

worse

TL;DR at bottom for those who don’t give a shite.

quote:

---

I think this has some merit. Again though, the cost of things that we had in the 50’s and 60’s is out of control. Housing prices are outpacing inflation, same goes for cars.

---

A couple of graphs for context:

Percentage of Dual-Income Households


Median Home Price / Median Household Income


There are a whole lot of different ways you can interpret this stuff so I’m certainly not stating any of this as absolute fact, but here are some of my thoughts:

First off, I’m going to focus on the period from 1960-1995. Why? Because the 2008 bubble/sub-prime fiasco throws a massive wrench in the gears. The percentage of dual-income households hasn’t really changed since the mid-80’s, so surely 1995 should give us an idea of how the trend impacted our overall livelihoods.

The percentage of dual-income households increased from ~25% in 1960 to ~60% by the mid-90’s. So in theory that means the average household has gone from 1.25 earners to 1.60 earners - a 28% increase.

Meanwhile, the ratio of home price to household income dropped from 4.84 in 1960 to 4.27 in 1995. So relative to household income, homes were more expensive in 1960 than in 1995.

Another way to interpret this would be that if the average individual makes $50,000 (in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars) then that would mean:
1960 - $62,500 median household income, $302,500 median home price
1995 - $80,000 median household income (+28%), $341,600 median home price (+13%).

Since I’m already over-analyzing the data, I might conclude two things:
1. Home prices per earner (as a percentage of individual income) did indeed increase from 1960-1995.
2. Home prices per household (as a percentage of combined income) decreased from 1960-1995.

In other words, a lot of that secondary income went to paying for housing. But not all of it. So then the question becomes: how much of that extra income should be spent on housing?

I think it’s an interesting question. If we take the historical element out of the equation and focus on income vs. home price at a fixed moment in time, it’s pretty obvious that people with more money buy more expensive houses. So I would argue that some increase in the price/income ratio is inevitable whenever household earnings increase. There’s no right answer for how much it should increase relative to number of earners, IMO, except that the additional spend on housing should be less than the additional income.

So then the next question is whether we are actually getting more out of that second income, or simply paying more for the same thing. And again I would argue that houses are indeed bigger (although lot size is probably a different story). Further, the amenities people have come to expect when buying a house - central air/heat with high energy efficiency, double-pane low-E glass, stainless steel appliances, fancier kitchens & bathrooms, etc. - have increased as well.

And I think this is the larger point. You can look at it as “things we had in the 60’s” but nobody wants to live in a 1960’s house that hasn’t been modernized. Vehicles are larger, more luxurious, and run way longer with way less maintenance than they did in the 60’s. 1960’s cars might be collectors items today but if we retooled all of the assembly lines to build exact replicas of those vehicles, it would 100% be a downgrade (and they would be cheaper as a result).

Cell phones might be necessary in the 2022 economy, but we spend way more than we “need” on phones and data plans. Same goes for internet, TV, streaming services, etc.

So I guess the TL;DR is this:

While wages have certainly stagnated relative to inflation, the second income is still a net boost to households. I think you can probably live to 1960’s standards on one income today but nobody wants to do that because we like having more/better shite.

You realize that the one male working back then had more spending ability than both parents working now right?

Been lucky enough that my wife has been able to stay home the last 10 years and has made our family much stronger. The last couple years have been tougher, but we would have a much more stressful family life if she had been working.

quote:

---

was that being a stay at home mom was something terrible and the only way a woman could be “happy” was to work all day at the widget factory for accompany that doesn’t give a shite about her all so she could pay someone else to raise her children.

---

Happiest and brokest our household ever was occured when I stayed home with my children when they were small. I went to work when they were in upper elementary. They never stopped asking me to quit work until the went to college.
Now my 3 grandchildren- 1 has a stay at home mom,one has two work from home parents and could easily stay home but begs to go to preschool and play with friends. 3rd goes to school where mom works and loves that. Stays home with mom in summer.

I’ll just say this. Kids spending as much time with family is the best outcome generally speaking. Bc family more times than not have the child’s best interest at heart.