Well we used to have a society with a division of labor and stable institution of marriage so that women didn't have to work themselves to death through the child rearing years but we decided as a society that in order for women to be truly free, they need to be trapped in the same work to death life that men have been in since prehistoric times, to the detriment of their lives and the lives of our children. But it'll be OK because the village can raise the children; just send them off to the tax subsidized day care to be raised in a 1:20 adult: child ratio (they'll be fiiiiiine) and then you can have your career and your "motherhood" (no matter that the child trusts the nanny more than you because you were always at work) too
"We" didn't decide as a society. Rather individual people (and couples) in society decided that they'd prefer to have additional income [and stimulation] by choosing to work outside the home. Collectively, that dramatically increased the labor supply as compared to 100 years ago as well as increased the demand for goods and services.
I don't want to have us go back to the old way where it was looked down upon or judged for women to participate in society as free and equal agents in deciding how they want to spend their one precious life. "Men should work and women should tend to the household and children" is way worse than "Adults should be able to make free choices about their lives [and accept the consequential outcomes resulting from those choices, both beneficial and detrimental]"
Counterpoint: let's say I hate the effect that car-ownership has had on society - you can't just tell me "well then you should just choose not to own a car". The problem is that society itself has been reshaped around the assumption that essentially everyone has a car. For the vast majority of people in the vast majority of locations in the USA, it's simply not viable to live without a car, or ready access to one.
That doesn't mean I should be able to reshape all of society according to my whims, but it seems flippant to dismiss the material circumstances that make single-breadwinner families economically infeasible for most American families by saying that people can just choose to live that life if they want.
What you say is true, but partly orthogonal. If not owning a car is one of the most important things to you, then as a friend, I would counsel you to arrange your life to prioritize that. Live in NYC or Boston. Or Amsterdam or Paris. In all of those places, car ownership is a net negative and so you'll find a lot of life arranged to assume you don't own a car and as a result, a lot of like-minded people.
If your frustration is that many others choose to own a car and prioritize their consumption differently, again as a friend I would tell you in the most polite way I could muster to make your choices based on your values and let others make their choices based on their values. You can also try to reshape all of society or some small corner of it, but first and foremost, I'd advise you to make pragmatic choices to improve your daily existence.
> arrange your life to prioritize that. Live in NYC or Boston. Or Amsterdam or Paris. In all of those places, car ownership is a net negative and so you'll find a lot of life arranged to assume you don't own a car and as a result, a lot of like-minded people.
That was indeed my point - "just go live in NYC or Boston" is not realistic for most people for a variety of reasons.
What I internalize from that is that the life optimization function coefficient on "live without a car" is not high enough for that person to outweigh the coefficients and input variables on other quality of life factors.
If "live without a car" was 1.0 and all other factors were 0.0, they'd decide to go live in NYC/Boston/someplace else that optimized that. Since they don't, they have other factors that they are weighing (probably implicitly) to conclude that they shouldn't do that.
No one can have everything they want. Most people can have the one thing they want most in the world, if they're willing to make enough other sacrifices to get it.
I hate the effect that car-ownership has had on society and I refuse to own a car personally. I advocate for urban planning that reinforces walkable neighborhoods and tighter parking restrictions and choose to live in a city which isn't completely foot-friendly but is better than most. Choosing to live car-free does impose restrictions on my freedom of movement, but it only prevents me from going to places I have no desire to go to.
I'd also say it's absolutely fine to try and reshape all of society according to your whims - that's sort of what everyone is doing in a democracy constantly. Just don't get upset if some folks object and it doesn't work.
But now I have to be twice as financially successful to provide the equivalent level of support my parents did while my wife opts to be a full time parent.
We both made free choices, but the environment has now made that considerably more expensive.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't a value judgment but, sadly, being a stay at home parent isn't economically "valuable" and so the incentives have shifted over the years.
On the economic value point, my spouse elected to stay home when our second was born as we calculated that with their (well above median pay, PhD required) science job, that with two in daycare or paid pre-school, we were just breaking even on an after-tax monthly cash basis and so they’d be working full-time and the only headway we’d be making from their work and missing our kids’ development was maxing out another 401k account.
For us, that was an absolutely economically valued choice to stay home. Now that they’re in school, freelance science consulting adds to the household retirement savings in a very significant way (when self-employed, you can squirrel away about 92% of the gross income up to mid-five figures), which by now has probably filled in the gap from several years of no 401k contributions and growth and provides them with the intellectual stimulation and contribution in their field that is also desired.
I don't believe that is all down to the changing demographics of the labor force. Another aspect is the availability of land in desirable locales (i.e. close to metro areas). There are more than twice as many people in the U.S. now as there were "in the good old days" (by which I'm referring to the 50s and early 60s). And houses have gotten larger. And on top of that, people have been generally expressing a preference toward urbanization, with less than half as many people living in rural areas today compared to the 50s. All these factors have had a significant effect on housing prices, the dominant cost most American families pay.
The fact that you need to provide so much more value as a worker isn't due to the fact that both parents tend to work (at least not directly) it's due to the fact that modern society has much more rent seeking than previous generations had to deal with. Because most families have more wealthy individuals can squeeze families more before they reach the breaking point and have done so to the point where the average family doesn't have as much spare as it should given everyone's productivity.
The inability to have one working parent support a family comes down to wealth inequality like a lot of modern ills.
