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.
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.