So prior to WWII there was an order to things. Women stayed home. Men went off to work all day. The woman raised the kids, the man made the money, and together their home was well taken care of both financially and emotionally.
Then WWII happened, and Hitler was like "Hey man, come join these parties on the beaches! We got invited to France, and now we're hanging out! Come on over!"
Well.....it didn't happen EXACTLY like that, but the end result was that something like 60% of men in the USA were now over in Europe fighting WWII. Which left the issue of the ecconomy. Who was going to work, if the men weren't even in the country? So, the women did both jobs. They went to work. Then they came home and tried their best to raise the kids.
Doing that alone is tough.
Then the war ended, and the men came back with the idea that they'd just take over their old jobs, the women would go back home, and things would return to normal.
Except that didn't happen. The women decided that they enjoyed being at work more than they enjoyed being at home. And the men were stubborn like men are, and they ALSO went back to work. This left the entire boomer generation with a situation where nobody really raised them. Instead of previous generations who got good discipline from their mother, and a punishment from their father if they were bad, they instead got.....nothing. They were allowed to freely do whatever the fuck they wanted. Which is why that entire generation has felt so entitled from the time they were kids to now in AARP. There has never been a time when the boomers mentality as a generation has felt "I should be more responsible for myself and for others". Whereas that was the main mentality for centuries prior.
So now you got households throughout the 50s and 60s with 2 incomes, at a time that stores and the economy was designed for 1 home income. So families spent in excess because they had excess. Houses were cheaap, salaries were abundant, life was good.......as long as you ignored the cold war, and the fact that both America and the USSR were playing chicken with nuclear warheads. Other than that though.....
So now you got the 1980s, and the economy is starting to catch up to the idea that most houses have 2 incomes. They gouge a little more, because fuck it. The 1980s became the decade that was all about corporate greed. Remember that movie line? "Greed is good", and people were revoling in that concept. They were even dumb enough to believe in trickle down ecconomics, because their lives weren't fucked yet.
And the 90s is when things started tightening even more, where now it wasn't just known that you had a 2 income home, it was expected.
So then life went on, and corporate America just kept down that path of asking "In the 80s, we took.....and in the 90s, we took more! How much more can we take and take and take?"
And that's a question that they've been asking for decades now, and only very very very recently with Luigi Mangione have we seen any sign of what would it take for the public to fight back corporate America taking from them? We're FAR removed at this point from the average American household doing well. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck, budgeting in a way that asks the question "Which is more important this month, heat, or food?"
Meanwhile the CEOs of this country have never had it better. The gap between them and the plebs has never been bigger.
Now let's look at the other side of things. People. Starting as kids. Now, each generation has different identities. The boomers are known for being self entitled brats who never grew up despite growing old. Gen X is known for self deprication in a way that's not really humor. They just kind of laugh to themselves but it's more to hold back tears because they know how fucked up their world is, but they also have never been allowed to overcome the boomers shadow. The millenials are known for being whiney, because that's what works. They whine about an issue, and now suddenly it gains traction, and you have millions of people whining about it. Now something can be done. The Zoomers are known for being politically minded from a young age, because they have to be. Growing up in the first age where school shootings are a more real threat than a fire.
But the one thing that all these generations have in common is the idea that nobody was there for them at home. Their parent(s) were always at work. They had either babysitters, or other temporary family watching (as in, maybe your grandparent watches you for the day. It's not that they're leaving your life, but they're also not the one who will be raising you).
And so you look at how kids have acted over the years. Kids will always rebel. They'll always act up. They'll always do something that needs a parent to raise them. Discipline is just as much about the guidance as it is the rules. Punishment is only there to make you understand that discipline has consequences for breaking.
Except kids today, and for a long time, have gotten none of that. Dating all the way back to the boomers. And just like corporate america taking a little bit more with each passing day, the youth with each generation falls a little more behind what they should be being taught. And not just in the schools. Not just knowledge. I'm including that, but I'm also talking about empathy, emotional guidance, character building. No, they get none of that. They get a screen 16 hours a day that the parent doesn't pay attention to. With the logic being "So what, they have an iPad all day? I had TV all day growing up, and I turned out fine."
No. No you didn't turn out fine. You, and everyone else around you, has turnout out horrible. So horrible that you don't even recognize what a stable person acts like. That's just your own ego refusing to admit to yourself that you might be flawed. You are. You are flawed. You're passing those flaws onto your children, or already have. This is a cycle that nobody is trying to break. The idea that a TV show, or an app, or a website, or whatever the fuck on a screen should fill in for your responsibility as a parent is mind boggling. You're entrusting a corporation to instill into your child good morals, empathy, how to be a good person. But as we've already covered, corporations do not give a shit about you. Corporations do not give a fuck about your family. Corporations just care about you long enough to let you watch their advertisements to sell you their products, and take your money. That's all you are to them. That's all your children are to them. That's all it's ever been. There's an entire industry out there to pay the grocery stores to place the kid friendly products on low shelves where they can reach them more easily. It's all very well thought out. It's designed to manipulate your kids into manipulating you into giving them more money. That's all it's ever been. That's all that screen is there to do. To feed you ads. To take your money. And now you've entrusted those people to raise your kids for 16 hours a day. Are you begining to see how flawed that is now?
So, I say we take an approach, as an entire society, to correct this coarse of action. We COLLECTIVELY need to go back to 1 income households. One parent stays home. One parent works. And I honestly don't see any advantage right now in making that a gender exclusive thing. For what the goal is, I think each individual household needs to discuss between partners who's better suited to work, and who's better suited to stay home? Because I think one person, even if they're not a parent staying home to cook and clean is important. With both of you working, it becomes an issue of "Ugh the house is messy" "Yeah, but I just worked for 10 hours. I just want to sit in this chair and do nothing" "Yeah me too.....guess we'll clean on the weekend". And then the weekend comes, and you got shit to do. You gotta go grocery shopping, you gotta pay bills, you gotta do all this other shit, and oh by the way, the dishes haven't been washed in like 4 days.
Well, they're only not getting washed because you're exausted. If you woke up at 10am, and did the dishes at like noon, and every day did some light cleaning. And then maybe did the grocery shopping for the week, then your partner would come home, the house is clean, and you can both spend time together doing nothing. Then the weekend comes, and all those chores are done. Your weekends together are free. And now you both have the time, and the energy to go to an art muesum, or to a baseball game, or whatever. Fuck it. The bills are paid, the house is clean, the meals are made. And the kids are getting life lessons all day from whomever is home, and best suited to teach them how to be good people.
Then suddenly, over the coarse of 3-4 generations, you have a smarter society, which leads to more people reaching bigger discoveries. Medicine, space, underwater, these are all feilds that we think we're experts in, but we only know less than 1% of what's out there. Nobodies even invented time travel yet!
And why are we living in a society where men work, and women also work? Because it brings home more money. But we're all living month to month. So are we REALLY making more money? Or are we just doing double the work?
We need to end the 2 income homes. 1 income should be all a home needs to survive.