Alphawolf55 wrote:One, when you count in lunch breaks and travel time the average person spends 50 hours of their week dedicated to their job.
Don't try to move the goalposts - people are paid for
working, not for their commute and lunch breaks. People eat lunch whether they're at work or not, that's why it doesn't count.
Doing chores at home doesn't build the same level of obligation as a 9-5 job. If I don't leave my house and go to work I get fired, if I don't clean my living room the worse is I live in a messy place and get yelled at by the people I live with.
So? No one is claiming that housework is the same as a paying job outside the home, or that it's the equivalent.
You can stay at home and keep a neat home, or you can be a slob. You can go to work and do your best every day, or you can go to work and do just the bare minimum not to get fired.
Also clearly you don't know how to read. When I say "One works outside the home but is expected to do nothing at home" that sentence doesn't mean that the stay-at home does nothing it's the opposite, it's that the people who works outside the home feels he shouldn't do anything once he gets home.
Maybe the outside worker shouldn't have to do anything once they're home. Some jobs really are very demanding. One of the upsides of having a stay at home spouse is that the wage earner
doesn't have to do anything once home, just come home and rest. Is that really so terrible so long as the wage earner isn't being a jackass or abusing the other?
My experience is fucking living with two people with that kind of arrangement and living completely around families who do as well. The average income for my neighborhood was 200,000+ a year.
Oh, so you're a rich kid. Suburbs, right? You do realize that the median income in the US is around $40,000-45,000? Your experience may have been typical for your neighborhood but it doesn't reflect reality for most households in this country.
Among other things, a household earning 200k a year can afford to hire help - maids, nannies, lawncare people. They can afford to purchase convenience, be it food, labor-saving appliances, or maintenance for their vehicles. That makes a huge difference. Contrast that with a household of two making, say $20k a year who might not have a dishwasher, might have to take their laundry to a laundromat, mow their own lawn, do their own home maintenance instead of hiring a contractor, do some of their own vehicle maintenance.... All of a sudden the household requires a lot more effort for the stay-at-home.
Historically rich women took on activities outside the home even if there wasn't a paycheck involved, such as fund raising for charity. But perhaps your family and neighbors were typical selfish Republicans who wouldn't piss on someone on fire to help them out.
But once the kids left the household things got difficult mainly the guy feeling like he should do nothing at home but the bare minimum and the woman feeling like the guy doesn't pull his weight around at home.
Then the women were selfish bitches. If he's pulling down $200k a year and you agreed to stay home and take care of the house then that's the deal you made. No, arguably he
shouldn't have to do chores around the house, either the non-wage earner does that, or you hire household help. At $200k a year you can damn well afford to do either.
Whats your experience?
20 years of marriage, mostly. At times I've been stay at home, at others my spouse has been (hence my comment about there being no bar to the couple swapping roles). Even though my spouse is disabled and
unable work some chores are still done by the stay at home. So able-bodied human beings have no goddamn reason to bitch this is an impossible situation. The stay at home handles the family finances, handles much of the shopping (for safety reasons I have to do the cooking and the heavy lifting, but that's necessity), runs errands, basically does as much as possible within real physical limitations. When I've been the stay at home I've done ALL the household crap - cooking, cleaning, shopping, laundry, budgeting, fixing shit, vehicle maintenance...
Oh, yes, I did have free time. I split it between doing stuff like charity work (I used to provide support to a homeless shelter and the local food pantries) and my own hobbies and amusements. Said hobbies and amusements being indulged only after my other responsibilities were taken care of.
My spouse did the same when the stay-at-home. In fact, last year, there was considerable help given to a local high school music program by my spouse, in addition to what else was being taken care of at home.
My sister and her husband in Buffalo did the same thing - at times she was stay at home, at other times he was, but they aren't entirely typical of this discussion as they had children. Most recently he worked and she didn't but she was going through
medical school in addition to running the home. Now she's got the big income job and he's... well, he's looking for work, but yes, he's now essentially a househusband. For the second or third time.
In my neighborhood we have a number of single-income families either true middle class or lower down.... because families that AREN'T rich have fewer means to eliminate work in the home the stay at home usually keeps pretty busy.
Alphawolf55 wrote:I mean part of it could just be people who were born in the 20-40's. I mean there are multiple reasons why we don't think this anymore, one has to do with the fact that yes women have made progress during the last 50 years and yes it's stupid to expect women to devote their lives to the kitchen
Why are you always assuming it's the WOMAN who is the stay at home partner? Gee, isn't that telling? A fine example of how young adults make assumptions.
Yes, even today, the stay at home is USUALLY the woman but more and more it's the man. I've known about a dozen high-power career women with househusbands (including that one sister of mine). If you have a dual income family where the man loses his job and is having trouble finding work then you have that situation involuntarially.
but a big reason why people have changed their assumptions is necessity, more and more it's becoming needed for two income houses so it's hard to tell your wife she needs to stay at home when you can't afford it, the WW2 generation for the most part reasonably could raise a family on one income so that's part of the reason they believe it. So it's a mixture of social ignorance and what is considered realistic during their times.
Actually, it's STILL possible to support two people on one income. I've been doing it for 10 years now. At one point I not only did that, I also used to fly airplanes as a hobby and that is NOT cheap - and yet I never required a six figure income to do it.
The biggest problem is that while you certainly can suppport two people on, say $20k a year (outside of cities like New York - I'm talking MOST of the geographic US, not the big cities) it's not going to be with a mansion, several SUV's, expensive vacations, and a lot of other happy horseshit. GREED is half the problem here, the vain attempt to emulate the lifestyles of the rich and famous on the income of the poor and obscure. Keep in mind we're talking about two-person families here, not the families with kids which genuinely have more expenses. If people were content to drive older vehicles and have fewer toys, if they were willing to actually prioritize their lives instead of trying to have it all instantly, then yes, many childless couples could in fact have the wage earner/housespouse lifestyle. If they were willing to make the trade offs inherent in such a choice.
