My GOAL in life, when I got married to my wife 45 years ago, was to provide her a home, comfort, and a family that she could raise at home, making enough money that would allow her to focus on HER job (homemaker), while I focused on MINE (career/bread-winner).
She never had to work outside the home, and the team did fine. Leaving "latch-key" kids at home alone, eschewing the nuclear family, has led us to where we are in this country today (f$%^ed up).
If you cannont afford to provide for children WITHOUT DESTROYING THE NUCLEAR FAMILY, then don't have kids, period, IMHO.
The promotion of "women in the workforce" destroyed Mom's traditional role, and the Dad's traditional role.
Because TAXES are so g-damned high to provide for the parasites of this country, women were FORCED to gain additional income in too many families, and they became (expectedly) dis-functional, as I see it.
Couple that with free-wheeling attitudes about sex, drugs, and feeling good taught in Liberal-infested skoolz, and you have a recipe for the moral decay we've come to live with today.
Historically, and not just in the idyllic late ‘40’s and ‘50’s, I mean for thousands of years...women *were* working - they were working the fields, they were washing dishes by hand, doing laundry by hand, cooking meals, growing and preserving food, making clothes, mending clothes, cleaning the house, tending to livestock, infants and toddlers, etc.
Kids were left to fend for themselves and care for siblings, or shipped off to a country school house every morning, or sent to work. The exception has always been the small minority of wealthier families, and they usually employed nannies and nurses to help.
And many women were so poorly educated that even if they wanted to home school their kids, they couldn’t. Because girls’ educations were a very low priority for most of history. Again, there are exceptions. There are ALWAYS exceptions.
This idea that women *used* to stay home and homeschool their kids, nurture their kids until they were off on their own, but no longer do so, is absurd.
Not that you asked, but in my opinion, the downfall of most societies comes from excessive free time. Idle hands, idle minds, etc.
Women initially joined the “working force” in great numbers because of WWII. Women took the jobs the soldiers left.
We still feel the way you do. Now we are an anomaly, with the wife staying home. I don’t believe in institutional care for kids. I had some very bad experiences. My mother had advanced degrees and worked out of the home, and it wasn’t so good for us. But with one person only employed in today’s family, it can be hard. At one time both our cars were over 15 years old.
But all but my eldest have never not had mom around. And it’s been a good thing!