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OPINION COVID-19 kills the myth of the two-working-parents necessity
Washington Examiner ^ | 15 May 2020 | by Suzanne Venker

Posted on 05/16/2020 4:48:36 AM PDT by US Navy Vet

By creating an environment where people can't spend, lockdowns are forcing families to rethink their finances and their priorities. Those who aren't out of a job are saving more, too. And with schools closed across the nation, parents are spending an inordinate amount of time with their children. Add it all up, and it just may lead to a complete paradigm shift, one in which parents realize that what they thought was necessary before the COVID-19 pandemic isn't actually necessary.

For 30 years, the media have been there to tell us it's impossible for one parent to stay home with their children, even though this flies in the face of cold-hard facts: The majority of married mothers with children under 18 are either not employed or are employed part time, and they are not wealthy. Moreover, 67% of mothers with children under 18 have gone on the record to say their "ideal" work situation is to work part time or not at all. Yet rather than discuss economical ways to make this happen, we tell them it can't be done.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...


TOPICS: Education; Society
KEYWORDS: homeschooling
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...Thoughts?...
1 posted on 05/16/2020 4:48:36 AM PDT by US Navy Vet
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To: US Navy Vet
One paycheck would not put my grandchildren through college or give them stimulating activities. Their parents both work. They're totally devoted to their children and have encouraged them at every step.

My granddaugter is in her 3rd year at Brown (Full Scholarship +) going for her PHD in Bio/Pharm/etc.

My grandson will start at Electric Boat (General Dynamics) which makes submarines.

My daughter and her hubby are a team...and that's what it takes whether both are working or not.

2 posted on 05/16/2020 4:55:10 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: US Navy Vet

It’s good to have one parent at home. Two parents working is part of the communists goal of destroying the sovereign family and replace it with State authority. Plus there’s more tax revenue for entitlements. They get a twofer.


3 posted on 05/16/2020 4:55:58 AM PDT by HighSierra5
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To: US Navy Vet

My wife and I were discussing this last week. If you are working a lower pay job, commuting, paying for child care and still “broke” then you could come to the conclusion that a job isn’t worth it. I can see many coming to that conclusion over this lock down.

I also think there are some that got a real shock about what is really going on in school.


4 posted on 05/16/2020 4:57:05 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$
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To: US Navy Vet

My wife and I were discussing this last week. If you are working a lower pay job, commuting, paying for child care and still “broke” then you could come to the conclusion that a job isn’t worth it. I can see many coming to that conclusion over this lock down.

I also think there are some that got a real shock about what is really going on in school.


5 posted on 05/16/2020 4:57:05 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$
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To: Sacajaweau

Kids are better off working and earning their way through college.

But no solution is right for everyone. Those who would prefer to raise their families with a mother/parent at home ought to be able to do so. But everytime Ivanka gets another childcare subsidy win that makes it harder for the traditional family to compete and survive.


6 posted on 05/16/2020 4:59:19 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: US Navy Vet

A couple of thoughts....my mother never worked outside of the home & 2 of us boys were raised up & are still living at an advanced age. My wife worked occasionally outside of the home & we somehow managed OK, tho not luxuriously. Then I see both parents working full-time & have a nice home, new car, etc., but if one loses a job, it can get rough... It seems better to get used to a single income & maybe occasionally supplement it with the other spouse working only part-time, but not depending on that income.


7 posted on 05/16/2020 5:02:20 AM PDT by oldtech
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To: US Navy Vet

Teachers and cops are actually somewhere between overpaid and massively overpaid at this point, depending on the part of the country they live in. So they build wealth by the pensions their unions secured for them sucking the poor suckers in the Dreaded Private Sector, as Howie Carr refers to it, dry.

I don’t think an artificially created Depression makes it clear that families can survive on one income so much as reminds how many mothers, especially, that they would prefer that family structure.


8 posted on 05/16/2020 5:02:53 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: US Navy Vet

Any wistful dream of a return to a traditional nuclear family as the norm will only last as long as $600 unemployment compensation covid windfall lasts.


9 posted on 05/16/2020 5:02:58 AM PDT by buckalfa (Post no bills.)
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To: 9YearLurker

You must not have looked at the cost of College lately. Community colleges are lacking in many ways....especially placement.


10 posted on 05/16/2020 5:04:08 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: Sacajaweau

The extraction of US wealth, systemically and consciously have made it impossible for most families to maintain the standard of living of their parents let alone grandparents on a single income.

Since 1970 the median household income for the most part has remained flat when adjusted for inflation, but now most housholds are 2 income families whereas in 1970 this was the vast exception not the rule.

So in other words on average it’s taking 2 people working to maintain the same income that one did 50 years ago.


11 posted on 05/16/2020 5:04:34 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: Sacajaweau

Cost of college are inexcusable in 1970 a year at Harvard was $2500. And the median household income in the US was 25k or so.

Today the cost of a year at Harvard is almost 48k and the median household income is 62k


12 posted on 05/16/2020 5:07:44 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: Sacajaweau

I am all too aware of higher ed costs and products, as I work in the system.

Lots of grants and other aid out there. Opportunities for kids to at the very least go to state colleges while also working. If you’ve got grandchildren with full graduate Ivy League scholarships they are either quite bright or from a quite favored minority group.

For the bulk of kids, a couple of years at a community college where their state school guarantees admission with full credit acceptance is a very viable bargain alternative.

As always, but with the Internet more universally than ever, education is what the students make of it.


13 posted on 05/16/2020 5:10:35 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: oldtech

Wise observations, oldtech.


14 posted on 05/16/2020 5:11:20 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: US Navy Vet

.


15 posted on 05/16/2020 5:13:20 AM PDT by sauropod (Quarantine is when you restrict sick people, tyranny is when you restrict healthy people.)
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To: HamiltonJay

That’s the entirely predictable result of flooding the workforce with women in the first place. If you double the labor pool, the value of each man’s labor is reduced by half. Those women who “must work” to insure the family income are enslaving themselves.


16 posted on 05/16/2020 5:23:09 AM PDT by Hugh the Scot ("We are domed!" - V V Camp Enari 67-68)
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To: 9YearLurker

No it is the result of the systemic destruction of the manufacturing industry in the US and offshoring it to poor countries and moving the US to a service based economy.. and the intentional effort to depress wages.

Women weren’t working in factories and mines and other places driving down wages by an increased labor pool.. wages have been depressed because nearly every well paying job has been outsourced/offshores or has been systemically undermined an wages depressed by the intentional importation of foreign labor (illegal immigrants and H1B programs)

Tax policy and “trade” have been used to destroy US incomes and standard.


17 posted on 05/16/2020 5:30:27 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: HamiltonJay

“No” as in you are disagreeing with what, exactly?


18 posted on 05/16/2020 5:32:12 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: 9YearLurker

Women started working when taxes were raised so high it effected basic income...

Just go to some site on the internet and see all the taxes we pay...

A lot are in the form of fees..just cable tv frees are a lot of the bill..one reason I got rid of it..

Personal property taxes in some states,it goes on and on...

Gas tax at the pump..


19 posted on 05/16/2020 5:47:25 AM PDT by Hojczyk
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To: US Navy Vet

I gave up a very lucrative six-figure attorney job in the early 2000s to stay home and raise (and eventually homeschool) my children. It can be done. The trade off I see now (compared to my friends who stayed in the field) is that all of them have second (beach) homes and live in $1 million dollar plus primary homes. Their children probably have private college funded, where as mine have 2-4 years of state college paid for.

I feel that I made the better investment.


20 posted on 05/16/2020 5:56:36 AM PDT by pinkandgreenmom
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