to think dual person 'full time' worker family households should never have become the norm?

[workingdilemma]

Was thinking about the other thread talking about tax credits etc.

Around 40 years ago, as a society we'd reached a point where one person working in a household was enough to support a young family.

Now we've ended up where it's pretty much required to have both working full time to be able to afford the same lifestyle - mainly due to the insane 'cost' of housing.

It would have been far better to have had both people in a couple working perhaps part time to allow engagement with the world of work, and also a healthier work/life balance.

Why did we end up like this? Was it all an orchestrated plan to keep the debt cycle going - after all, you can lend on two incomes now for a mortgage. Lovely jubbly for the debt pushers. Is that why the banks and governments encourage this?

I dunno, but I do yearn for a better way to deal with the problems we're having now then everyone demonising each other.

I don't think this is always true by any stretch of the imagination, but I think in a lot of middle class households it is possible to survive on one income. I just don't think people want to.

Both DH and I (for various reasons) have had long stretches of living on one income. We were on one income when we bought our first flat (I was a postgrad student, he was working) as well. We were never going hungry or not able to put the heating on. We did have to cut back on takeout, shop at Aldi instead of Waitrose, panicked when our elderly car looked like it was about to pack it in and didn't have a decent holiday for years. But then, I think that's closer to how people lived in their twenties and thirties back in the day. Certainly, when I was a kid, my mum didn't work. We had an old banger of a car, which burnt through their savings when it blew up (literally) at an airport. Our holidays were all camping holidays (I can put up a tent in the dark in gale force winds without even thinking about it still) and I think my parents maybe went out to a restaurant once a year.

Personally, I quite like two incomes because I like having a big house and a nice car and nice holidays. But I don't think it's essential.

I think if people lived a 1950s lifestyle then fewer would need a second income

^^
This, RedToothBrush has it spot on. It's true, I don't think we have the work / life balance right in this country and house prices are indeed bonkers but our expectations, wants and even needs have changed dramatically since the late 20th century.

Still worrying about all those messed up teens , Sweden has one of the highest divorce rates in world so the dual incomes there don't help kids or marriages suspect same is true for here . Fine if enough income to have stable high standard homebased childcare as in grandparents and nannies . Agree with earlier comment re feeling entitled to everything or blaming government or businesses for not being child friendly but they are there to make money and if large corporations, a legal duty to shareholders

No doubt I am going to get flamed alive for this, I'm not sure if it's even been said as haven't read the who thread, but as women I really don't think we have done ourselves any favours at all with some of our 'feminist' expectations.

Instead of us having at all, we are simply doing it all.

The whole 'women have as much right to a career as men' is great and I totally agree - but instead of it replacing childcare/housework it has simply been added to the list. From what I see, men are still working 9-5 and coming home and doing the odd bit around the house; it's the women who are working full time, looking after the kids, cooking dinner, cleaning etc etc. Expectations are incredibly high.

40 years ago, the guy earned the income (enough to pay for a nice lifestyle) and the woman stayed at home. Now, this sometimes wasn't perfect, but what if everyone was happy? What exactly is the problem? As women we have something to prove?

Nowadays if you do stay home you are frowned upon for not working, as if you live a luxurious lifestyle. If you work, then you don't spend enough time with your kids. And I don't think men have much to do with this mentality, I think we have brought it upon ourselves!

We have a different experience than the both 'having to work full time'. We cannot afford me to work at all (pt would be nice as well if i could get it). A lot of people i know also could not work unless they had free childcare.

This is completely different to my family over the last 60yrs. My GPs all worked and the children were cared for by local family or left alone from what society now would deem as an inappropriate age. My parents both worked ft and could afford it because childcare was pretty unregulated and i was looked after for buttons by other mums earning 'pin money'. There is no way, if they were in my situation now with social expectations and norms and rules and regulations, that they could have ever had 2 parents working.

Also as has been said upthread, jobs paying 60k aren't available as pt jobs for 30k. They also are usually more hours than a normal ft job too meaning the other parent has to be more available or pay for more childcare. DH works nights and weekends and long hours. There is also a commute to pay for and which adds time to his working day.

And I didn't even earn 30k when doing ft work, let alone pt.

We have one old banger, a uk holiday and never go out. We spend every penny every month and often dip into our savings (which were saved pre-dc which we could only afford when i was 35).

I doubt i will ever be able to get a non nmw job ever again once the dc are at school. I'm not sure if me working will ever be worth our while financially until the dc are mid teens.

Our 2 children are a luxury which i had to give up work for.

Also as a slight aside, not many women i know have fulfilling careers. Most have jobs, crappy jobs they hate.

"Instead of us having at all, we are simply doing it all" - yes, probably true in many relationship. I think "Wifework" should be mandatory reading material before more young women fall into the same trap.

"40 years ago, the guy earned the income (enough to pay for a nice lifestyle) and the woman stayed at home. Now, this sometimes wasn't perfect, but what if everyone was happy? What exactly is the problem? As women we have something to prove?"

But it's fairly obvious that a lot of people weren't happy - I don't think it was just a tiny minority of women who wanted to be something other than a stay at home mother/housewife. And I do think in general that men holding all the positions of influence and decision-making in society while women are confined to the domestic sphere is a bad thing. That's a problem right there.

Also I don't recognize that picture you paint of women having a job and then doing all the childcare and household work as well ("Those damn feminists have duped me!") while their menfolk do nothing. Might happen in some houses, not mine. Because I made damn sure it wouldn't (partly by choosing a partner who I knew would step up re housework and child-rearing).

"yes, probably true in many relationship. I think "Wifework" should be mandatory reading material before more young women fall into the same trap."

Yeah, I'm definitely not saying that the "doing it all" phenomenon doesn't happen, but it's not an inevitability or mean that two-job families just don't work for women, full stop.

40 years ago, the guy earned the income (enough to pay for a nice lifestyle) and the woman stayed at home.

That's utter bollocks. My mother worked. My mother in law worked. My grandmothers both worked. Are you seriously saying that, in the year that the sex discrimination act was passed, women were not working? Do you think that "Made in Dagenham" was a fantasy about women working in factories and being badly paid in the 1960s?

And yes, what Gemauve said - my own mother worked when I was a child and I'm 42.

I agree that the cost of housing is much to blame for the two income households, in many areas.
but would also say that consumerism has also had an effect.
We have 3 dc and have managed on dh small/ low income but were fortunate to have bought our first house when prices were much cheaper.
We have also been very frugal for lots of years and always made a profit on houses as we saved costs by doing some ramshackles up.
My ds1 has just bought a house at 23 on a min wage job, but much like us he has scraped the deposit together over many years and been very frugal.

I think we're being a bit blinkered and privileged by assuming that women and children have always been supported by other people's income and should always continue to be so.

^^This. There has never been a golden age of one parent staying at home while the other works for the majority of people.

If you can afford it and it is right for you then do it, but I don't think we should expect the welfare state to fund what is in effect a lifestyle choice.

Absolutely, leedy, doesn't happen in my household either and I'm very happy with our two-job family arrangement. It was not my feminist expectation that I would do everything at home, plus working a full time job. So DH was chosen accordingly.

I definitely get the point that the cost of housing is a lot higher nowadays but I have to agree that some of the people who say they "need" two full-time incomes to survive really mean that they "need" two full-time incomes to maintain their modern standard of living. Surviving would be possible on a lower income for many, just not as comfortable.

That said, both of my DPs worked throughout my childhood and were still fairly hard up. Does anyone remember the interest rates of the 1980's? (I think it was the 80's - trying to remember). I'm know my DPs were on a mortgage rate of 15% at one time .

Mum worked 3 night shifts a week, which paid for holidays, clothes, birthdays, Christmas etc. etc. Would we have survived without that? Yes. But we were undoubtedly happier with it, as most children would be. I can see how with DCs wanting smartphones, games consoles, laptops, Sky TV, branded clothing etc. etc. nowadays and parents feeling under pressure to buy their DCs what most of their friends have can lead to people feeling that they need to earn ever more and more just to keep up.

I work variable hours - between 16 & 40 per week. We could pay rent & essential bills on one income, as we did when I was a SAHM a few years back, but I would rather work & feel more financially stable.

The whole 'women have as much right to a career as men' is great and I totally agree - but instead of it replacing childcare/housework it has simply been added to the list. From what I see, men are still working 9-5 and coming home and doing the odd bit around the house; it's the women who are working full time, looking after the kids, cooking dinner, cleaning etc etc.

Couldn't agree more! From what I see around me, working women are still doing 90% of all housework, not to mention are always the ones organising childcare. Equality is good but someone forgot to send a memo to the men to let them know they should pull their weight!

I see so many posts on here from women working full time but whose husbands still expect them to keep a spotless house and basically be a 1950s style housewife.

Really someone needs to tell them that if they want a housewife at home they need

A. A wife who wants to do that
B. A career that pays enough to facilitate that lifestyle.

"I'm know my DPs were on a mortgage rate of 15% at one time"

I think my parents' mortgage rate hit 17% at one point.

HazleNutt
Absolutely, leedy, doesn't happen in my household either and I'm very happy with our two-job family arrangement. It was not my feminist expectation that I would do everything at home, plus working a full time job. So DH was chosen accordingly.

Same here. Choose a life partner who wants an equal.

Agree with Toffee. Sadly instead of the housework being split equally and women working, women are now just expected to do everything

Same here, soverylucky, so you and your friends aren't entirely unusual.

Soverytrue no, most of my friends have very equal relationships too. But then I suppose people tend to be friends with like minded people.

Fwiw I think it helps that DH and I lived together for about 5 years before having children because let's face it, a man who leaves his dirty undercrackers on the bedroom floor and expects his working partner to cook and clean for him isn't going to suddenly shape up once children are about.

Choose wisely!

My df grew up in a working class household in London. Extended family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins) all lived in the same 2-3 streets. That certainly made childcare considerations considerably cheaper and less stressful, as with that many well known, trusted relatives around, there was always someone to help. These days, plenty of working people don't even know their neighbours' names - they just know them to smile at if they ever see them - let alone living anywhere near either work or family. I don't think that has helped peoples' stress levels - many families are very much more like little isolated units, these days, expected to look out for themselves and not expecting to have to look out for anyone else.

Mortgages shouldn't have been based on two people's salaries and then house prices would be more reasonable.

"women are now just expected to do everything" - expected by whom?

As long as me and my DH agree that I should not be the one doing everything, that's enough. Other people's expectations about how we should share the earning and domestic work do not really affect us.

Hazle, in a lot of families I personally know, that's how it is. Growing up for example, my mum worked (part time) and was still expected to iron everyone's clothes, wash up, clean, cook food for everyone, literally do all the "womanly" jobs. I wouldn't consider my dad deliberately sexist either, he just assumes automatically that my mum will do it. He couldn't even cook until my mum taught him when I was about 8.

Obviously some people have avoided it and that's great.