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.

YABU for the majority of the population across decades and centuries, 'dual person 'full time' worker family households' were the norm

Yes, but up till roughly the 19th century there was little distinction between 'work' and 'home' for most people. You either worked the land as a family, or you were in small scale trade, retail or manufacturing, working on premises which were both your workplace and your home, generally in a family business with all the family roped in. So both parents worked, generally damn hard, but they did so as a family in the company of their children (and often assisted by aunts, uncles or grandparents living in the same house or nearby). What we do as a society - placing our children in institutional settings away from their families for most of their waking hours - is unprecedented historically.

OP you cannot police the thread.

Rampant inflation and lending in the 80s led to exponential increases in house prices.
Add in changes in society : home ownership being desirable, buy to let, blended families, divorce, increase in elderly living longer but likely to be frailer and willingness to move to where the jobs are ( south) has led to these increases.
greedy couples who both WOH FT is not the reason !
The 70s were not pretty - rampant sexism, homophobia and abuse of the vulnerable.
Women in my parents social class worked but it was never recognised as anything of worth
Only "Real Men" worked ,their wives contributions in and out of the home were invisible.
They had no financial independence - One of our neighbours was caught stealing 2p ( old money) from the shop where she worked so that she could buy sanitary towels , her husband controlled every penny including her wages.
As children we weren't well cared for - just kicked out of the house so that my DM could start her arduous daily housework and take her diazepam to stop her melting down
FUCK THAT!

OP you state you wont buy a house to line someone elses pocket but continuing to rent is doing just that- you are paying the mortgage on the house you live in - for someone else.
My DH and I have shared the care of our DC and I kept my career going as a result.
I do agree that both parents working PT is more flexible but so few employers are on board with this.

But it's bollocks to say most children are in "institutions" for most of their waking hours. Hardly any go to nursery full time for starters

And me working (admittedly part time) had been the best possible fix for my Pnd and I know I am far from alone in this. Better children having fun with their friends and the nursery staff (who become like family, so much so) some of the time, and then a few happy days with a happy mother

throwing you have raised a very valid point.
My DM was not "allowed" to have a career that she very much wanted. She is an intelligent woman but my father said NO and that was that.
As a result she was angry and unhappy and medicated on diazepam as were all her friends.
A happy fulfilled WOH mother engaged with her DC is far superior to a miserable ,unhappy mother who is remote and disengaged from her DC.
I experienced a disengaged mother as a child and ongoing...

It would be lovely if women/men had the choice to do as they wished with no reference to financial concerns but sadly at no time I history has this happened to the working masses.

I ended up in a bad state on Mat leave, my psychiatrist, psychologist and GP and the health visitors all supported my prompt return to part time work. No one ever questioned what a good job I was doing with my kids, indeed they could see the kids were happy, but I was falling apart really badly inside while coping on the outside

for you throwing
I LOVE WOH - on mat leave I would stand and wishfully watch the rush hour traffic wishing I was part of it.
I also love my days off but it has to be balanced against working for me otherwise its like drowning slowly .

Thsi is a myth put out by the housewife/ anti women / anti feminist brigade. Women have always worked. Anyone suggesting being home and minding children as some kind of idyll is having you on. Don';t be fooled. Keep working - it pays on all fronts!

By the way both my parents had to work in the 1950s even! Then 30 years ago we both worked full time all the time. Do not believe propaganda that there was a "gold age" where women could stay home kept by men in return for providing sex and cleaning services. Instead most people worked. My grandfather could not even marry until his 40s in about 1916 because he could not afford it.

I love my children so much, they are my world, I could bore on about them for hours and we have tonnes of adventure and fun on our 3.5 days together. But I love my job too, it is fulfilling, i stretch myself intellectually, feel like I am making a difference and get good banter and hot coffee.

My great grandmother was one of the first female doctors but had to stop when she had children. You can sense her loss for her career throughout her diary

I do get op's point that it would be good to progress towards more jobs being much more flexible (mine is very flexible on when I do the hours) so parents can juggle better, but I detest the myth that it is in anyway problematic for children to spend a few days a week in childcare! Spend a day at my children's nursery, I promise you it is an amazing place full of love, cuddles, energy and enthusiasm and it has become a massive source of support for me and my children as well, the staff have mopped up my tears, given me tips and advice and all kinds of new ideas

I'm sorry Lotus but maybe in some social circles your case was the norm but it certainly wasn't considered the norm or indeed the best thing for the children.
It certainly wasn't a myth or propaganda and in fact you were considered as an inadequate man if your wife "Had to work". You were sneered at by your fellow peers and relations as not being able to provide.
In terms of both parents working, when I was adopted in the 60's my parents were told in no uncertain terms that my mum would not be allowed to work, not even pt when we started school. She busied herself with charity work, groups, societies etc during the evening when Dad would take over.
I'm not saying I agree with this philosophy btw, but you were a bad mother if you weren't at home. So to say it's a myth is doing all the women who were stopped from working a disservice.

It is about expectation. When my grandparents were married they expected to go into 'rooms' to start with, until they could afford a place of their own. They shared a house with strangers. It's rare for couples to do that now. They expect to go straight to a house of their own.

I work full time and DH does a 12hr week. We are lucky that my wage is decent (it is the national average), and we live somewhere cheap, but we are not rich. Even before we had kids we decided to arrange to live on one wage so that if anything happened to me, DH could take on the gauntlet and wouldnt lose the house. We don't expect to have anything other than what we earn, and we don't expect a lot of other things that some people seem to think are theirs by right. We both hate work and would not work if we won the lottery. DH is the better house servant so gets to be the lucky one. But we are lucky to have the choice, my grandma always regretted having to leave work to bring up her family (without regretting the family itself). But she made the most of what she had. We moan too much now.

Looking at the posts above - my grandma didn't stop work because of societies expectations, she did it because otherwise there was no-one to look after the children! Now the tables have turned and people think you're odd if you don't send your children to nursery. The world will be a better place when we all do whats best for our families and keep our noses out of other peoples.

Haven't read the full thread but agree that for some - I stress some, not all - families it is about wanting a certain lifestyle. Not a luxurious one, just more than a very simple one. And I speak for my own family here: I work PT but we could probably get by on DH's salary alone - but we would really, really have to tighten our belts and change our lifestyle quite significantly. Not that we are extravagant anyway, just that we'd have to slash our food and household budget (including eating out in cafes, etc with the kids) and loads of small things that don't cost much individually but do add up. My point is that we could just about do it but we don't want to, because as other posters have said people's lifestyles are overall just 'more' than they used to be - more things, more going out, more gadgets (or just gadgets full stop rather than no gadgets - remember there were no mobiles, iPods, expensive TVs, laptops, Wiis, etc to be had 20/30/40 years ago). There was just less to spend money on, so less pressure to earn so much, I think, and it was easier to have a simpler, more frugal lifestyle. I'm not discounting the fact that many families DON'T have a choice, and really do need 2 incomes just to pay all the bills, it's just that it's more complicated than that.

Is it that so few employers are on board with part time working though or that they are rarely asked. Before having kids I asked DH to consider going part time when we did. Financially it would have been much better (due to tax allowances) and it would have allowed me to continue with my career. He dismissed it out hand, as did female friends I mentioned it to because "he couldn't do his job part time" - yet if you are a mum you are expected to find a way to do your job part time. How many fathers actually ask to go part time? I haven't ever worked with any that have tried to.
Things are much much better than 40 years ago and I'm glad we have so much choice but they are a long way from equal. Lets adopt the Scandinavian attitude I say - far more shared parental leave.

I hear all these generalisations about "young people today expect a house straight off the bat, cars, gadgets, fancy overseas hols blah blah blah" and it winds me up.

Most of my friends - mainly professionals - lived in shared flats in their 20s and often into their 30s. DH and I didn't have our own place until a year after we go married.

Yes we travelled but so did my parents generation (baby boomers) - living abroad or backpacking trips are not a new phenomenon. We never had fancier holidays until very recently. Plus travel is the only thing you can spendmoney on that makes you richer IMO.

Slightly off topic but I am yet to meet this stereotypical Gen X/Gen Y couple who expect the moon on a stick wthout having to work for it.

40 years ago one person could support a family? Tell that to my grandparents, both of whom worked...

I disagree with many of the comments about expecting a better lifestyle being the reason we need two wages. Of course it depends where you live, but we are top 5% and I am a higher rate taxpayer. OH fluctuates according to bonuses.

That sounds fab, but the thing is while he's on a good wage and I'm on a very good wage, neither one of us is on a spectacular wage. I also live in a very expensive city. I'd imagine this is quite usual and know it is for many friends even those who don't earn anything like I do.

What does that mean? While we both work, we can have nice holidays, go out for meals, buy nice clothes etc. Focus is obviously on paying down mortgage so we run old bangers and aren't extravagant, but we can have a nice lifestyle. If DP lost his job, we'd be a bit strapped and things would need to be reined in significantly. If I lost my job, we'd be looking at selling a car as a minimum and living very frugally once savings ran out.

Going back to my original point - our dual income household gives us a nice lifestyle, but it doesn't necessarily follow from that that we can live well on one income if we just 'cut back'. I live i a detached house, but it's not a mansion and our plot is tiny.

50 years ago a family survived quite well on a one low wage.
Rent, heating, food and a few clothes.
No car, no holidays.
Now one low wage won't even pay the rent.
---

Erm.... No. People managed.
My grandad was a lorry driver. A decent respectable 'working mans' job. My dad and his brother had one pair of school trousers each and two shirts. The bath was a tub in the kitchen once a week.

That is a perfectly fine way to live.

But people today just EXPECT more. They want what they can't have. Your poor.

You are poor. That's life.

Payday loans will not change this situation.

They will prey on it and make it worse.

The problem is our society has somehow developed a culture where people feel they are entitled to everything without having to work for it.

My grandmother would have been at deaths door before accepting hand outs (benefits) from the government. She stitched, mended, 'up cycled', poached (shooting game on the local estate with catapults).

Hard work is something our society has forgotten and it will come back to bite us on the arse.......

That was my exact point buggersmuddle.

You can be in the top 5% in the south east, and you still have to be pretty frugal. All cos of that ridiculous mortgage/rent.

So what on earth is it like for the other 95%?

And gennz - yeah. I don't know of anyone under 35 who wants the moon on the stick, just a fair shake.

I do know plenty of boomers buying up buy to let property and going on cruises via their ridiculous fantasy final salary pensions though. Most of them spent their working lives in way lesser jobs then a lot of the hard pressed under 35s. And it's us paying for them via our wages being shafted to pay the shortfall in their pension funds which promised them 5% per annum growth whatever the circumstances may be. And rents inflated by housing benefit, which goes straight into a landlords pocket.

They shared a house with strangers. It's rare for couples to do that now. They expect to go straight to a house of their own.

i live in London and, trust me, no one expects that.

Exactly working - I don't for one minute think I'm not in a fortunate position, but it must be incredibly hard for those on lower incomes.

Ironically some my my 'less successful' friends back home have better lifestyles than me purely because of house prices. They are still doing bloody well though, because they are earning at the top end for the area...

I've just been consulted on why my pension will be slashed to shit because otherwise they can't pay for existing pensioners. I understand the need to honour promises to those who can't make alternative arrangements, really I do, but we are getting utterly shafted as a result.

I've just been consulted on why my pension will be slashed to shit because otherwise they can't pay for existing pensioners. I understand the need to honour promises to those who can't make alternative arrangements, really I do, but we are getting utterly shafted as a result.

Yep - a problem that is really going to come home to roost later, and criminally underreported.

Like I say, I know of one scheme (now closed) where the promise was 5% per annum increases in pension. Not even index linked. Just 5% per annum increases for the rest of their life. This means that if they, say retired on 45k at 65, and got 2/3 salary (so 30k per year) to start with, by the time they are 90 they'll be on over 100k per year because of the compounding effect.

Completely nuts!!! And yep, we pay for it.

But, you know, we have laptops and stuff, so that's why we're all not so well off.

Dh and I both work ft, and there was never even a discussion about one of us dropping hours to part time. I can't afford to go part time as I'm the main wage earner (about 50% more than dh), and I don't see why I should have to work to support him if he's sat at home enjoying himself with DD. It's more fair to both work ft, plus this way we can afford a cleaner, more than 1 overseas holiday a year, no worries about money each month etc, and I get to continue in a career that I love too.

Um, but a lot of us are single parents and have to survive on a single wage

i do agree with what OP is saying, but its a nonsense that you cant do it on 1 wage; because loads of people are. It might not be much fun, or the lifestyle that you want...but that actually is a choice

i do think we expect a lot more than people did 50/40/30/20(?) years ago

Good username harvey.

Just watched the first ep of season 5. Oh my gosh!

But it is rapidly becoming a requirement in the south east, unless one wage is really high.