What is it about exactly 40 years ago, that you hold as the ideal?
My mum did stay at home and then work part time. I am 40.
However, her mother always did some sort of work, even when the kids were young. She was a cleaner, my grandad (her husband) was in the navy so often nor at home. His mother also worked and managed to buy her own pub when my grandad was young. he didn’t know his dad.
On my dads side my Nana and great grandma worked. It’s a myth that women didn’t work while their kids were young. It’s a relatively new thing, especially for working class people.
I am a child of this golden age you claim existed for women. And yet many of my peers still have issues relating to childhood, difficult relationships with their parents, mental health issues and so on.
My mum bitterly regretted not having a career. But accepted how it was. She thought it was great I have a career and a great relationship with my kids. She truly believed it was one of the other. Which is odd because she came from a line of women that had both. But it appears she was under the impression that staying home was a status issue that (because dad had a well paid job) she should do. She didn’t feel she did have a choice.
But good parenting and good relationships doesn’t all hinge on how many hours the mother works. Plenty of sahp or parents who work Pt are crappy parents, plenty of working mums are crappy parents. That’s because they are crappy parents. Not their work hours. There are many more great parents of all set ups.
It appears you just like a set up where women can choose not to work, because the men are obliged to support it. And that’s the issue. It’s not good for men or women to be obliged into one family set up.
Outside of MN I have never seen or heard a sahp or part time working parent judged for doing so. Women have more choice now. Not less. That choice often is related to family finances AND the other person having input on the decision. Which it should. Especially if the other person is going to be financially responsible for the family.
It’s really odd to want to go back to a time where women had less choice, less rights in the work place (even before kids) less ability to get mortgage themselves and so on. Just because there’s one tiny part of it, that you see through rose coloured lenses. And a part of it that you managed to achieve anyway. Even living in these, supposed, awful times.