Your story isn’t unusual. Parents even justify daycare, saying it will help their children socialize better. You can’t fix what happened to you, but you can choose to do better.
I’m not saying all women should stay home, btw, but I think it’s a shame that so many parents shirk the ultimate responsibility of taking care of their children.
Oh, I agree somewhat with your point about income. People want a lot of things, big TVs, new cars, huge houses, etc. In the past, single earner families had less toys (that’s really what most of it is. They aren’t needs. They’re wants). The typical family back then didn’t have a TV in every room, likely had only one car, and generally lived in much smaller houses. However, the cost of living does seem much higher now. There used to be plenty of jobs, for example, where a single earner could make enough to raise a family. Nowadays? Not so much.
Back then, people wore humble clothing (Sears, Montgomery Wards, homemade, second-hand and mended), drove humble cars (the legendary station wagon, which all the kids learned to drive in), ate humble meals (TV dinners, hot dogs, fish sticks, the occasional restaurant meal at a local coffee shop), and pursued humble amusements (the local library, family drives, movies out only very rarely). Now everything is throwaway, each kid has to have a car, all clothing is "designer" and all food is "gourmet." Nothing is normal anymore.
Parents even justify daycare, saying it will help their children socialize better.
I chose to work very limited hours (only 1 night a week when my husband could be home with the kids) and homeschool when my kids were young. I really had to defend my choice and seek out support with like-minded groups. Many people consider what I did very negatively. If you quit or work part-time you are throwing away your education and not giving your children all you can monetarily. Don’t put them in day-care/school and you are socially depriving them for your own selfish satisfaction of having them at home. Some even suggested that even though I was home I put them in a daycare a few days a week just so they would get used to it and learn to socialize! People were always amazed at how well-behaved and ‘socialized’ they were- how can that be when they don’t spend 10 hours a day with other kids? Sometimes I would get get the comment ‘they are so NORMAL- I’m surprised that you homeschool’!