The multiple wage earner thing turned out to be a real rip-off. Prior to the '70's the two paycheck family was, by and large, optional. If you made $150.00 per week in 1970, you were doing reasonably well. A nice new car could be had for $3000.00, much cheaper models were available, and used cars were cheaper yet. Two bucks bought enough gas to get the needle to the half-tank mark, and the cities had not yet been deserted by folks with means.
Two paychecks brought inflation--double digits in the late '70's (the Carter years) and interest rates which caused states to rewrite their usury laws so the banks could borrow from the Fed. Cigarettes went from a quarter a pack to a buck, cars doubled in price, (which they have done twice more since), and housing costs soared. The net gain? diddley squat, Except:
Now parents were too tired to pay attention to each other and their children. Their children were becoming 'latchkey kids', with little direct supervision, and what direct supervision they had was in the hands of a growing liberal educational establishment. The breakdown of educational discipline (order in the schools) which accompanied racial desegregation in many areas only contributed to the growing pains of a youth who were not only told they were a disaffected segment of American population at every turn (the 'generation gap'), but were, by and large treated that way. Parents who could no longer 'relate' to their children found they had little in common, mainly from a lack of communication. TV placed another stumbling block in the way of simple conversation.
A few escaped the oncoming victimhood extravaganza by a combination of guts, grit, savoir faire, or the benefits of a stay-at-home parent or extended family. The rest were left to wallow in the still-fashionable morass of victimhood.
The groups who pushed for this had, I believe in retrospect (Mom said so at the time.), an agenda. That of dissolving the family unit as an effective basic unit of government, to further a socialist control over the children. "It takes a villiage" is just the latest battle cry from those ranks..
Parents working two jobs had little or no time to involve themselves in the arduous tasks of keeping up with the pap their children were being fed in school, nor time to involve themselves with politics. They quit reading the newspapers, preferring instead the effortless alternative of having their news told to them, then interpreted for them. Their political knowledge went down the tubes, they quit paying attention, and the BS level of school curriculae increased rapidly.
Instead of being brought up to pass a legacy of a better life to their children, they either conciously or subconciously decided that either their children deserved no better than they had (childish petulence), or tried to pass on the 'better life' through the only means which would permit them to justify their own economic precedences: the gift of material things as a substitute for the love and nurturing they were too immature, unprepared, or uncaring to provide..
I can only thank God that my folks made the economic sacrifice and gave the greater gift. Mom stayed at home and raised us, and though not gainfully employed, gained an impressive reputation in local politics, running for and being elected to the local school board, and as a noted conservationist, concerned with maintaining the ecological value of the region for its great wealth of harvestable renewable natural resources. My father worked, commuting 75 to 80 miles per day, round trip, from our home out in the 'boonies' (Great place to grow up.) and working a second job on Friday nights. (In addition, my Dad was--and still is at 70--involved in the Volunteer Fire Department locally, at the County, and State level and has participated in a number of other commissions covering a broad scope of local and regional problems.) Our housing costs were lower and we were in proximity to extended family on my mother's side. While some might have considered this a spartan economic existence, (after all we did not have all the things we may have thought we wanted), we had an abundance of guidance, supervision, and love. Of material things, there was enough, though never a lavish overabundance. We never felt 'poor', and to this day I am eternally grateful to my parents for the choices they made.
My family attended church regularly, gave to the folks who lived around us who were less well off, and in general, taught me to treat all persons with basic civility and respect.
I'm not saying all the lessons were learned equally well, but the tools are in place, all I need do is use them.
Now, my wife and I are a factor in the raising of our grandchildren (we are raising two), and it is up to me to pass on the concepts of what is important. I only pray I can do as well as my parents and grandparents did.