Depending on your source of information, one can argue if we are seeing a decline or an increase in families choosing to have a stay at home parent. Certainly the recession has resulted in, most likely unintentionally, an increase in the number of stay at home parents. However, regardless of the direction the trends show, there are, in my estimation, at least 3 key reasons why we see so many families choosing to be two income households (at the expense of their kids, in my humble opinion), and to avoid the suspense, it is NOT because two incomes are needed to raise a family.
First and foremost, the United States has become a society fixated on consumption. We have become a society of immediate gratification, one that prioritizes wants often times at the expense of needs. Keeping up with the Jones' has become a way of life. This paradigm of consumption leads to the predisposition that both the Mom and the Dad must work in order to provide for themselves and their children. Case in point, let's look at an extreme case of how fixated, we as a society, are on consumption. Recently, the Heritage Foundation (a think tank focused on conservative public policy) released a series of statistics that profile the typical "poor" American household. In 2010, the poverty line was drawn at $22,314 (pre-tax and not including any governmental "handouts") for a family of four. Now, putting the definition of poor aside (they use the current definition utilized by the Social Security Administration which unfortunately, is a complete joke and is an insult to the truly poor Americans, but that is another story), here are some statistics about the average poor household in the United States:
1. The typical "poor" household in America has a car
2. 78% of "poor" households in America have air conditioning
3. 64% of "poor" households in America have cable or satellite TV .. most have two TVs, along with a DVD player and VCR
4. Most "poor" households in America with children have a gaming system such as an Xbox, PlayStation or Wii
5. 38% of "poor" households in America have a personal computer
6. Most "poor" households in America have a refrigerator, an oven and stove, and a microwave. They also have other household appliances such as a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.
7. The typical "poor" American has more living space than the average European.
8. The typical "poor" American family is able to obtain medical care when needed.
9. The average "poor" household in America claims to have sufficient funds to meet their most basic needs.
Is this the image you have in your mind when thinking about the American poor household? It is certainly not the image I had, hence why I think it does a disservice to the real poor Americans. That aside, according to these statistics, the things that the "poorest" Americans are struggling to pay for are pure luxuries, the game systems, the cable bill, satellite t.v., electronics, etc..., not the necessities such as food, shelter and clothing. My point with all of this is that our desire as Americans to have the "luxuries" in life materially distort our perceptions of what is necessary to live and more importantly, to raise a family.
Second, somewhere along the way the role of stay at home parent has become viewed as less desirable, a "choice of last resort" or even subordinate to, and less rewarding than, a career outside the home. There seems to be a belief that a stay at home parent is not contributing to society to the same degree as a person who works outside the home. I think there are likely several reasons why this has become the case but certainly some of the roots can be traced back to the second wave of the feminist movement during the 1960's to 1980's. This part of the feminist movement was arguably kicked off by a book written by Betty Friedan called "The Feminine Mystique". In this book, writing as a housewife and mother, Friedan talks about the "problem with no name", the dissatisfaction of educated, middle class women in a post war era society that denied women the opportunity to develop their own identities and encouraged women to confine their roles to housewife and mother, forsaking all of their other aspirations. Regardless of the validity of Friedan's research in the book (I am not critiquing her work here and certainly not trying to engage in a discussion about gender and the expectations in society, etc...) it called into question the role of a stay at home parent, inviting the connotation of being a narrowly defined role that was unfulfilling, unrewarding and unsatisfactory.
Third, and tied strongly to my view that the decision to have a family and subsequently raise your own children are not mutually exclusive, we as a people have lost our sense of personal responsibility when it comes to the choices we make, when it comes to our actions. We have become a society with little to no personal accountability. We continually seek to place blame on everything but ourselves for our problems, choices and actions. This is a very disturbing trend given that we were a nation founded on the ideals of rugged individualism. We see this trend demonstrated in all facets of life, from people suing fast food chains for making their coffee too hot or for making their food too fattening. If you end up stealing something, it is a function of socioeconomic forces. Unplanned pregnancies and young mothers blame poor sex education or lack of access to contraceptives. Murders have been blamed on race, easy access to weapons, violent movies and video games, etc... If your child does not make the soccer team, or does poorly on a test, it is the coaches fault or the teachers fault, not that your child is just no earthly good at soccer or did not study hard enough for the test. To bring the issue closer to home, to be more relevant to the purpose of this post, a child must go to daycare because you cannot raise a family on one income due to socioeconomic factors, due to not being able to find a better job, due to the high cost of living where you live, etc... Rather than accepting personal responsibility and accountability for raising your own child, people blame outside forces as the reason for putting their children into daycare. Rather than choosing to move to a lower cost area, doing without certain luxuries, postponing the decision to have a family, etc... we as a society would rather just place blame as opposed to making the hard choices required to take responsibility for our actions and decisions. So, why is this the case? What can it be attributed to? In my opinion, it is tied to the lack of appreciation for our roots, for the origins of our country and for the origins of our ancestors, our grandparents and great grandparents. The younger generations currently living in this country, in the wealth of the post WWII era, have had it pretty easy (relatively speaking), we have had a lot "given" to us rather than having to struggle for it ourselves. Generally, we have not experienced the hardships that our grandparents suffered, and as such when faced with hardship, the tendancy is to blame something or someone else.
It is with these three factors in mind and the resulting decline in the prevalence of stay at home parents that I will discuss (in my next post) my theory regarding how this decline and the increase in two income households has harmed our country's economy and exacerbated our most recent recession.
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