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Tightwad, in most of your threads your attitude shows you to be a person who is old and to be honest, unwilling to realize the world has changed over the last 30 years. I am a very successful, well adjusted 24 year old. I had a father figure. He just wasn't my biological father. You would do well to actually listen to someone like me every once in a while, rather than putting down anyone younger than you.
I remember well when I was 24 and thought I knew everything. Now that I'm older I've learned I didn't know squat back then.
If I was Queen of the Universe and could re-engineer society, I'd rig it so that two people could form a family and each work ~20-30 hours(max) per week, and maintain a "middle class" (not extravagant) lifestyle.
Children would then have the benefit of having both parents available and outsourcing of child-rearing would be kept to a minimum.
One thing that bothers me about the old-skool ideal of dad working 60+ hours a week, even with a stay-at-home-mom, is that it is dismissive and disrespectful of men. Men can be awesome parents too! We as a society need to give them that chance.
Hi plaidmom,
The big problem is the per seat overhead. Its also why I always hated the health insurance employer link because health insurance, on paper, costs the same whether an employer works a person 30 hours a week or 50. Why don't we do that with auto insurance? If we did, then employers would pay twice for two people working 30 hours rather than one 60. We will always have per seat over head but we artificially make this worse and it makes your goal economically difficult. Attacking the per seat overhead issue would at least deal with the incentives to overwork.
I wish I could stay home more because in some home tasks, I excel far better than my wife.
I remember well when I was 24 and thought I knew everything. Now that I'm older I've learned I didn't know squat back then.
Can you admit I might have some valid points? Or are you right simply because you are older?
Age is not synonymous with wisdom. Correlation does not imply causality.
Can you respond to my specific points instead of simply saying 'I am older, listen to me'? This is an interesting topic and I would love to have a conversation instead of an argument.
I know, and everyone should do what is best for their family. There isn't a single solution that will work in every situation.
I was going to an extreme in the debate to get a point across - there are many, many, stable, content dual income homes who WANT it that way. Money aside, many families would be worse off by being a single-income family. Again - that is not to say all families are like that, but I just wanted the point to be made. It is something that many older people from fairly traditional areas of the country don't immediately realize.
Yes, and there are also many stable, content, single-income families who want it that way. There is no need for you to go to extremes to make your point. This is a conversation, not a debate.
I am truly sorry that you did not have the childhood experience you desired, but your situation does not prove the rule any more than mine does. I watched my parents struggle under the weight of two very demanding careers while I was growing up, and their marriage nearly fell apart as a result, but I don't make sweeping generalizations about two-income families based on what I saw in my childhood household. As I stated before, the important thing is that families adopt a model that works for them. For some of us that means two careers, while for others it means only one. For still others, there may be yet another way.
My spouse makes an extremely generous income, well beyond what most families take home even with two full-time career incomes. I would posit that he has accomplished this because my staying at home has provided him the flexibility to pursue career options that he probably would have passed by had we needed to take a second career into consideration after we had children. This is the model that works best for us to maintain a happy, healthy, financially-secure household. I wish the same for you, whether by one career or two, or something in between.
In closing, if I can offer a bit of advice: no matter what your income, it is absolutely essential for a single-income family to avoid excessive debt, to live well within their means, to keep a generous emergency fund (either through savings or investments), and to have adequate health, disability, and life insurance. It is also a good idea for the non-working spouse to keep up with skills and education that would allow return to the workplace, regardless of whether or not he/she plans to do so.
Last edited by formercalifornian; 06-10-2010 at 12:14 PM..
Reason: typo
I disagree. I think most fathers working 75+ hour weeks are simply too arrogant to 'allow' their wives to work. Since this isn't 1950 any more, women can actually do things beyond the household. If both of my parents had worked I would have had a much happier childhood. Plaidmom's idea is great. That is far better than the single income model from 40-50 years ago.
Most older people I say this to simply can't understand, but the single income, father working all the time, wife doesn't know anything but kids and cooking family model is frankly old, sexist and outdated.
Nothing heroic there.
And what exactly do you mean by 'the absence of a father figure show in this case'? You are dangerously close to being reported for personal attacks.
Tightwad, in most of your threads your attitude shows you to be a person who is old and to be honest, unwilling to realize the world has changed over the last 30 years. I am a very successful, well adjusted 24 year old. I had a father figure. He just wasn't my biological father. You would do well to actually listen to someone like me every once in a while, rather than putting down anyone younger than you.
Someone should stay home with the kids, and take care of the home. Preferably the more nurturing and emotionally-based parent. One working, one at home. I'll grant that it does not HAVE to be the man working in every case, but that's the way I would personally prefer it. Otherwise, something gets lost. Each can remained 100% focused on their part of the task, instead of half-***ing both.
In my own case, I had a single income upbringing--but I only had one parent for most of my life, so she failed to do her job at home adequately.
The real key to success is to have a two income household where the household lives and depends on only ONE income, leaving the other for insurance and discretionary spending. But people don't do this, people "NEED" two incomes just to afford outright the lifestyle they think they're entitled to as Americans. Which is why they are insolvent the second either income stream disappears or gets reduced..
This is similar to what the authors of The Two Income Trap said. I remember thinking this back in 1990 and a co-worker of mine looked at me like I had 3 heads on. Too bad I didn't write a book about it
Quote:
Originally Posted by hindsight2020
I too long for the days where one could have a decent life on one income. Those days are gone..
I don't think that's quite true. I think this is doable in a good swath of the Midwest...places like Kansas, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, etc. Parts of Texas also provide pretty good wages relative to the cost of living.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hindsight2020
Today the decision to live on one income means accepting a lower standard of living for the opportunity cost of not being in debt. The majority of Americans STILL consider that opportunity cost unacceptable. It's gonna be an embittering couple of decades for young American households going forward.
Agreed. It's too bad Americans think this way. We don't get that we're actually creating a hyper competitive atmosphere for ourselves.
When are we Americans going to realize that all this time, we've been chasing our tails.
The one-income lifestyle is out of reach because we made it so. By deciding that working was such a wonderful thing, and being willing to accept being in large amounts of debt, we pushed the one-income lifestyle out of reach for all but those earning well above average income.
Since 1970, when the one-income lifestyle was still the norm, three major components of family costs have soared, all but one of them driven up almost exclusively by the fact that more money was available to spend on them due to the prevalence of two-income families -- housing costs, health care costs, and college education costs.
Today, the average two-income family is worse off financially than the average single income family was in 1970. All we really accomplished by effectively doubling our workload was to transfer a huge amount of wealth to people who owned property prior to our great 'liberation.'
Why are Americans seemingly so intent on using the terms "standard of living" and "quality of life" interchangeably? They do not mean the same thing!
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