Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
When I was a child back in the 1950s many women stayed home and focused on taking care of the home and having babies and the fathers would work and make the money for the home. My parents were like this too. And many families bored 3 to 4 children and people would graduate high school and immediately get married to their high school sweethearts and have children almost immediately after they married. Median age of marriage for women was 20 and men 22. Total Fertility Rate was 3 in 1950 and almost 4 in 1960 due to the Post War II Baby Boom. Now fast forward to the present, people get married get married at a later and have children later and families are smaller too. (Except for the recent large family boom.) Women are more likely to work than stay home now and divorce rates are skyhigh at 40%-60% while in the 1950s and 1960s that rate was only 10%-20%. And average marriage is about 25 for women and 27 for men and the childless rate is about 19% while in 1950 that was only 14%.
The new president of the US whoever it may be should try to work on marriage and divorce rates and encourage to bring back the lifestyle of families of the nuclear family golden age of the 1950s and the 1960s. It would help to make the US a more stable and peaceful country. We should start offering more marriage counselor classes and encourage more couples to have children. I think that the increase in women working has caused the divorce rate to explode because of more stress. We eat out now too more and we hardly sit down with our families anymore and be happy and loving towards one another. Also, the inventions of computers, iPod, dvds, wii, playstation, cellphones, and surround sound has caused to barely to know our families anymore.
A return to the nuclear age with the mother, the father, kids, and pets would be a wonderful thing. Our family structure has collapsed and broken apart.
Many people lived in terrible marriages back then too though. Women in many cases were viewed as the submissive half of a marriage. They were abused as well in some cases. That certainly isn't something I'd like to see come back.
However, I do agree that we've become a throw away society and a land of instant gratification people. Spouses can stray and it's not seen as a disgrace anymore. They can divorce and move on and easily find another partner. Fidelity isn't held as a requirement anymore. Marriage is seen as something that can be 'fixed' with divorce. 50 years ago you married for life. It was a vow taken seriously. Today it just isn't. If one spouse does or says something minor that the other doesn't like, it's time for divorce. No sense in talking it out, working through problems, agreeing to disagree; there are so many fish in the sea, you can just 'trade-up'.
I think people marrying older is a great change. I wish I'd waited. I married young because I wanted kids. I wasn't old enough to be a wife, much less a mother. I had no clue. I thought I knew it all. And I was so impatient. I wound up with a cheater the first time out of the gate (had an affair the day we got back from our honeymoon) and an alcoholic the second time around. Teens and twenty-somethings have such great taste in spouses. Anyway, I was in my thirties before I knew who I was, what my beliefs were, what I was looking for in a husband. And once I knew that, I found my perfect spouse was actually my best friend. Who knew that really cute guy I'd been best friends and co-workers with for so many years was perfect for me!!
I've begged my kids to wait to get married. Make sure you know who you are, what you want in life, etc. Know what you are looking for in a spouse. And make sure you talk a lot. Work through your problems. Hold off on kids until you can afford them, which means one of you is a stay at home parent. That's the one thing I at least did right when mine were little. I stayed home for 10 years raising kids before I looked into a career.
As for the new prez getting involved, I don't think it's the gov'mnts job to get involved in my personal life. I'd like them to stay as much out of my personal life as possible as a matter of fact. I think it's more a matter of people properly raising their kids. Too many people are raising them to think they are 'special' and should have everything they want. That's not how life is. And I think that mentality - the entitlement attitude - is much to blame for so many problems in this country anymore.
I'm 30 and married my HS sweetheart (7 years my senior) when I was 19. I still went to college and graduated. HAd my daughter at 20 (while in school) and still graduated on time! Worked, went to school and our daughter was never with a sitter. I now work from home, run my own business and have 2 great kids!
We have had tough times in our marriage. Personal problems, financial problems at times- you name it, we've been there. We've considered calling it quits- but never have!
But we both are of the firm belief that marriage is a partnership. Partnerships are not always easy, always fun, and no one is ever ALWAYS right!
I think too many people (Especially of my generation) think very lightly of marriage and the first road block they come to, or even second- give up and throw in the towel. It's so easy now to get a divorce- not happy? file for divorce. that'll solve everything.
I completely disagree. Who are you to determine what the perfect family is? My grandmother was a wife of the 1950s. To the outside, her family was perfect- stay at home mom, 3 kids and a dog, upper middle class house in the suburbs, country club, summer on the Cape. But in reality, she was being verbally and physically abused, my grandfather cheated on her, and she felt completely unfulfilled. It was only with the women's rights movement that she was able to free herself of the situation. Before that, she would have had NO support, few legal rights, and the scorn of her community had she left her husband despite the way he treated her. Do we really want to go back to that age?
My mom got married when she was 22 and had been with my father since she was 13. To this day she regrets getting married so early- and she's almost 50 years old! She and my father are still together, but they both have always encouraged me to date before getting married, don't get married before I have a stable career, and NEVER give up a career for kids if that's not exactly what I want. My mom feels (and I agree) that she did my brother and I a great disservice by being a stay at home mom. She hated it but felt that it was what you were supposed to do.
Too many couples who don't want children have them. Maybe we should focus on that rather than those RESPONSIBLE enough to not have children when they know they are not for them. How about we take care of the 500,000 foster children in the system on any given day? How about we focus on issues that are going to plague me and my children long after you are gone? Global warming, energy dependence, peak oil, OVERPOPULATION? Guess those aren't important.
There have been some excellent posts pointing out that the "golden age of marriage" wasn't all that golden for many people. The expectation that women remain at home and raise children and get their hair done and entertain Hubby's friends and collegues, was limiting and stiffling. It also was self perpetuating as little girls didnt have role models of women who could compete and could dream big dreams.
The other side of the coin was harsh sanctions for women who weren't able to live the Mrs. Cleaver; Harriet Nelson lifestyle. Single moms were social outcasts, women stayed in loveless marriages with abusive husbands; job discrimination was real for women who had to work and there were few oppurtunities; men also had enourmous pressure to stay in the jobs that sustained that lifestyle and many of them spent their lives in jobs that they hated and which bored them, to support a family they didnt love and to maintain a home that didnt excite them. I don't think that was a Golden Age, Gilded perhaps but not 24K.
If all, or even most, of those marriages in the 50s were strong, healthy, loving marriages, then I'd agree with you!
In our house, I (the mom) stay home and homeschool the children, while my DH works very hard to support us. I do the bulk of the housework, he brings in the bulk of the money (I work a few hours a week from home). I love it this way, and I hope that my children follow this lead... we work on our marriage, and while my husband is the head of the household, I'm far from a doormat.
If I were being abused, though, or if DH thought that he could drink, bully us, cheat on me, etc, because he was the only one earning money, then that would be a different story. Unfortunately, I think that many marriages of 50 years ago (not most, just many) were of this reality.
Ah, if only we weren't a fallen people in a fallen world.
I agree. It does not take a village to raise a family!
I was raised in a little town before the coming of dial telephones. When you picked up the phone there was a real person there who asked, "Number Pleease". One day I came home from elementary school and my Mom wasnt home--this was a very very rare occurance! While I was trying to find her and figure out why? and where? and what? the phone rang...I picked it up and the Operator called me by my name and said, "your mother had to go up to Ms. Coops and will be home just a little later. Start on your homework and then you can go out but stay in the yard." In those days (1947) there really was a village to help raise me.
You do realize many of those SAHMs back then were drunk or stoned all day, right? (Wine was my own mother's drug of choice which she drank everyday with her SAHM friends after tennis league.)
You do realize many of those SAHMs back then were drunk or stoned all day, right? (Wine was my own mother's drug of choice which she drank everyday with her SAHM friends after tennis league.)
I wouldn't romanticize it too much.
"mother's little helpers!" librium
"She went running to the shelter of mother's little helper" Rolling Stones
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Teens and twenty-somethings have such great taste in spouses. Anyway, I was in my thirties before I knew who I was, what my beliefs were, what I was looking for in a husband. And once I knew that, I found my perfect spouse was actually my best friend. Who knew that really cute guy I'd been best friends and co-workers with for so many years was perfect for me!! 
It takes a village
