[basisword]

My one concern with this is the risk of eventual burn out + mental health issues which will have its own impact on the children. Full time career + very present parent during the weekdays might just not be possible. WFH definitely helps make it significantly more possible though.

Also worth not forgetting that in most cases the fathers of millennials were a hell of a lot more present and emotionally available than their fathers etc. I'm sure we'll make plenty of our own mistakes that our children will try to avoid when their turn comes.

[mschuster91]

> Full time career + very present parent during the weekdays might just not be possible.

Guess why birth rates are crashing - and why they crash hardest in Asia, especially Japan.

[purplerabbit]

And guess why trad household structures are (still) popular in some circles

[nradov]

Those household structures aren'tpopular, they're just common when women have no other options. I have nothing against those structures, they work great for some families. But the reality is that they often force the wife into becoming an unpaid caregiver for her in-laws (who constantly criticize how she runs the household).

[mitthrowaway2]

I don't really understand this mindset that being at home and raising your kids is only something you do when forced to. For my family, if we had more options -- ie, more money -- then both of us would be stay-at-home parents. It's much more of a joy than going to work.

[lotsofpulp]

Your comment presupposes something different that nradov’s comment.

The aforementioned “trad households” do not have a financially independent wife, which is what nradov is referring to when they write

> force the wife into becoming an unpaid caregiver for her in-laws

Typically, the in laws or the husband would control the assets, and hence be able to exert more influence.

> For my family, if we had more options -- ie, more money -- then both of us would be stay-at-home parents.

In the absence of a trust fund, most women (and men) will choose to be able to fend for themselves.

[ndriscoll]

Your comment's framing makes no sense to me. My wife pushed for me to go into engineering instead of academia so she could stay home and we could be comfortable. We're married. We have kids. The entire point is we're not independent. That's what married literally means. Unioned. Joined. There is no her and me. There is us.

Why would you need or even want to be independent? Why would you plan to form a family while keeping your options open/having one foot out the door?

[mitthrowaway2]

We don't have a trust fund, of course, which is why I'm working to earn an income.

My wife currently stays home with the kids, although that might change down the road. She doesn't have any trust fund or inheritance either, of course.

However, although I'm earning the money, it's 100% a shared resource. It goes into a shared account. I'm pretty sure that's a legal necessity since we're married, but it's how we'd choose to do it anyway. There's no division between my finances and hers.

We married each other to be a team together forever, but even if we separated, our finances would be divided in half between us. If we'd wanted to fend for ourselves, we wouldn't have gotten married, and certainly wouldn't have had kids.

She feels sorry for me having to go to work every day, but it's a logical division of labor because I have much higher earning prospects.

I say this because I want to understand your definition; are we a traditional household in your view?

[purplerabbit]

So confidently stated! My wife had ludicrous options and chose it — what draws you to this conclusion?

[illiac786]

Parent said often, not always. Counter examples is an anecdote.

I would like to see good statistics on this.

And your wife’s opinion on her choices.

[purplerabbit]

I'd love to see statistics as well.

My wife self-reports as very happy and talks a lot about how proud she is of the decision. I'll acknowledge that we are privileged in terms of support -- 3 relative families within 30 minutes and most people in a 100 meter radius attend the same church. Even in our setup, however, we really wish we could swing a multi-generational setup and have grandparents around all the time.

Maybe the Amish are on to something!

[xboxnolifes]

The counter example my be anecdotal, but the original claim is also baseless. It's not anecdote vs data, it's anecdote vs nothing.

[something765478]

Women are just as responsible for enforcing traditions as men are. You could just as easily argue that men are the ones with less choice; after all, it is much more socially acceptable for a woman to work than for a man to be a stay at home dad.

[mothballed]

It's also false that a stay at home has essentially resigned themselves to ruin in the event of divorce/disagreement. Someone who has been a stay at home long enough to be unemployable, in the vast majority of states, will be rewarded with alimony and if applicable child support to the point they will easily be taking about 50% of the spouse's salary for long enough to retrain.

Of course the spouse has the risk the other ex-spouse will sabotage themselves and end their incomes to avoid paying the order, at which point they may be thrown into prison if they are found. But are they worse off than the employee who can be fired at a moment's notice and go broke by a boss who isn't sabotaging himself at all and bound by no such judicial order? Maybe so, but it's not by some gigantic long shot.

[Ancapistani]

It's 2026. Barring severe manipulation/abuse, why would you choose to get married and have children if you're a woman who doesn't want to raise them?

[illiac786]

Severely missing the point here. It’s about being criticised and not recognised while doing so. It’s about lack of choice – and no, when you’re 25, you don’t know what this does to you over time. And when you finally do, it’s too late, you’re not going to run away with your kids and no job.

[Ancapistani]

My comment was a response to its parent, beginning:

> Those household structures aren't popular, they're just common when women have no other options.

I agree with what yours, and point out that it applies equally to men. I was 25 when we decided to have our first child and while I would make the same decision knowing what I know now, I didn't have anything near an accurate idea of what the impact would be on my life as a whole.

Basically, I wasn't taking exception to the idea of an irrevocable decision made with incomplete context; I was taking exception to the idea that it's somehow unique to women - because it's not.

[walletdrainer]

Completely absurd, most good looking, well-educated Eastern European women with a plenty of options would disagree with you.

Your comment seems to imply that they’re stupid.

[michaelchisari]

Except "trad" households (full time SAHM in a nuclear home) are not traditional. Tradition is not something only the upper-middle class in a post-war boom attained for a short period of time.

Throughout human history, it was rare for only two people to raise a child, let alone one. Or for women to not bring money into the home.

Like many "trad" trends, it's based more on advertising and television than history.

[compiler-guy]

At the very least, you need a whole society of aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins, and deep friends to truly do any kind of traditional family structure in the traditional way. Otherwise it's just emulating an extremely narrow portion of the trad that didn't exactly exist in the first place.

[mschuster91]

> At the very least, you need a whole society of aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins, and deep friends to truly do any kind of traditional family structure in the traditional way.

"It takes a village to raise a child" was meant literally. However, the glory of capitalism required people to move to where the jobs were, turning that millennia-old principle upside down ever since industrialization. And car culture was the ultimate fatal blow, when children can't even walk their own neighborhood any more.

[krapp]

I remember when Hillary Clinton said "it takes a village to raise a child" and she was mocked by conservatives and accused of undermining parental rights and wanting governments to control families.

And when BLM made it part of their charter to encourage community support for children beyond the typical nuclear unit they were accused of a radical Marxist agenda to "destroy families."

For some reason the very concept of extended families and community engenders deep anger and hostility from some Americans, and that's odd for a nation of immigrants considering how common the "whole society of aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins" is in the rest of the world.

[mchaver]

> For some reason the very concept of extended families and community engenders deep anger and hostility from some Americans

I think because excessive individualism plays into the hands of large companies. There is an individualist culture that has naturally grown over time in the US, but it has also been pushed by big corporations because if you can't depend on your neighbors and extended family, you need to spend money to fill the gaps.

[kelipso]

But when leftists says things like community support, it doesn't bring up images of traditional villages and extended families. It brings up images of communists saying things like abolish the family. Naturally, due to their history.

It's not like leftists are known for their traditional family values now or then, so why should it be taken that way?

[watwut]

They are way more popular among men then women. The thing is, women were mostly living that ... it is new only for men

[mitthrowaway2]

What do you mean?