> You do realize that capitalism co-opts everything and that women entering the workforce led to two people now earning what a single person used to?
Two people earn a lot more than one person used to by any material metric. People don’t feel any richer because any surplus gets eaten up by positional goods. It’s not enough to have a perfectly reasonable 1950s house. You must have one twice as big, like your friends. It’s not enough to go on a camping holiday, or road trip. You have to have a trip to the Caribbean twice a year. Most of all, the ultimate positional good, the real prestige markers, an Ivy League degree for your children and a house in a good school district, i.e. one with no poor people.
Factors like the rising cost of housing and competition for education means that two parents working in professional careers with university educations can barely attain the same assets as a family supported by one blue collar tradesman in the 50s. People are having far less kids any more and they are stunned by the incompatibility of work-family when they do. We have been played.
If this is your impression of the life lived by, and motivations of, the average two income household then I implore you to get out of your blatant little bubble as soon as you possibly can and try to connect with a variety of actual people out living life.
Two people earn a lot more than one person used to by any material metric. People don’t feel any richer because any surplus gets eaten up by positional goods. It’s not enough to have a perfectly reasonable 1950s house. You must have one twice as big, like your friends. It’s not enough to go on a camping holiday, or road trip. You have to have a trip to the Caribbean twice a year. Most of all, the ultimate positional good, the real prestige markers, an Ivy League degree for your children and a house in a good school district, i.e. one with no poor people.