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Housewives Are One Surprising Solution to “Millennial Burnout”

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Re: Housewives Are One Surprising Solution to “Millennial Burnout”

#71

Post by biomcgary »

lusus_naturae wrote: post #60
biomcgary wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most efficient solution for narcissism (i.e., abandonment of a non-breadwinning spouse) is not more narcissism (i.e., self-focused contingency planning). Unfortunately, in a highly individualistic (i.e., narcissistic) society, it may be the only one that is practical.

On a philosophical level I agree with you that it's not the answer. But I don't think contingency planning is narcissistic. Maybe I should define what a typical such plan looks like? To me it is simply having skills to become a breadwinner yourself should you need to. It doesn't need to be more than that. Ultimately however society needs more appreciation of how and why long-term monogamous relationships provide both…

We largely agree. I think contingency planning is also needed for death of the breadwinner. Life insurance is always limited and sometimes not possible due to preexisting conditions. Thus, my objection is when distrust is the primary motivation for contingency planning.

Re: Housewives Are One Surprising Solution to “Millennial Burnout”

#72

Post by brightlancer »

> Housewives are an inconvenient, varyingly expensive, politically incorrect solution to millennial burnout.

I think it was the non-PC part that got this flagged.

Personally, I prefer the term "homemaker", because that's a good description of the _job_.

Taking care of a home and a family is work. Sometimes, both adults have to be employed to pay for the bare necessities. Often, they don't -- they choose to, so they can have a more luxurious lifestyle. It's a _choice_. And not all of the consequences are good:

> Now, the home is a complicated site of production and consumption. Consumption - largely of food, but also of things like entertainment - has to be arranged, as most of the consumables are not produced on the premises.

The mention of entertainment struck me, because I've seen how rare it is for families to play games together -- child siblings might play video games together, but the adults rarely join in. The "family time" is passively watching something on a screen, and even that has been reduced now that each person has their own personal screen.

More than anything, I think folks should take away from the article that there's no shame in choosing to take care of the home and family. Even if you and your family don't want to do it, don't treat it as weird or creepy when another family does.

Re: Housewives Are One Surprising Solution to “Millennial Burnout”

#73

Post by juancn »

90% is the distraction of smart phones, streaming, etc... we used to do shit because we were bored as f*k.

There's nothing else to do? Well I might as well:

- do my taxes

- mow the lawn

- do a batch of laundry ... etc.

Abundant entertainment leaves little room for otherwise boring but useful and necessary activities.

Re: Housewives Are One Surprising Solution to “Millennial Burnout”

#74

Post by caeril »

deaddodo wrote: post #15
mobilejdral wrote: post #7

I have seen the joke more than a few times about how women would also love to have a wife to take care of the home and everything mentioned in the article, but unfortunately they are straight and so they would have to be the wife. I went on a date with a guy who told me he is looking for a housewife with everything that you would expect and actually lean more into the 1950's version. Later in the date he let out that…

I had the opposite problem, my ex wanted to be taken care of and not have to work (traditional housespouse); but they expected me to do half of the housework (or more, in the case of the dogs they wanted). I would work 8-10hrs a day, then spend another 1.5ish walking dogs and .5-1ish doing house chores. After I was done, I would have to listen to them complain about how exhausted they were mopping the floors. When I…

I'm not sure why you thought it would be any different.

What the original article misunderstands is that there is no incentive for the stay-at-home partner to contribute. They don't have to do housework, because at the level of your own disgust threshold, you'll do it for them. They don't have to raise the children, there's Youtube for that. And you can't leave, because you'll lose half of your assets and be on the hook for spousal and child support.

"Housewife" is a fun idea, but the incentive structures are so perverse that it's invariably a bad deal for the earning partner. Most of us end up working from sunup to sundown while the housespouse scrolls on social media all day.

That said, sounds like you hit the jackpot with someone who mopped the floors. That's better than most.

Re: Housewives Are One Surprising Solution to “Millennial Burnout”

#75

Post by BillyTheMage »

jcarrano wrote: post #55
darth_avocado wrote: post #11

I would absolutely give up my career to be a househusband, but increasingly, one income isn’t sufficient to support a family. I work in tech and even my salary (or my wife’s) cannot support the two of us + children. Yes we’d save some childcare costs, but that’s about it. If anything, your other expenses on an average remain the same but your standard of living drops because there’s less income.

Turns out that "women can work" quickly devolved into "women must work". The curious part is that if you go further back in history, to when most of the population were peasant farmers, it was more the case of "everyone must work" (children too), and house work was nothing like today's. The average 1950's housewife did not have to kill chickens to make soup. Couple this with the fact that nowadays couples have less c…

I'd just like to point out that killing chickens for food is a very recent development. Chickens are usually egg factories. Only the (evil) modern industrial practices made chicken meat an viable food source.

Re: Housewives Are One Surprising Solution to “Millennial Burnout”

#76

Post by darth_avocado »

dingnuts wrote: post #58
jcarrano wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out that "women can work" quickly devolved into "women must work". The curious part is that if you go further back in history, to when most of the population were peasant farmers, it was more the case of "everyone must work" (children too), and house work was nothing like today's. The average 1950's housewife did not have to kill chickens to make soup. Couple this with the fact that nowadays couples have less c…

A lot of it is about lifestyle. The lifestyle you could have with one income in the 1950s would be a house that was tiny by today's standards, built shabbily, no HVAC, etc etc Anecdotally I know a family of five that survived on one income that is half of a common tech salary, while in a fairly high cost of living area. You know how they did it? Frugality, and sacrifice, of anything unnecessary. The mother keeps up t…

> It's just a choice most people don't want to make

Buddy, in California, you need $208K of income to just QUALIFY for a mortgage for a median house. [1] No matter how much frugality people live in, most people won’t even come close to that number on a single income. Average car payments are $700+ a month and $500+ on used one. [2] Average cost of a 4 year attendance in a public college is $100k and for a private college it is $200k [3]. Average monthly premium for non subsidized health insurance for a family of 4 is around $1700, which drops to $500-$800/month with employer or state sponsored subsidies. [4] It’s very convenient to blame things on lifestyle, but the reality is that even the basics are way out of reach of a median household on single income. It ain’t the 50s anymore for a reason.

[1] https://www.ocregister.com/2023/08/11/only-16-of-californian...

[2] https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/auto-loans/average-....

[3] https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college

[4] https://www.anthem.com/individual-and-family/insurance-basic....

Re: Housewives Are One Surprising Solution to “Millennial Burnout”

#77

Post by salawat »

ckemere wrote: post #29

Recognizing the legitimate concerns about the article tone, it’s worth mentioning another point not mentioned in the article: when kids get older, my experience is that public schools in “fancy” neighborhoods often have unpaid additional staffing from stay at home parents. Not so much teaching, but auxiliary roles. This is an unrenumerated public good that benefits many children. A underreported correlate of school q…

Actually, since the pandemic, many public schools have cracked down and made it increasingly difficult to volunteer due to liability.

It's a whole seperate beast from public schooling when I was growing up nowadays.

Re: Housewives Are One Surprising Solution to “Millennial Burnout”

#78

Post by nataliste »

BillyTheMage wrote: post #75
jcarrano wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out that "women can work" quickly devolved into "women must work". The curious part is that if you go further back in history, to when most of the population were peasant farmers, it was more the case of "everyone must work" (children too), and house work was nothing like today's. The average 1950's housewife did not have to kill chickens to make soup. Couple this with the fact that nowadays couples have less c…

I'd just like to point out that killing chickens for food is a very recent development. Chickens are usually egg factories. Only the (evil) modern industrial practices made chicken meat an viable food source.

What?

Chicken as a meat has been depicted in Babylonian carvings from around 600 BC. Chicken was one of the most common meats available in the Middle Ages. For thousands of years, a number of different kinds of chicken have been eaten across most of the Eastern hemisphere, including capons, pullets, and hens. It was one of the basic ingredients in blancmange, a stew usually consisting of chicken and fried onions cooked in milk and seasoned with spices and sugar.

In the United States in the 1800s, chicken was more expensive than other meats and it was sought by the rich, but by no means does this make meat-birds a novelty of CAFOs.

Re: Housewives Are One Surprising Solution to “Millennial Burnout”

#79

Post by nataliste »

darth_avocado wrote: post #76
dingnuts wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of it is about lifestyle. The lifestyle you could have with one income in the 1950s would be a house that was tiny by today's standards, built shabbily, no HVAC, etc etc Anecdotally I know a family of five that survived on one income that is half of a common tech salary, while in a fairly high cost of living area. You know how they did it? Frugality, and sacrifice, of anything unnecessary. The mother keeps up t…

> It's just a choice most people don't want to make Buddy, in California, you need $208K of income to just QUALIFY for a mortgage for a median house. [1] No matter how much frugality people live in, most people won’t even come close to that number on a single income. Average car payments are $700+ a month and $500+ on used one. [2] Average cost of a 4 year attendance in a public college is $100k and for a private col…

(In California)

Re: Housewives Are One Surprising Solution to “Millennial Burnout”

#80

Post by yummypaint »

mechagodzilla wrote: post #28
yummypaint wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would point out that for many people the cost of paying for childcare during work hours is comparable to the income generated from said work. Those people have essentially no incentive to work unless they want to avoid their kids.

Even if you were actually at a pure breakeven for the stay-at-home partner for the first year: * Childcare costs decrease with age, and decrease substantially when your child reaches school age. Full-time childcare costs are typically only for the first 3-4 years of a child's life. * Even if you break even in terms of take-home pay, a stay-at-home parent that was previously working might be missing out on things like…

It seems to me that attempting to frame spending time with one's family as "incredibly short-sighted" is a perfect example of the "total-work" mentality the article decries. In that case, under what circumstances would you say a person shouldn't feel guilty about seeing their kids when they could be working?
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