Wait a minute… that sounds like…
The child tax credit.
Then there's the small issue that women's liberation happened and there's no reason to believe it wouldn't happen again given the conditions would be the exact same. Women won't be put back into financial captivity without a fight. In some ways I understand why men idealize this era of the past, but women were not having a good time.
> Women won't be put back into financial captivity without a fight
This, along with the language of the supposedly "pro-male" camp ("why shackle yourself to someone who will just rough you over for most of your paycheck later and leave") are both approaching marriage wrong. If you're trying to achieve a good that cannot be had individually (a happy marriage) then both sides have to freely give 100% of what the shared good requires. Marriage cannot work as a Mexican standoff between two parties who are trying to take as much as possible from it without giving anything in return.
Dangerous? Yes. It's the most dangerous thing you can ever do, to take yourself in your own hands and offer yourself to another.
Because let me tell you dude I and every other woman is picking the men's package in this deal. You go ahead and be a 50's housewife if you think it's so good. We've had the option to choose if we want that terrible life for 40+ years now and "fuck no" won in a landslide.
Do you know how depressing it is to find out that both my mom and my mother-in-law squirreled away money in a secret bank account just so they could have the tiniest bit of financial independence separate from their husbands. And keep in mind these are men who they both love dearly and are still married to to this day.
The fact that your mom and MIL needed secret bank accounts isn't an argument against raising your own children - it's an argument for financial transparency and shared accounts in modern marriages. And yeah, we should absolutely have that.
But here's what you're missing: plenty of women (and men!) are choosing to be primary caregivers today because we have the choice now. It's not 1950 - it's 2025. Nobody's talking about giving up bank accounts or financial independence. We're talking about prioritizing raising your own kids over outsourcing it, when that's financially possible.
It's hard as hell, it's undervalued, and it's not for everyone. But acting like everyone who makes that choice is deluded? That's just as dismissive as the people who think all women should be doing it.
The conclusion is that adding women to the workforce competed with men’s wages at least as much as it did add to the economy. Taking women out of the workforce to do family and domestic tasks will be supportive of male wages, counteracting the effect you mention.
Women do not generally want men to stay at home and take care of kids. Women also demand that men make more money than themselves. For women, the period between the kids being born and going to school full-time is like a kind of sabbatical. If they're lucky enough to be able to not work a job during that period, that is.
>Back of the napkin calculation is three trillion dollars of value lost annually. And that's before the knock-on effects of such a massive recession.
That sounds absurdly high. I think you need to revisit your calculations. Even if it was the real number, perpetuating the species is worth more than corporate bullshit meetings or whatever.
>Then there's the small issue that women's liberation happened and there's no reason to believe it wouldn't happen again given the conditions would be the exact same. Women won't be put back into financial captivity without a fight. In some ways I understand why men idealize this era of the past, but women were not having a good time.
There were some unfortunate circumstances in the past but they are way overblown. Most people with a little sense know that it would be preferable to be able to live on one income, and that men and women alike wish for that kind of prosperity to return. It might come along with occasional problems, but what we face now with ever-increasing costs of living and awkward questions about finances and family roles is not great either.
Domestic labor and being primary caregiver for children is not, in any way, like a sabbatical.
Kids can be annoying, but they can also be a lot of fun. Having the luxury of being able to spend months on end with them, without worrying about money, is a luxury that unfortunately is on the decline. But it is still more attainable that most realize.
Of course men to get simultaneously resentful over having to work while women done and spend their money each time they buy something, are not super thankful all of the time cause people are not, but that is not concern to those people either.
