The chart below captures much of what has gone wrong in this country since 1970. Households in 1970 looked entirely different than households today. In 1970, almost 71% of all households consisted of married couples. Today, only 50% of all households are occupied by married couples. The divorce rate prior to 1970 ranged between 9 and 11 per 1,000 married women. After 1970 the divorce rate skyrocketed by 100% to between 20 and 23 per 1,000 married women.
In 1970 46% of two parent households had a stay at home mom. Only 33% of mothers worked full-time in 1970. That was true because a family could live a decent middle class life on one salary. In 1970 31% of all the jobs in the country were higher paying goods production jobs. Today, only 10% of jobs are goods producing jobs. The shift from a country based upon saving and production to a services oriented nation based on debt based consumption is reflected in the chart.
The primary reason the percentage of mom’s working full time has risen from 33% to 52% is the fateful decision by Richard Nixon to close the gold window in 1971, allowing central bankers to print money, create relentless inflation (83% loss in purchasing power of USD), promoting the financialization of America by Wall Street, and encouraged politicians to promise voters goodies they can never deliver without the ability to run up the national debt without a seeming consequence.
The real wages of men have not advanced since 1970. Real median household income is no higher than it was in 1989. The only reason married households can make ends meet is to have both parents working full time. One of the biggest reasons for divorce is financial stress. It is no coincidence divorce rates soared once mothers were forced into the workforce full-time, putting tremendous stress on households across the nation.
With so many mothers being forced into the job market to maintain a minimal standard of living, their children have been left to be raised by low paid strangers in daycare centers and government run public indoctrination schools. The result has not been positive for the country. Children being raised by strangers or living latchkey lives perform worse in school and end up psychologically adverse toward marriage in general. The dramatic rise in divorce and tremendous decrease in married couple families has left the country vulnerable, demoralized, confused, and angry.
The average person isn’t sure who to blame for their plight, as the ruling class use propaganda, misinformation, false storylines, and make believe enemies (terrorists, foreigners) to keep the masses unsure of who and what to believe. The truth is the politicians and central bankers who debased and continue to debase our currency, while creating an never ending plethora of bubbles and busts, have destroyed the standard of living for middle class Americans and have set in motion an irreversible decline and collapse of the family unit. And this collapse is being perpetuated, encouraged, and cheered by the social justice warriors and enemies of the traditional family. They are winning. This will be another battlefront in the coming civil wars.
You have it backward. Nixon didn’t eliminate convertibility to allow the Fed to print more dollars than there was gold to back those dollars. The Fed had already overprinted the dollar, and the foreign countries that were holding dollars were moving toward trading them in for gold – because they rightly believed there was literally not enough gold in Ft. Knox to cover those dollars.
Nixon made the only choice open to him. The problem wasn’t Nixon, the problem was – and is – the Federal Reserve.
Your divorce rate is off by about 500% and it would be worse if men hadn’t stopped getting married like they did 20 years ago. Thank the liberal screw the guy courts.
We are in the tiny slice second from the top, “mom full time dad not employed” due to the fact that I make $42/hr straight pay with all the overtime I can handle (at time + half +bonus of 10-50$/hr). My husband’s $14/hr manufacturing job just wasn’t worth the time it took him out of the house and kept me home with the kids. I hear that a lot from my co-workers (nurses too) whose husbands are in any blue-collar field, it’s just not worth the time and childcare to have him work. Not great on the psyche for the 35-40 year old men who are displaced to be home-makers, but better (I hope) than having the kids raised by strangers….
Well now, even though feminism isn’t the only culprit for this, it sure as hell is and has been playing a big part in destroying marriage and our culture. A woman’s womb is the gate keeper of our future. A woman’s choice in a mate determines what the next generation is like. It a big responsibility and for centuries there were cultural mores in place to keep women from running wild. As long as today’s ’empowered’ women keep spreading their legs for any ‘bad boy’ that they meet, and ignore the good men who are considered lame in today’s hip feminist attitudes, the problems for both sexes will continue to multiply.
This destructive behavior is a direct result of two of the greatest evils of feminism; sexual ‘liberation’ and the notion that all women are capable enough to manage not only their lives, but also raising a well adjusted child as a single parent, both of which is bullshit.
As long as there’s the idea planted in a woman’s head that she’s a logical decision maker and on the same level with a man, there will always be impending disaster. By that I mean disaster in political choices, often based on trivial crap, and disaster in society as young women glorify the act of demeaning themselves as proud sluts while at the same time demanding to be treated with a greater respect and with more favored treatment than men.
I know that all of you gals that contribute to this forum are probably thinking that I’m sounding pretty ignorant right now. But even you have to admit that I’m right in the fact that today’s feminism has been an unmitigated disaster for women.
The young girls of this generation are screwed for life if they fall for all that ‘women power’, ‘rape culture’, ‘I am woman-hear me roar’ crap that’s been spoon fed to them for years now. Todays girls have been pat on the back and given an ‘atta girl’ their whole lives for doing nothing and then they continually whine and bitch about the fact that reality exists and they want to change it…somehow. But they don’t have a clue about what they’re doing. Madness.
When these girls fall for the tenets of feminism they first become sluts, then either unhappy wives or single mothers struggling to cope and all of them blaming men for all their problems, which in turn perpetuates this nonsense. And everyone wonders why everything is so messed up.
IMHO, the vast majority of the blame for the destruction of the family can be attributed to liberalization of divorce laws; especially the spread of no-fault divorce, and easy access to effective contraception. In my view, the actions of Nixon & the Fed are incidental at best & while contributing to the entry of women into the full time labor force as a necessity instead of as a luxury, was not the prime mover behind the decline in the traditional family.
The ugly and seldom acknowledged truth is the natural impulse of females if left unchecked is towards hypergamy and breeding with the biggest, baddest alpha males she can find. While men are often accused of being unfaithful and spreading their seed a’la Don Draper or Ted Kennedy, most women are secretly more than happy to accommodate such profligacy as long as it is with a man whom other women find desirable. Societies as far back as one cares to examine have known this truth, and the reason for the existence of many of the social structures and rituals that have surrounded the relations between the sexes since the dawn of civilization, have been specifically to control and regulate the female sex drive. Strict moral & religious codes and segregation of the sexes; especially young unmarried women from the company of men, have served to try and minimize and control female sexuality outside of marriage. The courtship ritual and marriage itself have served to formally transfer control of the female sex drive from the father to the prospective husband. Men are most productive when they have families and responsibilities. Absent these, most men will produce the barest minimum necessary for their survival and will instead do the equivalent of whatever passed in their era for sitting on the couch and playing video games while eating potato chips… This creates little for governments to tax and take; thus the historical government interest in promoting and supporting marriage and children within marriage, and the historical antagonism of governments to liberalized divorce laws.
In the historical setting before the era of modern day big government, an unmarried woman with children was a burden to her relatives and everyone else around her, and social systems and mores discouraged voluntary procreation outside of marriage as well as the voluntary ending of marriages. The problem has always been how to get men to produce more than the barest minimum, and how to control the female impulse towards hypergamy. One solution is allowing men to take more than one wife, or to have harems; obviously many men are “left in the cold” sexually, and this leads to discontent and trouble if those surplus men without wives do not have sexual access to women in the form of prostitutes or brothels, and are not siphoned off into activities to channel their aggression such as war. But this does not produce surplus. Social mores and elaborate courtship rituals where the man has to prove his worthiness as a good provider in order to be allowed to court and eventually marry an eligible woman, allowed more men to get into the game, encouraged productive behavior on the part of the single man, and allowed those men who were not natural alpha studs to have sexual and reproductive access to women. It also did a better job of encouraging maximum productivity and those surpluses for governments to tax than harems and polygamy ever did. Whether by design or subconsciously, this has been the model that has prevailed in most locations for most of history.
Our society started breaking down when access to effective contraception and the means and anonymity to make use of it via the automobile and drive-up motels allowed women to exercise their natural impulse towards hypergamy without fear of pregnancy or social censure due to the anonymous and secretive nature of modern day hook-ups. No nosy neighbors to watch the comings and goings at home, no hotel lobbies to walk through in full view of prying eyes who would later whisper and gossip, and no fear of pregnancy resulting from such secret liaisons. There has always been illicit sex between unmarried people and affairs between married people, but the consequences have been divorced from the actions ever since the creation and widespread access first to condoms, and second, the birth control pill. With the liberation of female sexuality from the control of men, and the freedom to choose whom she would sleep with, secretly at first then brazenly out in the open later on once society had started breaking down, the modern woman has been liberated from the control of men and can act openly on her natural impulses to the detriment of all. Once the genie has been liberated from it’s bottle, nothing will put it back until society completely falls apart and a single woman’s survival depends solely on her access to the physical protection of a man from the predation of other men, and the resources he can provide to her and her children. Out of this will once again come the social codes and mores that will control her sexuality and encourage those men who want access to women to first prove their worth as providers and protectors before their protectors allow access to those whom they protect. And this is the lesson of history as well.
To whom I may offend: I claim credit for the lengthy tome above; wasn’t logged in when I first posted.
Flame away ye heathens…
We had a guy here, I forget who but he said he had decided to live within his meager means regardless of the things he had to do without.
It is the chasing of material things that has folks working longer hours and both parents at work. A lot of folks complain that illegals take the low paying jobs they wont do. It isn’t that the pay is too low but that American standards have risen to incredible levels. Everybody wants to be a Kardashian.
My buddy Paul was incensed that Scott bought two new cars in one year. Paul was the type to mend a tupperware container with duct tape. Scott liked new things. Paul groused, “Some people just don’t know how to live within their means.”
Tell me again why we need a flatscreen in every room and a car for every ass in the household, why we need 2000 sq ft + houses and fridges with french doors.
And don’t get me started on those selfish fucks who live in similar houses ALONE! Many assholes have chosen to live alone with maybe a cat or dog, who knows what the fuck they do with teevvees in every room and electronic equipment to rival the White House situation room.
I can’t wait for the universal chimp out, these fucks will be the first to be dragged out and beaten to a pulp just for being selfish assholes.
post rant: I know, my attitude is bordering on socialist. However, I am not saying we should divest these fuckers now, I just say let’s get these guys first.
This all got started with that 1970ish push for “no fault” divorce that we were assured wouldn’t harm marriage and the family.
The same way we’ve been assured every anti marriage move since then wouldn’t harm marriage and the family.
The way we are being assured that things like “gay marriage” and such won’t harm the family today, at least the small percentage of them that are still intact.
FWIW, it only took one income to raise a family back in 1970 and it only takes one income to do that today. Two people have to work because it takes a second income to pay the taxes on the first income to have enough left over to provide for the family without public assistance (another thing we were assured wouldn’t harm the family).
A stable two parent- Mother and Father- household provides the best possible outcome for children.
Period.
Everything else is simply jockeying for a participation award.
I would have figured out a way to be satisfied in my marriage were it not for the no-fault divorce law. Fortunately this did not occur until my children had been raised.
@Casey Bowles: Sure, blame the whole thing on the women. But it takes 2 to tango and I would argue that men were 100% behind, ahem, the ready access to birth control and anonymity.
The breakdown of the nuclear family unit and replacement of the men as breadwinners/protectors with The State in that role is a fundamental goal of the socialists/commies. They have been diabolically clever in selling it to the sheeple under the guise of “it’s for the children”, “women’s rights”, “food stamps”, “welfare” or just plug in your social program de jure.
Oh, I’m sure they didn’t MEAN to destroy the family, yeah right.
Personally, I think our social fabric has been torn past the point of repair. On Drudge today is a direct threat to the USD from China’s yuan. When the USD is no longer the world’s reserve currency, well, all that $$$ printing is gonna look awful foolish. Also gonna be a real bad day when the EBT cards ain’t funded.
Gonna be Epic. Go long popcorn and easy chairs.
I think the blame can be shared between leverage in the economy that dates to Nixon closing the gold window, advance of no-fault divorce and widespread cultural feminization. All three combined is a death knell for the traditional nuclear family. Some religious sub-cultures are anomalies and how they are different is attitude towards divorce and roles of women. Unfortunately nobody is free from the meddling by the gov’t.
The decline of the family started big time in 1973 when “I”m not a Crook” Nixon slammed the gold window on our debtors and began down the slippery slope on which we, today, are sliding rapidly down to destruction.
One thing caused the decline of the family. To much funny money, inflation, lower standard of living.
In an attempt to maintain that standard of living we had in the 1950’s and 60’s required that instead of one bread winner and one mommy at home, we had to gradually move to two bread winners to attempt to make up the difference in income. That, in turned, generated latch-key kids, a tremendous decline in family values as both parents worked and kids took care of themselves (never a good idea!).
Now we are to the point where two breadwinners are starting to work multiple jobs taking even more time away from family obligations and the necessary teaching of kids what they should and should not be doing.
Just gonna keep going down hill as now we are falling off the bottom of the ladder in ever larger numbers causing evermore poverty, greater numbers of those unable to afford food+shelter+medical care and hence more unhappy people.
PJ: I know! No more kids, right?
MA
I ran the numbers one time on a reasonable parallel to my job during my first marriage (1961-1981). Most of the time I was the only bread-winner. Fed’s income tax was 13%. FICA, state/school/other-local taxes were above 30%. All those state and local “services” made for taxation that ate into everybody’s disposable income.
When pay scales are not growing as fast as normal-item costs are rising, it takes two to tango.
Consider housing cost, e.g. My first house, in 1966, was a 7% deal, but at only 20% of my take-home for PITI. Now? Pardon me while I puke.
Karl Marx wrote that the family unit must be abolished, as part of the communist program.Think about that. Think about how stupid that is, about how opposed to nature this is.
This is communism, the total subversion of nature herself. Welcome to our present and future..
@flash, do you recall the story of a boy who shot and killed his dad and some other guy. The boy said he shot them because they were ‘suffering’. The article didn’t explain further. No need.
I suppose sometimes I cross the line of good taste by talking up heterosexual sex. Oh well, that’s for folks to resolve, their own squeamishness about, you know – the nasty.
Then they turn around and defend gay sex.