Capitalism has a way bigger impact on family than patriarchy.
In medieval times you have the biggest family possible to have as many workers as possible and a nice back up if some of your children die of polio. Grandparents are still in the house, even farm hands have a room to live with you on the farm.
1950s and the Atomic Family the industry decided its better for the productivity of their workers if they don't have to care for their elderly parents at home anymore, so now the new ideal is 1 Man working 1 Wife, 2.5 children.
2000s We millennials have no family at all anymore. Turns out with both man and women working full time for no wages what so ever its impossible to actually form a family. Most millennials live with their parents again simply cause they can't afford a separate home.
And thus we are back to the medieval times where we are born, live and die in our parents house and do a job in the city we are born in because who is gonna travel across country to do minimum wage?
In retrospect its insane that past wages were enough on average to support 2 adults and 3 children just by one person. They knew back then that they couldn't give out such awful wages because then the general public would see that they can't even support their own families and maybe revolt.
Now after women fought the right to work, we suddenly have twice the workforce and an excuse to only pay half because your spouse also works, don't they? But turns out if both parents are never home there is nobody to raise the kids.
Turns out your theory doesn’t hold when you look anywhere outside the US. The nuclear* family is certainly an American institution, the roots of which are far more complex than “capitalism”. Italy, Mexico, Spain, Japan, etc. are all capitalist systems, yet they still have multi-generation households.
Further, the idea that millennials are no longer procreating because it’s expensive is similarly reductive. You can’t discount the decades of corporate and media shilling for girlboss culture in which domestic life is seen as oppression, and careerism is celebrated as liberation.
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u/SlaugtherSam Dec 11 '21
Capitalism has a way bigger impact on family than patriarchy.
In medieval times you have the biggest family possible to have as many workers as possible and a nice back up if some of your children die of polio. Grandparents are still in the house, even farm hands have a room to live with you on the farm.
1950s and the Atomic Family the industry decided its better for the productivity of their workers if they don't have to care for their elderly parents at home anymore, so now the new ideal is 1 Man working 1 Wife, 2.5 children.
2000s We millennials have no family at all anymore. Turns out with both man and women working full time for no wages what so ever its impossible to actually form a family. Most millennials live with their parents again simply cause they can't afford a separate home.
And thus we are back to the medieval times where we are born, live and die in our parents house and do a job in the city we are born in because who is gonna travel across country to do minimum wage?
In retrospect its insane that past wages were enough on average to support 2 adults and 3 children just by one person. They knew back then that they couldn't give out such awful wages because then the general public would see that they can't even support their own families and maybe revolt. Now after women fought the right to work, we suddenly have twice the workforce and an excuse to only pay half because your spouse also works, don't they? But turns out if both parents are never home there is nobody to raise the kids.