The Working House Hold Part II

Somewhere along the way, we figured out that if one paycheck was good, two paychecks must be better. And for any individual family, that’s pretty hard to argue with.

But then everybody else got a second paycheck too.

So what exactly did we gain by having both parents leave the foundations of the home?

Maybe not as much as we thought.

Our newfound “purchasing power” increasingly became purchasing power against each other. We could bid more for a house—but so could the family standing next to us.

Meanwhile, our fundamental needs didn’t double. We still needed one home, one refrigerator, one dinner table, and the same groceries to feed the same family.

But something did disappear.

Flexibility.

A sick kid didn’t used to require two parents frantically figuring out who could leave work—or who they could pay to take their place. There was already someone whose time belonged primarily to the household.

Turns out, that homemaker who supposedly “did nothing” all day might have been a little more important than we gave them credit for.