Could we be seeing a return to one-earner families?

[Brian Stoffregen]

This is what happens when we throw out the template. This is what Chesterton talked about a hundred years ago. Our political debates were no longer over the nature of the illness or the best way to remedy, as is what happens in a sane society, but have become about what constitutes health. Concerning the body politic, we no longer debate, say, the cause of that body's equivalent of diabetes or how to treat it. Instead, we debate why we should prefer the non-diabetic condition to the diabetic condition, and who is to say that having ten toes is better than having nine toes?

There's one template that defines what's better for children? I must have missed that. My Native American friends say that being raised by the extended family is best. Parents show love to their children. Aunts and uncles discipline the children. Elders teach them the culture. (Trying to move the Natives into a nuclear family structure was not better for them.)


My mother was raised primarily by her older sisters who were 19 & 17 years older than her. Living with her parents was not better. From what I've heard, the parents fought nearly all the time. They even separated a few times, (but never divorced). One older cousin has remarked that it's amazing that some of those children came out as well-adjusted as they are given the poor family dynamics. (Most of my growing-up years were in a different state, so I wasn't close to those grandparents.) My mom helped raise three of her nephews. She comments that she went from raising those three nephews to raising her three sons.

Yeah, and a one-legged man will point out that living with one leg is better than having two legs and gangrene. Still, the template for a healthy human being is to have two legs. Not five, not zero, two.

Well, I know a guy who was born with two legs. They didn't work. They were cut off at his hips when he was five.  He scoots around pretty well on his hands. He even climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. He's now a motivational speaker.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_West


Having no legs is better than keeping the legs he was born with.


I disagree with you that the biological nuclear family is better for the children. I think that an extended family with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, all being part of the children's lives is even better. (I didn't have much of that, but I greatly enjoyed our visits with my dad's parents who lived almost 2000 miles away. These visits only happened every three or four years, and nearly all of my cousins on dad's side lived near the grandparents, so we got to visit them and the aunts and uncles, too.) When we lived in rural Nebraska and experienced extended families living in close proximity to each other, both my wife and I thought that it was better than what we experienced with only being raised by a nuclear family.


Biblically, it seems that people were identified more by their tribe or community than the nuclear family.

[Brian Stoffregen]

Thanks for this insight.  In the foster care/adoption system there are two inherent biases -
a) toward the biological parent(s) if possible
b) toward biological kin - kinship foster care/adoption

In NYC there are two locations where children - from tiny tots up - are held and kept when there are orders of protection or legal determinations that the parent or parents may not see the child or know where the child is located.  These are normally cases of abuse, neglect and include various types of violence up to and including sexual abuse.  For three years we in the Atlantic District were involved in a ministry where we were allowed to interact with those children especially around holidays.  While it was truly tragic, the care given to those children by those social workers and caregivers "in the system" was at a level at the absolute highest vocational stratum.  What happens to those children?  Eventually they are placed - and in most cases can NOT be placed inside the kinship network due to various threats by the parents.  They are given a tough, tough path.   My own encouragement was to encourage women and men toward those vocations.

A good friend, Jackie Meyer, started and heads up the largest foster care organization in Nebraska.


https://www.buildingblocksforkids.org/


Last time we visited with her, she was heading off to Florida to make a speech. Her husband was an LCMS minister until his death at age 71 in 2013.

[Donald_Kirchner]

This is what happens when we throw out the template. This is what Chesterton talked about a hundred years ago. Our political debates were no longer over the nature of the illness or the best way to remedy, as is what happens in a sane society, but have become about what constitutes health. Concerning the body politic, we no longer debate, say, the cause of that body's equivalent of diabetes or how to treat it. Instead, we debate why we should prefer the non-diabetic condition to the diabetic condition, and who is to say that having ten toes is better than having nine toes?

There's one template that defines what's better for children? I must have missed that. My Native American friends say that being raised by the extended family is best. Parents show love to their children. Aunts and uncles discipline the children. Elders teach them the culture. (Trying to move the Natives into a nuclear family structure was not better for them.)


My mother was raised primarily by her older sisters who were 19 & 17 years older than her. Living with her parents was not better. From what I've heard, the parents fought nearly all the time. They even separated a few times, (but never divorced). One older cousin has remarked that it's amazing that some of those children came out as well-adjusted as they are given the poor family dynamics. (Most of my growing-up years were in a different state, so I wasn't close to those grandparents.) My mom helped raise three of her nephews. She comments that she went from raising those three nephews to raising her three sons.

aa

I disagree with you that the biological nuclear family is better for the children. I think that an extended family with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, all being part of the children's lives is even better. (I didn't have much of that, but I greatly enjoyed our visits with my dad's parents who lived almost 2000 miles away. These visits only happened every three or four years, and nearly all of my cousins on dad's side lived near the grandparents, so we got to visit them and the aunts and uncles, too.) When we lived in rural Nebraska and experienced extended families living in close proximity to each other, both my wife and I thought that it was better than what we experienced with only being raised by a nuclear family.

Biblically, it seems that people were identified more by their tribe or community than the nuclear family.

The problem is that you’re comparison is not analogous. In comparison to the nuclear family, an extended family is a family that extends beyond the nuclear family, consisting of parents like father, mother, and their children, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, all living in the same household.

So, in your Nebraska example, for the most part, you were speaking of related nuclear families iving in close proximity to each other. That’s not an extended family. Growing upin a nuclear family, my grandparents, aunts, uncle and cousins all lived within a few miles of us. I saw my grandparents at least once a week; they were a very important part of my life. Grandpa and I were very close, from riding on the tractor with him as a child to especially after Grandma died at about 70.  I often saw and played with my cousins. That didn’t make us an “extended family” model.

[peter_speckhard]

This is what happens when we throw out the template. This is what Chesterton talked about a hundred years ago. Our political debates were no longer over the nature of the illness or the best way to remedy, as is what happens in a sane society, but have become about what constitutes health. Concerning the body politic, we no longer debate, say, the cause of that body's equivalent of diabetes or how to treat it. Instead, we debate why we should prefer the non-diabetic condition to the diabetic condition, and who is to say that having ten toes is better than having nine toes?

There's one template that defines what's better for children? I must have missed that. My Native American friends say that being raised by the extended family is best. Parents show love to their children. Aunts and uncles discipline the children. Elders teach them the culture. (Trying to move the Natives into a nuclear family structure was not better for them.)


My mother was raised primarily by her older sisters who were 19 & 17 years older than her. Living with her parents was not better. From what I've heard, the parents fought nearly all the time. They even separated a few times, (but never divorced). One older cousin has remarked that it's amazing that some of those children came out as well-adjusted as they are given the poor family dynamics. (Most of my growing-up years were in a different state, so I wasn't close to those grandparents.) My mom helped raise three of her nephews. She comments that she went from raising those three nephews to raising her three sons.

Yeah, and a one-legged man will point out that living with one leg is better than having two legs and gangrene. Still, the template for a healthy human being is to have two legs. Not five, not zero, two.

Well, I know a guy who was born with two legs. They didn't work. They were cut off at his hips when he was five.  He scoots around pretty well on his hands. He even climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. He's now a motivational speaker.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_West


Having no legs is better than keeping the legs he was born with.


I disagree with you that the biological nuclear family is better for the children. I think that an extended family with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, all being part of the children's lives is even better. (I didn't have much of that, but I greatly enjoyed our visits with my dad's parents who lived almost 2000 miles away. These visits only happened every three or four years, and nearly all of my cousins on dad's side lived near the grandparents, so we got to visit them and the aunts and uncles, too.) When we lived in rural Nebraska and experienced extended families living in close proximity to each other, both my wife and I thought that it was better than what we experienced with only being raised by a nuclear family.


Biblically, it seems that people were identified more by their tribe or community than the nuclear family.

The nuclear family doesn’t preclude extended family involvement. If anything, it encourages it. And it provides the strength of social fabric to a greater number of people. Talk to a traditional family and most of the time they were/are providing a home or surrogate home to a widowed grandparent, neighbor kid, cousin, or someone else for whom the nuclear family was not an option.

God designed the nuclear family. The two become one. They are fruitful and multiply. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not commit adultery.

[Donald_Kirchner]

This is what happens when we throw out the template. This is what Chesterton talked about a hundred years ago. Our political debates were no longer over the nature of the illness or the best way to remedy, as is what happens in a sane society, but have become about what constitutes health. Concerning the body politic, we no longer debate, say, the cause of that body's equivalent of diabetes or how to treat it. Instead, we debate why we should prefer the non-diabetic condition to the diabetic condition, and who is to say that having ten toes is better than having nine toes?

There's one template that defines what's better for children? I must have missed that. My Native American friends say that being raised by the extended family is best. Parents show love to their children. Aunts and uncles discipline the children. Elders teach them the culture. (Trying to move the Natives into a nuclear family structure was not better for them.)


My mother was raised primarily by her older sisters who were 19 & 17 years older than her. Living with her parents was not better. From what I've heard, the parents fought nearly all the time. They even separated a few times, (but never divorced). One older cousin has remarked that it's amazing that some of those children came out as well-adjusted as they are given the poor family dynamics. (Most of my growing-up years were in a different state, so I wasn't close to those grandparents.) My mom helped raise three of her nephews. She comments that she went from raising those three nephews to raising her three sons.

Yeah, and a one-legged man will point out that living with one leg is better than having two legs and gangrene. Still, the template for a healthy human being is to have two legs. Not five, not zero, two.

Well, I know a guy who was born with two legs. They didn't work. They were cut off at his hips when he was five.  He scoots around pretty well on his hands. He even climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. He's now a motivational speaker.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_West


Having no legs is better than keeping the legs he was born with.


I disagree with you that the biological nuclear family is better for the children. I think that an extended family with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, all being part of the children's lives is even better. (I didn't have much of that, but I greatly enjoyed our visits with my dad's parents who lived almost 2000 miles away. These visits only happened every three or four years, and nearly all of my cousins on dad's side lived near the grandparents, so we got to visit them and the aunts and uncles, too.) When we lived in rural Nebraska and experienced extended families living in close proximity to each other, both my wife and I thought that it was better than what we experienced with only being raised by a nuclear family.


Biblically, it seems that people were identified more by their tribe or community than the nuclear family.

The nuclear family doesn’t preclude extended family involvement. If anything, it encourages it. And it provides the strength of social fabric to a greater number of people. Talk to a traditional family and must of the time they were/are providing a home or surrogate home to a widowed grandparent, neighbor kid, cousin, or someone else for whom the nuclear family was not an option.

God designed the nuclear family. The two become one. They are fruitful and multiply. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not commit adultery.

Yes, that’s why a nuclear family is also known as a conjugal family

[Charles Austin]

Some statistics:
Slightly more than 50 percent of all American households have two incomes, and the number has been rising slightly each year since 2010.
   But there is a wide gap geographically. In some cities – Milwaukee, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Buffalo, for example – only about 20 percent of the households have two incomes. Aurora, Colorado and Virginia Beach, Virginia, have about 40 percent of the households with dual incomes. In Omaha, 35 percent of the households have dual incomes; in St. Paul, Minnesota, the number is 33 percent.  In Philadelphia, 23 percent of the families have dual incomes.
  The highest number of two income households are in Santa Ana, California - about 56 percent.
   Variables include cost-of-living in a particular city, employment data for a city and average income for a city or region.
Source: Magnify Money, a website sponsored by various financial institutions. (The statistics parallel similar data from the US Census Bureau.)
https://www.magnifymoney.com/blog/news/dual-income-households-study/

[Steven W Bohler]

Some statistics:
Slightly more than 50 percent of all American households have two incomes, and the number has been rising slightly each year since 2010.
   But there is a wide gap geographically. In some cities – Milwaukee, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Buffalo, for example – only about 20 percent of the households have two incomes. Aurora, Colorado and Virginia Beach, Virginia, have about 40 percent of the households with dual incomes. In Omaha, 35 percent of the households have dual incomes; in St. Paul, Minnesota, the number is 33 percent.  In Philadelphia, 23 percent of the families have dual incomes.
  The highest number of two income households are in Santa Ana, California - about 56 percent.
   Variables include cost-of-living in a particular city, employment data for a city and average income for a city or region.
Source: Magnify Money, a website sponsored by various financial institutions. (The statistics parallel similar data from the US Census Bureau.)
https://www.magnifymoney.com/blog/news/dual-income-households-study/

Those numbers don't seem to add up.  If the highest rate for any one city is 56%, and most of the other cities are well below 50% (Philadelphia at 23%, for instance), how does the average come to more than 50%?

[peter_speckhard]

Also, is the pool limited to households with more than one person of working age? In other words, is every single 24 year old counting as a single income household? Every elderly widow? I think the appropriate parameter would be the child. Do both the child’s parents work full time?

[Rev. Edward Engelbrecht]

This is an interesting article:

https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/power-two-parent-home-not-myth

[Charles Austin]

Then find statistics to refute these, Pastor Bohler. I gave you a set of statistics and I gave their source. You take it from there.
I know it’s very hard for you, but sometimes we all encounter things that don’t fit our picture of the world.
Go to the website. Study the data. And gather your refutation. I would enjoy reading it if you can present one.

[Donald_Kirchner]

Then find statistics to refute these, Pastor Bohler. I gave you a set of statistics and I gave their source. You take it from there.
I know it’s very hard for you, but sometimes we all encounter things that don’t fit our picture of the world.
Go to the website. Study the data. And gather your refutation. I would enjoy reading it if you can present one.

No, Charles, there's nothing to refute. You haven't made a prima facie case. As Steve says, your numbers don't jive. As Peter says, what are the parameters?

The burden is on you. The Stoffregen method of simply throwing something out there and saying, "Prove me wrong" is not valid.

[Steven W Bohler]

Then find statistics to refute these, Pastor Bohler. I gave you a set of statistics and I gave their source. You take it from there.
I know it’s very hard for you, but sometimes we all encounter things that don’t fit our picture of the world.
Go to the website. Study the data. And gather your refutation. I would enjoy reading it if you can present one.

I am not refuting anything.  I simply said I don't think the numbers add up.  Does it make sense to you that Santa Ana CA's extra 6% is sufficient to make up for Philadelphia's deficit of 27% (to get Philadelphia to 50%)?  Or the additional major cities that were listed as 30% below the claimed average (Milwaukee, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Buffalo)? If Santa Ana is the highest at 56%, how many other cities (unnamed in your post) must there be to make up for the St. Paul's and Omaha's and such that are sub-50%?  As I said, it just doesn't add up.  Might it be true?  It's possible, but it doesn't seem likely.

[Jim Butler]

Then find statistics to refute these, Pastor Bohler. I gave you a set of statistics and I gave their source. You take it from there.
I know it’s very hard for you, but sometimes we all encounter things that don’t fit our picture of the world.
Go to the website. Study the data. And gather your refutation. I would enjoy reading it if you can present one.

First, what is "Magnify Money"? I've never heard of the site before. The only person quoted in the article is...the senior content director of Magnify Money.

Second, who makes up these two-earner households? I know a lot of situations where both young marrieds work, but then the woman will take some time on the mommy track until the children are school age (or even out of school) and will then return to work.

Third, how is a "two earner household" defined? My wife worked part-time while our children were growing up, first as a bank teller and then as a bookkeeper. She would drop the kids off at school, go to work, pick the kids up on the way home and things would be good. (Come to think of it, she still works part-time.) Or is the assumption that "two-earner" means "both full time"?

BTW, the paragraph on "Methodology" says absolutely nothing about their methodology. I would like to think you noticed that.

Finally, I can understand how you would be upset by "encounter[ing] things that don’t fit our picture of the world." I mean, you are the one who said women shouldn't go to college and should just stay home, right? So I'm sure that you find these statistics very upsetting. I feel for you.

[Michael Slusser]

Then find statistics to refute these, Pastor Bohler. I gave you a set of statistics and I gave their source. You take it from there.
I know it’s very hard for you, but sometimes we all encounter things that don’t fit our picture of the world.
Go to the website. Study the data. And gather your refutation. I would enjoy reading it if you can present one.

As Pastor Bohler observed, the statistics from that article don't add up. One would have to suppose that nearly all households outside the cities were two-earner households. The author used various sources of data (see "Methodology") which may themselves have been calculated on different bases.

Peace,
Michael

[Charles Austin]

The website is very clear about who they are and where they got their data. If you don’t like it, fine. I just naïvely thought that maybe some data would be useful rather than casual, blue sky speculation that certain things are happening.