Dual incomes are not required to afford housing; one partner with a good job can do it. You may not be able to live in a major metro, but you can definitely aff

Dual incomes are not required to afford housing; one partner with a good job can do it. You may not be able to live in a major metro, but you can definitely afford a decent house in a good neighborhood on one salary, especially if you're not shelling out the mini-mortgage that is childcare. The sad reality is that when both partners work, one of them is probably just working to pay the cost of childcare... so they can work. This is just fine if it's what both parents want, but it really deflating from a budgetary perspective. And of course parenting toddlers is a different kind of stress from working. The point is than both things are stressful. If you're a sole income provider, it doesn't matter whether you're a desk jockey or a construction worker. You live with the stress that if you lose your job, your family is fucked. And while your wife can ask you to take a shift watching the kids, you cannot ask her to take a shift at your job. One thing is fungible, and the other is not. That type of stress is barely recognized in contemporary culture, and if it is recognized, it's treated as some sort of privilege (i.e. "Oh you get to pursue your career? How nice for you, your wife is at home doing more work than you could ever imagine"). And yeah, family support is huge. But it's getting less and less common. Kids move away from home more often, and they have their own children later in life. A 75 year-old grandparent just isn't going to be able to keep up with a toddler a lot of the time. The government really has to step in to help make childcare more affordable. Family connections aren't going to cut it on a societal level, and private-sector childcare is enormously expensive. Something's gotta give, and the way things are going, it'll just mean fewer children being born and an aging society.