I've been using this chart for the increase of single parenting over time[1]. Unfortunately the data doesn't go all the way to the present. I have heard single parenting in the US is now over 40%. Charles Murray has another couple dozen interesting ones along a similar lines in "Coming Apart".
The automation of child-raising that the author talks about sounds creepy. It is an activity that probably ought to have a human component to it, if anything should.
I listened to an interview from a French Marxist who argued that the modern economy has been liberating for upper-class women, but bad for lower-class women[2]. His argument is that the right to work has turned into an obligation to work due to the necessity of two-incomes. This is fine for educated women with interesting and fulfilling work options but bad for uneducated women. Furthermore, the lower-class maids and nurses get paid to look after the upper-class children during the day but they still have their own children to look after, too.
He sees the need to work as a regression and as a new layer of obligation on the lower classes. The ability to be a full-time mom is now a luxury for the lower classes, while it is stigma for the upper classes.
Comments
I've been using this chart for the increase of single parenting over time[1]. Unfortunately the data doesn't go all the way to the present. I have heard single parenting in the US is now over 40%. Charles Murray has another couple dozen interesting ones along a similar lines in "Coming Apart".
The automation of child-raising that the author talks about sounds creepy. It is an activity that probably ought to have a human component to it, if anything should.
I listened to an interview from a French Marxist who argued that the modern economy has been liberating for upper-class women, but bad for lower-class women[2]. His argument is that the right to work has turned into an obligation to work due to the necessity of two-incomes. This is fine for educated women with interesting and fulfilling work options but bad for uneducated women. Furthermore, the lower-class maids and nurses get paid to look after the upper-class children during the day but they still have their own children to look after, too.
He sees the need to work as a regression and as a new layer of obligation on the lower classes. The ability to be a full-time mom is now a luxury for the lower classes, while it is stigma for the upper classes.
[1] http://dalrock.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/u-s-historical-livin...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do5zrdTb-yI