[speaker001:] All right.
[speaker002:] What, what changes do you think have taken place in the last generation?
[speaker001:] I guess the biggest one is number of women in the work force.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Few are, uh, basically staying home and being homemakers, and raising kids exclusively.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh. Yeah, I, I, I grew up in, uh, sixties and early seventies and, uh, my mom didn't work at all when I was growing up. She didn't start working until I was, um, well into high school.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] So, I, I had the advantage of having a mom at home that nowadays kids, it's a luxury item for mothers to be home with their kids.
[speaker001:] Yeah, true. Well, mine taught kindergarten but she was always, uh, I guess her schedule was shorter so she was always, uh,
[speaker002:] Always home by the time you got home.
[speaker001:] home, yeah. Yeah, that, that statistic I guess has been growing every year it's like something around sixty, sixty-five percent or so now.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] Uh, I'm not sure what the future holds for that whether,
[speaker002:] It seems like there's, it seems that there's a grass roots, um, effort or whatever going on I, I, um, clean houses part-time,
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] and almost all the people that I clean for, believe it or not, are mothers that don't work [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] Huh.
[speaker002:] Um,
[speaker001:] That's unusual [LAUGHTER].
[speaker002:] they are, th-, they're all, um, it's, and it's, I think it's kind of a new movement it's going back towards, you know, women have come into the work force in the last twenty, thirty years and now they're wanting to go back to the old days where, you know, women stayed home with the kids, you know, and try to give the kids quality time.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] And I, I think that in the future you're, I think you're going to see a lot more, um, women choosing to not work after they have a baby.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Um, I think with, uh, the, uh, the work force with the, the salaries that a lot of, a lot of the women that I work for have husbands who are, um, vice-presidents of companies and I think with, uh, um, this, it seems like it's more the upper-class people,
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] um, I don't see it as much, the, like in my situation where I don't, I don't have children yet, but ideally I would like to be able to stay home with my kids. But realistically that's, I'm, I'm realizing that's probably not going to be possible, um, for middle-class people to be able to live just on one income.
[speaker001:] Yeah, that is tough. Yeah, we're looking at that now, my wife's about six months along.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh. I think it's going to be a luxury item to be able to stay home with your kids.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] You know, it's going to kind of [throat clearing] kind of go along with the B M W in the driveway and, or in the garage or whatever.
[speaker001:] True.
[speaker002:] Um, and the quarter of a million dollar home or whatever.
[speaker001:] Yeah. I'm surprised that the main people you work for are women that do stay home. I would think it would be women that were working full-time.
[speaker002:] Yeah, believe it or not though the, all the women that stay home are real busy when they are home.
[speaker001:] Huh.
[speaker002:] Um, they're real active in volunteer work.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] Um, one of the women is real active with, uh, Muscular Dystrophy. And, uh, does a lot of, of work with them on a volunteer basis but it's still, it's almost like a job, she just doesn't get paid for it.
[speaker001:] Huh. Well, I guess that's good that they, they've got something to keep them active.
[speaker002:] Yeah. When, when your wife has her baby, is she going to stay home or is she going to,
[speaker001:] Yeah, we're,
[speaker002:] go back to work?
[speaker001:] we're going to try and have her stay home, for as long as possible. [Very faint] What do you think?
[speaker002:] That, that, that, I would, I would like to be able to do that.
[speaker001:] Yeah, we think it's, uh, that important and I, I kind of hope that the trend goes back in that direction. I'm a, a counselor and a therapist,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] and I work with adolescents, and I see some of the problems the kids have when they don't have a real good family structure.
[speaker002:] Yeah, I, I see a difference in the generation of, even the generation before me,
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] uh, were, you know, mom was like, um, Mrs Cleaver, uh, you know, June Cleaver or whatever, where the, the attitudes were a lot different. Um, as far as, I think the kids back then seemed to be a lot more, um, ther-, there wasn't a lot of the drugs and alcohol and,
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] um, a lot of the, the things that are going on in today's society, I think morally, um, it seems like there was, peo-, people were a lot better back then as far as hig-, higher standards.
[speaker001:] True. Well, the husbands' roles are almost nonexistent in family anymore in terms of being the father figure and with women working so much they're kind of pulled out of it too.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] So, kids are raised around their friends and by the media.
[speaker002:] Yeah, that's true.
[speaker001:] And that's, you know, that's contributed,
[speaker002:] And I think, I think you're going to see a lot more of that in the future.
[speaker001:] Yeah, maybe that's contributed to a lot of the problems that we see all the time, so. If there was some way for, for women to, to stay home even if they could work, you know, there are a lot of jobs that are coming about, like in computers at home,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] and those types of things, that would at least in some ways, um, bridge the gap [pause].
[speaker002:] Yeah, I, I think that, um, in the future, um, the, the family unit as it, as it once was known, is, is going to be nonexistent [pause]. What, how do you, what do you think?
[speaker001:] About?
[speaker002:] That as far as do-, do you think there's going to be still a family unit or, or do you think that, um, the trend is going more towards single parenting?
[speaker001:] The [LAUGHTER] balance I don't, the, the divorce rate keeps hovering around fifty percent or so and it got higher than that for a while. Um, that's hard to say. Families are such a strange configuration anymore. Um, I, I see a lot of families where, you know, in the, in the back, I grew up about the same time you did,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] and back in those times we pretty much were taught how to be responsible.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] Uh, nowadays it's not the case, kids don't, kids are bombarded with all kinds of junk and one of the reasons, I guess, is because there's so much more income in the family with both parents working. They get bombarded with junk and they don't have to do anything around the house. They never learned to be responsible when,
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] the bigger trend called the boomerang kids where they move out for a while and they come back, and you got twenty and thirty year olds who are living at home with mom and dad [LAUGHTER] so,
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] you know, you create a bigger, bigger family, generation after generation but not really on purpose.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] So. It's not, not a real functional situation anyway. So, you know, I don't know it's, I don't know that that trend's going to change the single parent type families and the families, as long as we've got so many other crazy things going on in society.
[speaker002:] Yeah, I, I think that eventually the, the family unit's just not going to even exist anymore. like you said the divorce rate is getting so high that I think there's going to be more single parent families than there are, um, you know, two parent families.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] That's pretty sad.
[speaker001:] Yeah, it is, I guess unless, unless there's a, a major swing in the change of what's important to people, you know, probably keep going downhill. And I, I don't know we, we feel like that, that we can make it on one income it, it may be tough but we may have to give up on some, some things.
[speaker002:] I, I think in the long run though your child will benefit from that.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] And it will, it will make the, the strain worthwhile.
[speaker001:] Yeah, I think so too.
[speaker002:] Well, I, I need to go ahead and, and wrap it up.
[speaker001:] Okay.
[speaker002:] Um, it was really nice talking to you.
[speaker001:] Well, I've enjoyed it, Stephanie.
[speaker002:] And, uh, thanks a lot.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] Okay, bye-bye.
[speaker001:] Bye-bye.