[speaker001:] 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 home
[speaker002:] always home by the time you got home
[speaker001:] yeah yeah that that statistic I guess has been growing every year it's it's 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 like there's a grass roots um effort or whatever going on I I um clean houses part-time and almost all the people that I clean for believe it or not are mothers that don't work
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] um
[speaker001:] that's unusual
[speaker002:] 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 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 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 kind of go along with the BMW in the driveway and or in the garage or whatever um and the quarter of a million dollar home or whatever
[speaker001:] true 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 um they're real active in volunteer work
[speaker001:] huh 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 but she just doesn't get paid for it
[speaker001:] huh well I guess that's good they 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 go back to work
[speaker001:] yeah we're going to try and have her stay home for as long as possible 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 and I work with adolescents and
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] 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 there wasn't a lot of the drugs and alcohol and
[speaker001:] um-hum
[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 the people people were a lot better back then as far as having higher standards
[speaker001:] true
[speaker002:] huh
[speaker001:] well the husbands' roles are almost nonexistent in family anymore in terms of being the father figure and and with women working so much they're kind of pulled out of it too so kids are raised around their friends and by the media
[speaker002:] yeah yeah that's true and I think I think you're going to see a lot more of that in the future
[speaker001:] that's contributed 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 and those types of things that would
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] at least in some ways bridge the gap
[speaker002:] yeah 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 where do how do what do you think
[speaker001:] about
[speaker002:] uh 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:] they'll understand them the divorce rate keeps hovering around fifty percent or so and it got higher than that for a while um it'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:] um-hum
[speaker001:] back in those times we pretty much were taught how to be responsible
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] 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 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
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] so know you create a bigger bigger family generation after generation but not really on purpose
[speaker002:] yeah yeah
[speaker001:] so it's not not a real functional situation anyway I don't know it's I don't know that that trend's going to change the single parent type families and the blended 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 it's it is that 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 some some things
[speaker002:] I I think in the long run though your child will benefit from that it'll make the
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] the strain worthwhile
[speaker001:] yeah I think so too
[speaker002:] well I need to go ahead and and wrap it up it was really nice talking to you
[speaker001:] okay well I've enjoyed it Stephanie
[speaker002:] and uh thanks a lot okay bye bye
[speaker001:] uh-huh bye-bye