[cashewchoo]

I know this is bait, but I want to provide my experience as counter-example.

I went to a STEM college where anyone who graduates could quite reasonably expect to be able to build themselves a middle-class career, live comfortably, and perhaps even have some economic mobility (moving from middle-class to upper-middle, mainly...).

There weren't a lot of women there, and you would expect that what women were there would be disproportionately the kind of woman who would be interested in having a life-long career.

Just anecdotally, looking at peers who graduated with me, that is not the case. Many are married, and many have chosen to end their careers (where finances allow) to stay at home.

If anything, I would argue the main failing we've committed upon the young generation (regardless of gender) is to provide them an economic framework wherein more than a single-digit percent of wage earners can hope to raise a family on a single income.

In my experience, there are a growing number of men who wish they could be stay-at-home dads if finances permitted.

But instead, most households are dual-income out of necessity.

And beyond that, we've also demonized living with your parents pretty thoroughly, so people are hesitant to save money and get free childcare by living with their extended family.

Something else I want to mention is how poorly we've tailored the current world to making raising a family easier. Letting your kids go further than your lawn unsupervised is tantamount to child abuse now. Childcare is absurdly expensive, low-quality, low-availability (enrollment is headcount-capacity-limited in most places) and low-flexibility (many places either want your full-time enrollment or not at all. You can't just pick some days).

And we've also demonstrated that we're, as a system, willing to totally f** over parents when disasters strike. Covid has been a total disaster for dual-income families with children. I've heard it was not uncommon for it to be "lucky" a partner was laid off because otherwise they would've had to quit, without unemployment benefits, to care for kids full-time.

Anyway, my point is, we've made it really fucking inconvenient to have kids and now there's all this overly-simplistic sexist whinging from a certain segment of the population about how it's somehow all the fault of young women. It's disgusting both from a moral standpoint and in how intellectually lazy it is.

[jokethrowaway]

I think you and the parent don't disagree too much, but parent was trying to be funny.

I loved that feminism gave a choice and legitimised working women - but it also broke down the family structure (+divorces and unstable families - which statistically raise less successful people) and having twice the workforce heavily depressed wages' purchasing power so that now families need two working parents to survive.

I think the result for the next generation will be a demographics crash and hopefully what comes next is not reminiscent of the Handmaid's Tale.

[watwut]

I would point out that non trivial amount of those dicorces were genuinly abusive relationships - physically and mentally. Or partnership where one of them despised and looked really down on each other.

It is absurd that divorce is seen as that big familly failure, but staying in violent or abusive relationship is treated as "succesfull familly".

[commandlinefan]

> as counter-example ... the kind of woman who would be interested in having a life-long career ... that is not the case ... men who wish they could be stay-at-home dads

You seem to be saying the same thing OP is saying: there are few women who are comfortable being the primary (or sole) breadwinners.

[cashewchoo]

I'm not, your ellipses abbreviate too much. I'm seeing, among a group of people who would theoretically be predisposed to not want to stay at home, people still electing to stay at home. This contradicts the OP's glib remark that less women nowadays want to stay at home.

[hahahasure]

I wish everyone could try stay at home parenting. It made me hate it.

I like my kid significantly more now that I see him evenings and weekends.

[jeffrallen]

Here's a more nuanced view: both partners in a marriage should try both full time work and full time parenting. Then both partners will better understand the choices they make and have empathy for the other's situation.

This is lived experience.