alt Hacker NewsYour comment presupposes something different that nradov’s comment.
The aforementioned “trad households” do not have a financially independent wife, which is what nradov is referring to when they write
> force the wife into becoming an unpaid caregiver for her in-laws
Typically, the in laws or the husband would control the assets, and hence be able to exert more influence.
> For my family, if we had more options -- ie, more money -- then both of us would be stay-at-home parents.
In the absence of a trust fund, most women (and men) will choose to be able to fend for themselves.
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We don't have a trust fund, of course, which is why I'm working to earn an income.
My wife currently stays home with the kids, although that might change down the road. She doesn't have any trust fund or inheritance either, of course.
However, although I'm earning the money, it's 100% a shared resource. It goes into a shared account. I'm pretty sure that's a legal necessity since we're married, but it's how we'd choose to do it anyway. There's no division between my finances and hers.
We married each other to be a team together forever, but even if we separated, our finances would be divided in half between us. If we'd wanted to fend for ourselves, we wouldn't have gotten married, and certainly wouldn't have had kids.
She feels sorry for me having to go to work every day, but it's a logical division of labor because I have much higher earning prospects.
I say this because I want to understand your definition; are we a traditional household in your view?
Your comment's framing makes no sense to me. My wife pushed for me to go into engineering instead of academia so she could stay home and we could be comfortable. We're married. We have kids. The entire point is we're not independent. That's what married literally means. Unioned. Joined. There is no her and me. There is us.
Why would you need or even want to be independent? Why would you plan to form a family while keeping your options open/having one foot out the door?