Over the past several years, the media has reluctantly reported on studies of the unhappiness of the modern American woman. Cultural writers commenting on the phenomena pepper their commentary with words like “alarmed” and “concerned” and appear to be perplexed that young women today are rejecting feminism and actually longing to be full-time homemakers and mothers.
In fact, the longing to be a full-time homemaker, long associated with domestic drudgery, is so baffling to the established media that Fox News felt it was newsworthy enough to include it in a Lifestyle section with the headline: “Woman quits job to take care of husband like a 1950s housewife: ‘I’m living how I always wanted.’
Katrina Holte told Fox News, “When I look at everything that is happening in the world now, I feel like I belong in a nicer, more old-fashioned time,” she says. “I agree with old-fashioned values, like being a housewife, taking care of your family, nurturing the people in it and keeping your house in excellent condition, so everyone feels relaxed.”
But is it that surprising that young women today see a trail of broken families, the stress of two-income, high-powered jobs, and the high cost of day care and choose to opt out? The media has glamorized careers for women for more than 40 years now but it hasn’t left women any happier.
A report by the Council on Contemporary Families states: “Starting in the mid-1970s, youth increasingly supported equal sharing of housework and decision-making at home. But in the mid-1990s, the trend towards equality reversed course.”
And the trend for a return of the 1950s housewife isn’t embraced by just women. In another report by Joanna R. Pepin, Department of Sociology, University of Maryland and David A. Cotter, Professor of Sociology, Union College, found a very different and surprising trend is evident in attitudes—both male and female—about gender dynamics in families.
“After becoming more egalitarian for almost twenty years, high school seniors’ thinking about a husband’s authority and divisions of labor at home has since become substantially more traditional.”
In a world where progressives want to burn down our families, institutions and traditions, there is a growing group of young people who refuse to follow that path.
To be sure, the left will ridicule them for their diversity of thought, but I’m not sure it will make much difference to this pragmatic generation.
Why go into college debt when you could actually just take home economics and be independent and happy. #Reignwell