# How common, really, was the single income family with working father and stay at home mother? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 8, 2023, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473 "2023-02-08T10:18:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/41 "2023-02-08T20:23:44Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > But doesn’t each family have some choice as to the extent to which they feel 2 cars, big TV, big house, air travel, etc are NECESSARY, and to consider what they may be giving up to attain those? > > I imagine back in the 50s and 60s, people coulda found all manner of things to piss their money away on if they wanted to. This goes back to the OP’s question - single income, and a roughly middle class lifestyle. What toys and activities define middle class has escalated over time also. > [@MandaJo](#): > > I don’t think the hostess function is/was nearly as important as the daily cooking, … I agree - but the point was that for some employment positions it was once-upon-a-time a requirement of the job, explicit or not, that there be a spouse to act as a hostess. Stupid as that sounds today. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/42 "2023-02-08T20:24:03Z")
I was born in 1951, and almost all of my friends had SAHMs. Me too, though she went back to work when my brother and I were old enough to stay home by ourselves after school, which was much younger then than it is today. I lived in a nice middle class neighborhood. My father did okay, but was not making a fortune. When I was growing up I was not aware of any preschools or the kind of childcare my kids use all the time for their kids. In the 1980s we lived in a town in NJ where a lot of people worked at the research centers nearby, and there were still a lot of SAHMs - they volunteered and organized all kinds of good town activites. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/43 "2023-02-08T20:57:33Z")
It wasn’t the case for my own parents, but most kids I knew in the 50s/60s had one working parent. I think it was because she didn’t trust my stepfather to not suddenly quit his job (which he did. . .twice). In my first marriage, the wife worked the first couple of years, then decided to stay home to raise kids, which meant that the only income was my military pay, which wasn’t much. I really resented that, as I never had more than a few bucks in my wallet and we were actually getting government cheese at one time. I even took on an evening part-time job. She never did go back to working full time until after I divorced her. ---
**Author:** ![Yosh99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ccd318/32.png) [@Yosh99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yosh99)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/44 "2023-02-08T21:03:59Z")
Growing up during the 50’s and 60’s in the rural, but non-farm Mid-west, working mothers were the norm. The fathers had the “real” jobs, but the moms made supplemental income with secretarial, bookkeeping, waitressing, etc., jobs. My mother had a beauty shop in the porch of our house. I suspect the “Leave it to Beaver” kind of family was more typical of a wealthier urban/suburban environment than small town America. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/45 "2023-02-08T21:09:39Z")
> [@Yosh99](#): > > My mother had a beauty shop in the porch of our house. This reminded me: in the middle-class neighborhood in suburban Chicago where we lived in from '68 to '75, very few moms worked, but most of those families either (a) had young kids, and/or (b) had a father/husband who worked at was, probably, a reasonably well-paying white-collar job. I do remember that one of the neighbor moms (I was friends with their son) had a small hair salon setup in a room in their finished basement. I also remember that the dad of that family was head baker at a local bakery, so I suspect that, compared to some of the neighbors, they may not have been as well-off. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/46 "2023-02-08T23:25:58Z")
[Moderating] Just a reminder, this thread is currently in FQ, not IMHO. We can either stick to statistics and the like, or we can move it to IMHO so everyone can give their own annecdotes about their childhood family structures. I haven’t read through the whole thing to say whether we’ve pounded the FQ question into the ground, yet; what would folks prefer? ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/47 "2023-02-08T23:46:55Z")
Well, the OP started with personal observations. Some factual data has been provided. I’d move it to IMHO if I were god, I mean moderator. ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/48 "2023-02-09T00:47:08Z")
I guess, as the OP, I’d like to stick to facts. My question arose from the discrepancy of what I keep hearing was the standard common norm and what my experience was. I’d like to square it with facts. This looks much more complicated, because the data could be biased to people with outside work income rather than ‘family income’ from farming which had more participants. Also complicated because, how do you count stay at home mom’s with children before school age compared to after the kids go to school and are self sufficient… My mom did not work when I was an infant, but did when I was in first grade. So for 5-6 years our family was the idealized set, but that was only briefly. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/49 "2023-02-09T01:00:32Z")
> [@Sigene](#): > > Also complicated because, how do you count stay at home mom’s with children before school age compared to after the kids go to school and are self sufficient… My mom did not work when I was an infant, but did when I was in first grade. So for 5-6 years our family was the idealized set, but that was only briefly. Most statistics like this don’t follow individuals over time or ask about past behavior. So you just get snapshots and averages. So if every family had mom working except when kids are aged 0-5, that looks the same as a third of moms not working at all ages and the remainder working regardless of kids’ age. Unless you design the study to distinguish them. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/50 "2023-02-09T01:00:55Z")
Here you go (data through 2014). > **[After Decades of Decline, A Rise in Stay-at-Home Mothers](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2014/04/08/after-decades-of-decline-a-rise-in-stay-at-home-mothers/)** > > The share of mothers who do not work outside the home rose to 29% in 2012, up from a modern-era low of 23% in 1999, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data. [![](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2014/04/SDT-2014-04_moms-at-home-0-01.png) ](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2014/04/SDT-2014-04_moms-at-home-0-01.png) ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/51 "2023-02-09T01:17:51Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > in _Bewitched_ for example, **Darrel** … Endora, is that you? (Darrin) ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/52 "2023-02-09T01:24:39Z")
> [@SuntanLotion](#): > > Suburbanite here. Grade school let the children go home for lunch as all the moms were home to feed them. That was certainly my experience growing up in the city, although we moved to suburbs later. My mother did start working when my youngest sibling turned about 13 or 14. I actually had the same experience. My wife worked until our first was born and then stopped until our third was about 12. One of my sons did the same thing. His wife quit when their oldest was born. But in the 1950s, I did not know a single working mother. And we had an hour and a half to go home for lunch. I believe my class had one or two brown-baggers who didn’t go home. But they may have just lived too far away; I never knew. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/53 "2023-02-09T02:50:04Z")
> [@peccavi](#): > > Here you go (data through 2014). Excellent find! From that article: > [@](#): > > About three-in-ten children (28%) in the U.S. today are being raised by a stay-at-home mother. This totaled 21.1 million in 2012 out of 74.2 million Americans younger than 18,[8](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2014/04/08/after-decades-of-decline-a-rise-in-stay-at-home-mothers/#fn-18853-8) up from 17.3 million (24% of children) in 2000. In 1970, 48% of children (34 million) had a mother who stayed at home. > > One-in-five U.S. children today are living in a household with a married stay-at-home mother and her working husband. In 1970, 41% of children lived in this type of household. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/54 "2023-02-09T05:24:59Z")
Did the Catholic school you attended prohibit kids from enrolling if their parents were divorced? I’ve heard that some did. This whole “stay at home mom” and “working dad” has many variables, and always has. There were many SAHMs who, for instance, did in-home child care (and not necessarily full time), did custom sewing, planted a garden and sold the extra produce or eggs, etc. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/55 "2023-02-09T05:46:30Z")
I remember starting a thread about this a while back, but I can’t find it. Anyway, a couple years ago, “Family Circus” once again had Daddy bringing his boss home for dinner, only this time, said boss is a woman. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/56 "2023-02-09T07:35:45Z")
> [@peccavi](#): > > Here you go (data through 2014). Nice. But the survey does not show the age of the children. I think the age of the youngest child would be most useful. It would be interesting to compare the SAHM rate for preschoolers versus high schoolers. Aha, found some information, here: > **[The Real Housewives of America: Dad’s Income and Mom’s Work](https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-real-housewives-of-america-dads-income-and-moms-work)** > > Devotees of reality TV may think that stay-at-home moms are more common among the rich—think the “ Real Housewives” of Orange County, of Beverly Hills, of Atlanta, and so on. By contrast, close observers of American family life may think stay-at-home... > On the other hand, a mother’s work status differs sharply by her children’s ages. Only 38% of mothers with infants and toddlers work full time, regardless of their marital status. And 36% of married mothers with children ages 0 to 3 do not work outside the home. The share among unmarried mothers with children at this age is somewhat lower (26%). > > Mothers are much more likely to work full-time when their children are older. Close to half of married mothers with children ages 4 to 17 at home (48%) work full time, and a majority of unmarried mothers with children of similar ages work full time (56%). The report also shows preferences, and gives the not very surprising information that women whose husbands make lots of money are more likely to stay at home. And also those with very low incomes, no doubt because childcare can eat up most of very low wages. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/57 "2023-02-09T08:55:19Z")
My mother didn’t work until I was in high school. She’s an artist and was doing that at home, but when I was in high school she got a master’s degree and started working. Most mothers in our area/social status didn’t have jobs (1970’s). ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/58 "2023-02-09T11:01:31Z")
My mother worked outside the home, often with my father, from when I was very small. However, my grandmother (my father’s mother) lived with us, and she took care of us kids, e.g. giving us lunch every day. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/59 "2023-02-09T14:18:18Z")
Maybe - I doubt it though. They wouldn’t have needed to - at that time and place divorced Catholics were not common and I’m fairly sure enrollment was restricted to Catholics. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473/60 "2023-02-09T16:19:19Z")
So far finding data on rural/urban differences has me stumped. OP has me curious though so I’m digging. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-really-was-the-single-income-family-with-working-father-and-stay-at-home-mother/979473.md?page=4)