The nuclear model of the family is over. Two parents, two kids, a pet, a house in the 'burbs with a nice garden with a picket fence dies with the generation of my children.
A person of my generation was taught to aspire to it whether it fit us or not. It was what one was expected to do and we complied to the best of our ability. If you weren't made for the role you faked it as best you could like the lesbian wife of my first boss who later divorced him and married a woman which, to my knowledge and in her late 70's, she is still with.
Even if you wanted to adopt that former middle class lifestyle you would need to be among the affluent. The idea of a stay at home mom with two kids now sounds like science fiction and if we go back to my mother's era with six of us it is beyond even imagination.
If I prefer today it isn't because of the chaos. It is due to the transparency which allowed many of us to escape pretense even as others wished they could have what we once did: to fit in and keep up appearances that weren't always exactly as advertised.
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