In what ways has big government eroded the traditional, two parent family in the US?

The nuclear family model of Dad, full time homemker Mom, and 2.2 kids isn't our traditional family. Our traditional family is the extended family of Gramma, Gramp, 2 or more adult children and their spouses and children and probably an some cousins in the mix. The nuclear family was a short lived model that bloomed in the boom following WW2 and was on the wane by the 1960s.





Lots of government policies over the last hundred years have contributed to the demise of family farm as the extened family HQ, splintering families into smaller isolated units. IMO the most pressing reason that today's families splinter into single parent units is that an unfair amount of our tax burden is carried by ordinary working families. A full time home maker really DOES make life livable for everyone else.


Few families can now afford for an able bodied adult to NOT be out in the work force bringing home money. Hence parents put in an 8 hour work day followed by a 2-4 hour shift of childcare and household duties. It's not surprising that so many parents choose to opt out.





Think about it -- Working a 60 hour would be very feasable if you didn't have to cook, clean, run errands, do laundry, etc., plus your family would need less money if someone had time to garden, make lunch snacks instead of buying ready made, rework old clothing into usable garments, even things as simple as keeping and laundering a basket of rags instead of buying disposable cleaning utinsils. Further, when extended families all lived under one roof families spend a lot less on elder care and child care.In what ways has big government eroded the traditional, two parent family in the US?
I don't believe it has.





I find it fascinating that on one hand conservatives assert that the government is incompetent and ineffective, and at the same time they believe it is the omnipotent sinister force behind all of society's ills.





Perhaps it's time that we accept that society is the way it is because of the individuals in society (every one of us), and stop trying to pass off the blame on the government. That would be a refreshing dose of the personal responsibility that is so frequently mentioned by pundits on the right.In what ways has big government eroded the traditional, two parent family in the US?
Over taxation has lead families to become dependant on the State for its means of survival.


For some families, it began as a single mom on welfare with a child getting welfare that lead to more welfare and less traditional family.
For many years a single mom qualified for more public assistance if she and the father of her children were not married. The thinking behind this was to help out a woman who'd been abandoned by her man. The problem was, it inadvertently gave couples who had kids together a financial incentive to NOT be married.