Most fantasize about a 'simpler' time or have dreamed of it. Whether it be living in the old frontier days, colonial America, or ancient Europe. The notion that it was a simpler time couldn't be farther from fact. Most of the items were made by hands, your hands. The house you lived in was probably constructed by you and your nearest friends/family. You made most of your furniture. The women sewed fabric together to create clothing. The men hunted and usually did all the heavy labor items. The families were huge to make light work of the labor intensive tasks. The children also died easily due to disease and/or injury so many offspring would ensure your bloodline survival.

When people dream of living in the past they don’t really dream of living in a simpler time, but living in a time when they felt needed and appreciated. When a woman makes a meal for her family back then, it was a special occasion. One couldn't just head to the local burger king and grab a number one combo. Cooking a meal usually involved hours of prep work and cooking time (try making your own butter or preserving a hog leg in brine or canning veggies). When a woman now makes a meal, she is usually under-appreciated due to the fact that anyone can easily go out and grab a meal – so the home cooked item isn't special any-longer. When a man came home from a long, hard day working in the fields and bringing trapped animals home for foodstuff, it too was a special occasion. With out the manual labor in the fields and the trapped animals for meat you wouldn't have be able to live.

Now – when a man comes home from a day of work he brings home a paycheck, but now women also bring home a paycheck so the man being the provider isn't a special occasion (many females often bring home more money than the male, causing an emasculating effect in the male family role).

The work/help of the children around the house was needed and appreciated back then. If it weren't for the children, the chickens probably wouldn't get fed. They collected the milk from the milk cow. The girls helped their mother with laundry. The boys helped mend fences, check traps, repair the roof, even hunt. The children had a huge roll in the family and they knew it. They saw the end result of their work and how it helps the family. They had a huge sense of belonging. Now – children barely do manual labor chores. The chores they do have low impact on family survival. They don’t have a sense of belonging, only a sense of knowing it all (if they had to hunt, mend fences, do laundry by hand, feed chickens, learn how to create clothes, learn how to effectively hunt/trap they would never have the feeling of knowing it all, because they could see they didn't). Children now-a-days can easily know it all – all they have to do is get a job, pay their bills, buy food, etc. They have little respect for the family because they don’t feel connected to it.

Possible ways to bring about this sense of family without a time machine:
Family business. Mother and Father can each have specific roles. The children can help where it is needed. Never allow the children to do less than the hired help or it may alienate them from the family business. Never give the children huge allowances that are not equal to their duties, they will get greedy and unappreciative (you have to take into consideration their part of the bills too, let them value hard work and helping the family to survive). Do not save for their college education, let them save for it (for instance, if they helped the business before they could legally work, put their ‘pay’ towards their savings fund – not college fund). Make them pay for their own items from their savings fund. This should allow them to see that they are needed and that money is something you earn, not are entitled to. Once they are done with 12th grade and have reached 18 years of age, promote them in the family business. If they chose to head to college, let them. Do not support them financially while they are in college – they should have saved for it. If they chose to stay at home and attend college, working in the family business is a must to pay room and board. The eldest son should always get a chance to run the family business.

Family farm. One can do similar roles that one would have long ago. Same rule, never allow the children to do less work than the paid help. Do not give them an allowance that is not equal to their work minus room and board. Keep roles based on sex. Eldest son given the chance to take over the farm when needed, but with the mother and father of the eldest son staying in the main house.

More current way of bringing a sense of family. If possible – father figure goes to work and brings home the money. Father figure budgets the money. He also goes to the grocery store to bring home the foodstuff. Father also tends to projects around the house – roof repair, plumbing, painting. Mother figure – prepares meals, does laundry, clean the house, and looks after the children. Children, once they are old enough, assist the mother with laundry and house cleaning. Once they boys are able, they tend to the yard and pets. Once the children are old enough, they get jobs to help pay the bills. They also need to assist with previous duties. The incomes are pooled and the father figure still does the budget. The children have little say over their paychecks. They work to help provide for the family and an aging father and mother. The eldest son should be given the right to the house as long as the mother and father stay in the house. All incomes should be pooled and the eldest son taking over the father figure role. If the other children decide to remain in the house (after completion of school and 18 years of age) they need to provide rent and pay their part of the bills to include food.

Discipline and structure should always be maintained.

Maybe it's just me, but from the way things are going now - old school is probably the best school...

CN

Sorry Doc, but I AGREE.
The old ways were the best ways.
Women taking over men's jobs has led to too many not being able to provide for their families. That being said though..
We would have to go back to an older mindset as well, where marriages lasted and men didn't run off and leave women no choice but to fend for themselves.
Our decisions to make life easier have been our downfall.

Imagine doing laundry for yourself, hubby, and 12 kids without a washing machine or dryer, cooking for that many people on a daily basis from scratch? No disposable diapers or sanitary pads/tampons. You had to chop wood for heat. There was a lot of hard work back then. You had no indoor plumbing. Imagine going outside in the freezing cold to do your duty?

I suppose there are good and bad points and it might be a nice place and time to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

I'm sorry, but in societal structures in which the use of my prefrontal cortex makes me unsuited to the assigned role doesn't appeal to me. The roles assigned to women in these schemes suck if you have a functioning brain and any interests outside of the tiny sphere of assigned interests you've been given.

If humans continue to get smarter, the divide between the prescribed role and one's capacity will continue to diverge.

Originally posted by AccessDenied
Sorry Doc, but I AGREE.
The old ways were the best ways.
Women taking over men's jobs has led to too many not being able to provide for their families. That being said though..
We would have to go back to an older mindset as well, where marriages lasted and men didn't run off and leave women no choice but to fend for themselves.
Our decisions to make life easier have been our downfall.

Marriages didn't last. Women died in childbirth regularly. "Abandonment" rates were 40% or so, which meant that one spouse had taken off. Usually the male. People just left and moved to another town and denied they'd ever been married and remarried.

This golden age of family structure never existed except for the decade of 1940.

I agree and disagree. I don't think we have to "go back" to older times to find a simpler existence. We can marry old ways with new. That to me would be progress in our culture and society. IMO it never has to be either/or but something new.