as did I.None of the same profession tho.

while there were exceptions, mostly it was the men who could make enough money to support a family

but DU is such a touchy place.

I worked with a ton of black men who were sole support for a family. I did it on oyster boats and in foundries and in truck shops. You're off here...

It was a pretty unusual time in our history; before and after that generally both partners (and before, generally the kids) had to work. There were a lot of factors there; the biggest was probably that the entire rest of the world's industrial base had been systematically destroyed between 1939 and 1945. The (related) acceptance of the dollar as a world reserve currency was a large part of it too.

and had a grocery store and provided,my daddy was a Union Steelworker that provided,I was a Union Ironworker and provided.

You have to move to do this now as my boy is in Milwaukee now.

Being a housewife is a full time job and as hard in many ways.I am a 53 yr male and could prolly still take a pattern and cloth and make a dress from helping my Ma years ago,churn butter,make jam,jelly,fried pies...still do a few.

or for the most part do you object to the rise (and existence) of the middle class?

But I do think the American middle class was built on an unsustainable exploitation of foreign labor and nonwhite native labor (to say nothing of the environment). If that's "objecting" I leave to you. I think we would have been better off without the 50 years of sprawl, redlining, and exclusion that the postwar Dream of Whiteness engendered.

and us still just scraping by.

Food shopping with my Grandmother. She brought home five bags of groceries for $25.

Being given two quarters and sent to buy milk and bread at the corner store.

would give me a $5 - bread, milk, potatoes, coffee, vegetables and meat. Lots of change back to Mom.

with Green Stamps for ever.

That gives some of us warm memories.

I always lived in a family where all the adults had to work to make the ends meet. My grandparents both worked as well, but I don't think they both had to insomuch. It was more of a choice for my grandmother than a necessity at the time.

Still, they ended up living with my mother later in life. Which suited me fine, since they were awesome.

When she remarried, the eldest was in his last year of high school. My Mom was able to reduce her hours to part time and yet, on her earnings and those of my new step-dad (a high ranking enlisted man in the military), they helped get two sons through university -- one through law school from a prestigious west coast school, the other through a degree in biochemistry from the University of California.

Both graduated owing very, very little. That was in the '60s and early '70s.

I had to take a military route. But the GI Bill helped support me through 7 years of college (that, and my wife, who worked full time, and the fact I worked full time as well). But I, too, graduated with absolutely no debt.

For the last 20 years, my wife and I have had our own business. We raised two girls, kept one in private school her entire education, and helped both graduate from college debt free. The youngest received her degree earlier this year.