Authors note: Before you feminists out there go ape on me, allow me to say that this essay is not gender-based or biased - the title is merely one of convenience.

This essay will concentrate on the destruction of the American Dream in the latter part of the 20th century stemming from the mass entry of the woman into the workplace.

In the mid-20th century, the American Dream consisted of a happy marriage and family, a suitable income, a car (maybe two "someday"), and ultimately, a home. The mark of success was the home and family. These ideals are reflected in the popularity of media offerings of the time; Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best and Donna Reed were the guideposts of this success. Victorian values and American real life were seemingly happily mixed in a sort of naive complacency and expectation that, as long as you followed the culturally defined paths laid out before you, you too could expect the American Dream - the white picket fence of success.

Until the coming of the second half of the 20th century the traditional American family was composed of the husband, wife and children in well-defined and accepted (even sought-after) roles of authority. The father was the breadwinner and the decision-maker, the mother the homemaker and the children knew and respected their places in the pecking order.

Today the American Dream is a myth, and in fact that myth has metamorphosed into an often-violent resentment among the increasing majority of those who are deprived of it. Middle class America has been shredded into a selfish and sociopathic sub-culture of struggling individuals and families with little more than a dubious hope for survival, let alone success. The obvious beneficiaries of this are the lawyers of our society and those in the business of psychological counseling - a definite growth industry. While the middle class does indeed exist and there are plenty of success stories within it, it has been divided into upper and lower middle class, speaking to my theory of it's disappearance altogether as those who are financially successful join the ranks of the upper class, while those who are not, clearly a majority in numbers, are pushed into the lower class. Soon I fear there will be no more middle class at all, and America will, like so many other countries, become a "kingdom" of the privileged and the serf.

What has caused this? What has changed in the past 40 years? What can be done to stem this degradation of life in America? And, how much differently do we have to raise our children today than was done only a generation ago?

The women's movement, in one form or another, has been alive for countless centuries dating as far back as Joan of Arc and probably further. Though the roles of Joan of Arc in the 15th century and the modern woman can hardly be likened to one another, the influence of the female gender in the making or breaking of a society may be. Joan was an inspiration, a figurehead, albeit an active one as she partook in many a skirmish against the English and their allies in France. The modern American woman on the other hand is a fully recognized equal in terms of education and business, and to some extent "more equal" in terms of affirmative action, from the moment she is born and introduced to society.

While I will not attempt to belittle the woman in terms of her deserving equality in the eyes of the law and common sense, her entry en masse into the workforce has greatly contributed to the severe degradation of American values and way of life, and in making the attainability of the American Dream an often hopeless quest, and only at great cost. Is it all her fault? Of course not. There are other reasons for this degradation; particularly irresponsible media, especially television which looms as the single most influential and abused medium in existence today.

It is inarguable that with two people in the household working outside the home, the income of that household goes up. As the income rises in a market-based economy, so does the cost of living - this is called "What the market will bear", and as long as we pay the higher prices they will remain. In short, we asked for it, we got it. As a result of this self-perpetuating madness, instead of a family choosing for the wife to go out in to the work place as was once the case, it is now required, if that family want's a shot at the American Dream. Plainly, again, the entry of the wife into the workplace has contributed in no small way to the tremendous rise in the cost of the American Dream. My parents paid less than $20,000 for their 3-bedroom home in Southern California suburbia in the 1950's. My father, a career military man, worked while my mother was the traditional homemaker raising 4 children. For me to achieve the same as my parents would cost roughly 8 times as much, and I can tell you that I earn no where near 8 times the income of my father in the 1950's, even in terms of the value of the dollar then versus now! So what's the difference? What has happened over the last 50 years to price home ownership out of my grasp? Why can I not support a wife and 4 children on my income alone, buy a home and live the American Dream?

The mass entry of the woman in the workplace caused an increase of household income. This suddenly available capital did not go unseen by corporate America - they wanted their "share". And they are getting it. While I cannot necessarily "blame", per se, women, since women as a group deserve every bit of equality with men, neither can I ignore that fact that the womans entry into the workplace has contributed greatly to the severe rise in the cost of the American Dream. Metaphorically speaking, "the more you make the more they take". Now we're stuck with it, and as long as we accept it it will continue.

Beyond putting the American Dream out of reach I would like to speak to some "quality of life" issues raised by the entry of the woman into the workplace in terms of the family.

As a father of two I am sorely disappointed at the amount of time that a parent is allowed, by today's standards, to be with their own children. In the typical work day of 24 hours a child will spend 8-10 hours asleep, 6-7 hours in school, and 3-4 hours in daycare, leaving a grand total of 7 hours, at best, to be with their family, but really more like 3-4 hours and a good portion of that is spent "in a rush" as the parent performs their parental duty.

What are we teaching our children? Look at your life and tell me what your child is seeing? They see their parents a little in the morning while breakfast is made and getting ready for the day. Then it's of to daycare where they spend time with strangers who, in reality, spend more time and have more influence on our children than we do. Then they go to school, then back to daycare. All that time their parents are off in some magical mystery world called "work". Their parents pick them up and rush home to make dinner and handle the daily homework routine. Finally, some quality time!, time for slowing down, for reading or playing games and this is the time that the child looks most forward to, having mommy and/or daddy all to themselves. Then it's bedtime to prepare to restart the madness. In all that time, the parent's role was one of rote performance of duty - make meals, clean up, homework etc. Finally in the final hour or two of the day the child really gets to know mom and dad.

I would give almost anything for my children to have had what I had - mom at home when I got home from school. Mom to take me places, even if it was the dreaded shopping! And in all that time I had no idea of the advantage I had over what I could give my children. It's not supposed to work this way. Quality of life is supposed to rise from generation to generation isn't it? Do we not bring our children up to do better than we did? My parents certainly did. But I find it quite impossible. This is not due in whole to fact that my children's mother worked outside the home, as there were countless other reasons. But there was never any question of their mother having to work, it was an economic reality, and we had to conform just like the rest.

I would also propose that the incredible divorce rate is also attributable, in some ways, to the mass entry of the woman into the workplace. The stress on the family in the blind chase of the American Dream is enormous - work, work, work. Divorces happen for a multitude of reasons, but how many of those reasons can be honed down to money? Most I think, and therein lies a new problem, that of trying to survive and support children on a single income. The dual income that paid for the "quality of life" to which the family had grown accustomed now has to support dual households as well, not to mention the transportation costs between the two households. Where before we struggled in our quest for the American Dream, now we fail, and who, I ask, pays the most dearly for it? Our children, that's who.

The solution is simple really and therefore just as simple to acknowledge that it will not happen. It means that we, as a people, have to let go of the American Dream or at the very least redefine it. In colloquial terms we just can't afford it. For us to have the American Dream - the home and two cars - we have to give up the family values in which we were raised and wish to perpetuate. This will not happen because, simply, we want it, and we are the most selfish and materialistic society on the planet today. Therefore we will have it, or literally die trying. Success in America is defined in terms of bank accounts and real estate, to believe otherwise is naive. The only other society that comes close to being as obscene as modern America is ancient Rome. Every Roman ruler who tried to introduce a large cultural change upon the empire contributed to its demise. It was, quite simply, too big a machine on a roll and nothing could stop it. What stopped it, eventually, was conquest from the outside - Rome fell, and a newer society arose out of the ashes of the old. This is what will happen in America. History is replete with turning points and America has reached hers. The machine we have created, whether in Washington or more locally, even down to the individual household is on a roll and nothing within will stop it. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Do I believe that "the womans place is in the home"? No, not literally, but I do believe that it is the place of at least one parent to be in the home. The value of a parent in the home is measurable in terms of the incidence of teenage runaways, child abuse, adultery, education, and the perpetuation of family values. Parents must raise their children and stop paying others to do it for them!

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