Wages have been in decline since the 1960's. Only sending women out to work has managed to prop up family income so that the income decline doesn't look even more pronounced. In turn that meant kids were seeing even less of their parents. In turn more and more families started to break up. This all started in the 1960's and has got worse ever since. There has been no progress since then, only mirrors. They say things got better under Reagan, but all you saw was a massive expansion of credit and deregulation which fueled greater inequality. Roll on 2008 and everyone is in debt, you can get a mortgage without a stable job and a few thousand dollars laid down, you can borrow a hundred thousand for a degree in knitting, and meanwhile there are no jobs as manufacturing has gone to Mexico or China and graduates can look forward to serving in Starbucks. Oh, and an average of 10,000 dollars a year per person on health care despite a declining life expectancy. The kids all say "Yay Daddy, I shouldn't frown because everything is wonderful". If you so much as frown you get called a 'monster' on the Internet. "Look at you, you are so entitled". Entitled? The world has gone wrong and everyone is a debt slave and the kids are the entitled ones? You couldn't make it up!