During the Great Depression of the 1930's, the United States government encouraged American women to stay home and refrain from taking jobs away from men. Times were hard, and for women without a husband, the times were almost destitute. The women of those days were truly soldiers in their own right. Women of honor and courage who endured things that a woman of today would never endure. The role that women had then were very defined and they had little means to improve their situation, if they chose to do so. The role of women in the family shifted significantly, after the World War II era. The career and education aspects of women have evolved as well as women's epitomes of marriage. Many have suggested that this era begun a change in the way women raised their children. After a long journey, today we have women doing great things in the workforce, and men have put on aprons and are raising the future of America. This change in the day-to-day lives of families required the husband accepting the responsibility of helping with the children, as well as upkeep of the home, until the last 30 years, this was an unheard of practice in American families.
Parental Skills and raising morale has changed in the last 50 years. Traditionally, society expected women to be the primary provider of emotional support for children. In the early days of this century, mothers as well as fathers, used corporal punishments as a tools no longer the first form of punishment used by parents. The vast amount of privileges and technology that children are accustomed to having make it easy, as a parent, to always have another non-physical means of punishment when the children do not comply with household rules. If this method does not work, the mother may try to call in professional help. Hollywood has made this a very normal thing. It is doubtful that the mother of the 40's and 50's would have " taken kindly" to another woman trying to tell her how to run her household and raise her children.