this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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Some other 90's TV shows and movies:
The Simpsons. Homer owns a 2 story house and supports a family of 5 (at least sometimes 6, with his father Abe) and two pets on a single income as a nuclear safety officer.
Christmas Vacation. Clark Griswold works as a chemical engineer at a food company working on such projects as a coating for cereal to keep it crunchy longer. There's no indication that his wife works. He supports a family of 4, owns a large house, takes frequent lengthy vacations and has enough disposable income to install an in-ground swimming pool...assuming his typical year-end bonus.
Married...With Children. Al Bundy is a retail shoe salesman, his wife does not work. He owns a 2-story house and supports a family of 4.
A single breadwinner owning a large house and supporting a family with disposable income didn't used to be hilariously unrealistic.
The implausible part about Homer's job wasn't the salary, it was the fact that he was in charge of safety at a nuclear plant despite being completely unqualified. Lenny and Carl both have Masters' Degrees in Nuclear Science.
But Al Bundy was constantly out of money and he did not own the house. His paycheck went straight to Peg who wasted it on fashion, on herself and useless stuff. The children had to steal food because Peg or Al never cooked at home. At some point Al made a joke that life won't get worse if anyone sues them for money, because he already has 2 mortgages on the house, his car is junk and he has no valuables and no savings to take away.
So he could be in a good financial place if his wife didn't deliberately sabotage him.
The post-WW2 greatest generation lifestyle was something else. Not to say that all WW2 veterans were well-off (WW2 veterans had a LOT of PTSD and many never recovered from wartime trauma), but increased housing development meant cheap houses for many people. A lot of houses of that time left a lot to be desired in modern terms (like some bathrooms had slots to put used safety razors in, but had no way of emptying them out...), but far more people than ever were actually able to afford homes.
My mother's house had one of these pleasant looking Razor Disposal Slots in a medicine cabinet. When we redid the bathroom there was just a pile of ancient rusty razor blades behind the wall.
Boomer era foresight. They probably dumped their used engine oil into holes in the back garden as well.
My own father takes a kind of "Oh well, I'm only gonna live another 10 or 20 years anyway" attitude toward....basically everything, from politics to the environment to roof repair.
It hasn't occurred to him that it's a pretty shitty thing to say to your son's face. But it's how they think.
I'll happily trade your razor blade slot for the crumbling linen-covered iron electrical wiring inside metal pipes in our 50's house. Don't worry, we are busy replacing it all. But if I'm suddenly permanently offline our house probably burned down. 😋
My elementary school childhood home, the fuse box was over the bathtub. And although they didn't completely make it a shower, it did have a removable shower head on a hose mounted down low so you could use it to rinse your hair etc. You had to be really careful where you sprayed it though.
A nuclear safety officer and a chemical engineer are both quite high paying jobs, it's not that far fetched even today that someone could support a family with that job.
If Al Bundy owns his business, it's also not very far fetched that a retail store could support a family.
Chemical engineering is among the highest paying engineering fields.
Al Bundy did not own the shoe store. It was owned by a woman called Gary if i remember correctly.