I think you should really look up the amount of work the average european peasant was doing in the middle ages, and the amount of free time they had off.

Or how much time hunter gatherers spend actually hunting or gathering.

Or how meaningful any of that was, compared to what we do today...

Our conditions are better today than in the early industrial revolution, but that's not saying much.

On the other hand, ancient societies had more in-person community and common free third-spaces for people to congregate, socialize, and otherwise involve themselves with their communities

> Older and younger people often just don't compromise enough from an intrinsic motivation to make it work

Could the market itself be encouraging demographic segregation. If we measure and focus on economic growth above all else then the workplace becomes the place more important than all others.

Really? This just proves the point of the grandparent comment. I can think of at least three types of activities off the top of my head: sports (granted, not all of them, but definitely true for my sport - squash), music (playing an instrument in a group setting), and volunteering. I also know people who are in a bridge club with people twice their age.

There are still social activities connecting people of different age groups although I agree with the above comment that structurally the society we have has been eroding non-labour market interactions.

> No time for baking treats

> No time for being a governor at the local school

The way the internet talks about employment is so foreign compared to real life.

Does anyone really believe that having a job precludes baking treats? Or volunteering at a school? My kids' school and all of my friends' kids' schools have parent-run boards and other organizations where most of the participants also have jobs.

Outside of the accounts I read on the internet, the many people I know in person have lives outside of their jobs. Having a job is the default state for most people, yet we're out here doing things and interacting with each other.

> No way to teach the next generation how to run a home on a budget or cook healthy for for their kids, the boss needs coffee.

You people know that kids go to school during the workday, right? And that people teach their kids how to cook while also having jobs during the day?

This is all so weird to read as a parent. Like I'm reading about a different world where everyone is working 100 hours per week

But it's all just work, all the ways down.

What you are describing is working for someone else, but the alternative, working for yourself, is definitely not the dreamy image all the people working for someone else thinks it is. Working for yourself is work + risk, albeit you get to chose (read: try to correctly identify) the work.

So no matter what, unless you want blob on the states dime, you are going to spend most of your life doing work.

It's an outcome of the expectation that people earn their living. People work less today than they used to, but a larger fraction of that work is paid.

And it's a consequence of making divorce legal and socially acceptable. Traditional marriage was primarily an economic contract. The wife assumed the responsibility for running the household, and the husband had a lifetime obligation to support her.

But if you stay away from paid work long enough, your ability to get a decent job diminishes. If you want to make being a stay-at-home partner a viable choice in a society, where divorce is available, you need a safety net of some kind. Maybe the working partner has to continue supporting their ex after divorce, regardless of what led to it. Or maybe we socialize the responsibility, meaning higher taxes and welfare benefits.