Stereotypical parental roles? Do you mean Ozzie and Harriet? The average family now in America hardly qualifies as stereotypical. The two income family is far more the norm and the "old" ways of the wife staying at home while "hubby" goes to work, see "Death of a Salesman", are fading faster than the popularity of Vanilla Ice. The number of women in the workplace is the first tell tale sign of how great their sacrifice is, after all, in the first few years of life the child bonds more with the mother than the father. So if both parents are away the child is feeling some loss as well as the mother. Sacrifice the income from her job and the picture looks bleak for the family financially but the bond between mther and child is the tradeoff. Tough choice, more sacrifice. Yes there are now work at home moms, but that is a very small percentage of the population. The "rest of the world" still has to make ends meet the old fashioned way, they work at some job making less than what they are worth. Before this becomes a social diatribe on the evils of the "new economy", I will stop.