What if only the Uncle had income? Back in those days, the wife stayed home. That 1 income had to be yuuuuge. Had to be high 5-figures
You're forgetting the fact that before the 2000s, most families didnt shower their kids in trash, gifts and overpriced disney vacations because that f***ing child fetish ferrari syndrome in this country hadn't gone full retard yet. For a family unit that saves them a lot of money. Also peoples lives werent replete with subscription based faggotry. The idea of a $200 cable bill or a $200 cell phone bill was considered retarded and nobody would do that. (cell phones didnt even exist for most of that time, which helped) Also vices cost a lot less, like a carton of NH cigarettes wasnt $50 back then, either. There werent 6 TV sets in a house maybe 3, 2 of which were old shitty barely working TVs. And one of them wasnt even hooked up to an antenna, it was just around so kids could play atari or NES or some shit. (when that stuff came around).
People were a lot less faggoty about spending money on inane shit then and more concerned with family basics rather than optics.
People with families like that ate out minimally. "Taking the kids to mcdonalds, friendlies or whatever" was a treat, not a 2-3 week occurrence or even a weekly one.
Also another fun thing, when kids basically got old enough THEY f***ING WENT TO WORK during the summer. These days there are f***ing kids going to college that never even sniffed a job as a teenager. Not all that long ago teenagers used to help support a household. Even if the parents didnt make them pay rent they would babysit their siblings so that mom could go work on the weekend or something.
Also.... LESS FAMILIES WERE BROKEN. This ensured that extended support systems for children stayed intact. More kids had grandparents, aunts, uncles etc in their life. these people helped out with child care and meals etc. A lot of these systems were reciprocated. This sort of "communal inter family thing" reduced the burdens on all the parents
involved. Nowadays that kind of shit doesnt happen nearly as often because 50% of the population are fags and estranged from half their extended families.
Back when car seats were strictly for infants, anyone who could walk didnt wear a seat belt, and parents could leave their kids in the car with the motor running and a lit cig in the
ashtray, life was a lot simpler, and cheaper.