priceless
by rantywoman
http://nymag.com/news/features/67024/index1.html
Before urbanization, children were viewed as economic assets to their parents. If you had a farm, they toiled alongside you to maintain its upkeep; if you had a family business, the kids helped mind the store. But all of this dramatically changed with the moral and technological revolutions of modernity. As we gained in prosperity, childhood came increasingly to be viewed as a protected, privileged time, and once college degrees became essential to getting ahead, children became not only a great expense but subjects to be sculpted, stimulated, instructed, groomed. (The Princeton sociologist Viviana Zelizer describes this transformation of a child’s value in five ruthless words: “Economically worthless but emotionally priceless.”) Kids, in short, went from being our staffs to being our bosses.
thebitterbabe 
Parents before the so called “revolution” were not so different than today, but the context was. When my nearly 80 year old uncle was 10 years old, circumstances forced him to have to plant that years crop. Those circumstances being my grandfathers being bedridden with hepatitis at a very inopportune moment. Grandpa had no appetite, but thought he might be able to eat some canned oysters; so my grandmother was lucky to get the storekeeper to extend her a little credit for this small luxury. These two men worked side by side for almost 50 years. My uncles eventual lose was palpable after his father died. So, let’s not judge another generation so harshly.
Furthermore,
My father, uncle, and the others received at least some education beyond high school. They were more than just staff.