Today’s nuclear family is a kind of impoverishment. Today, Mom–sometimes Dad–has to drag the kiddies along wherever she has to go until they are old enough to stay home by themselves. This limits where she can go and what she can do. It is a major drag on shopping. In the day of the extended family, there would have been grandma or aunt to watch the kiddies while mom got done what she needed to do.
Likewise, modern conveniences, refrigerators and freezers, microwaves, frozen dinners, and fast food, free a woman up to work and have a career and be active. In days of yore, a woman was trapped by having to shop daily and cook the meals. On the other hand, her family got a really good diet.
We also no longer have sheets etc dried in the sun. I remember that smell and that crispness. On the other hand, it goes much quicker if we use a dryer. Most of us don’t even have a place to hang out laundry any more. In a good middle-class neighborhood, you would be shunned at the very least if you pout up clotheslines and hung out laundry.
Losses and gains.