> Having a single-income parent in a two-parent home was the norm for most of US history.

You dont really have income and non income on a household farm. You have patriarch making decisions and everybody else working. This included slave owning farms where she had managing/organizing responsibilities.

Also, women in lower classes needed income and did worked for it. They did not had professional occupations and they were responsible for children, so it was things that fit into those boundaries - low income non professional work. But it was not really done for funsies. Then again, kids as small as 5 were left to handle by themselves and older kids were supposed to contribute.

It is really incomparable to being stay at home parent now, isolated and literally having nothing useful to do except existing and playing.