I always thought that the 50s and then the 60s - until Viet Nam - were the most prosperous period in America in the 20th century.
According to various posters here it was just a figment of your imagination during that period that mom was able to stay home (after we were all in school mine did get a part time job out of boredom), with dad making enough to purchase a house and two cars and send the kids off to college or university if they so desired.
In my case they also could afford to pay for horses, their feed and expenses, two week camping trips, various lessons, musical instruments and lots of extracurricular stuff on a single fairly typical middle class income. With mom essentially making mad money.