> And yet, despite predicting half of our world, as a father in the 1950s he could not imagine why his daughter - my mother - wanted to work.

In fairness, typically people imagined a utopian future where nobody worked. The strategic goal, never yet realised although AI might finally manage it, is to push people out of the workforce rather than in to it. Signing your daughter up to be a wage slave may be an improvement on the 1950s it isn't really the sort of thing that makes a good long term goal.