Good luck convincing people that they should be happy to raise children with the living standard of 60 years ago and they don't have to worry about money because there's free activities to do with your children.
What you call "chasing the joneses" is perfectly expected human behavior. People compare themselves to their current metaphorical neighborhood in time and space (not to their grandparents or to hunter-gatherers) and they make their life decisions based on that: college, career, having children. It's just nonsense to dismiss it as "hey, that's jealousy" at a population level.
