Ok, let’s talk should. It should be the norm for both parents to devote significant time and energy to caring for their children, but also for childcare to not be their entire life. It should be the norm that families who in good faith seek to be involved are not shamed for seeking childcare help from others, especially extended family members and friends, but even well-vetted paid help when necessary. If you’re going to advocate wholesale cultural change, maybe don’t force fit mothers back into boxes they’ve long made clearly known are too small for them, or expect them to carry the extremely difficult task of parenthood literally alone. Instead, maybe spread the following ideas: Fathers are just as responsible for child rearing as mothers are and it’s good for career culture to recognize this. Modern culture for some reason has grown very divorced from valuing the extended family, a source of childcare support since prehistory. Extended family support can help create healthier, more stable families and children who benefit from the wisdom of their parents’ elders. Many modern workplaces currently make it unnecessarily difficult / impossible to have children around. Workplaces have long been (and can be again) great places for supervised children to learn decent behavior and useful career skills. I’d say it’s better they hang out with mom or dad at work than sending them to government school for sure.

Our first solution should not be to tell women to get back in the kitchen, but to offer help to the parents we're friends with. Help them tidy up the house, cook dinners for them, watch the kids while their mother works a shift. That's real and attainable cultural change.

Why does Mother have to work a shift?