Yup. My wife and I were faced with the option of her contributing financially to the home and we pay for child care, or her being an at home mom. If she went to work, she would net $20 a week after paying for child care. Yeah, nope.

When we had just one kid, the math of my wife working or not worked out to basically what you found. If she was feeling engaged in what she was doing, we probably would have found someone to watch our daughter. But she wasn't really, so she stayed home.

Then we had twins.

There is a daycare just down the street that we looked into just for shits and giggles. A mere $550 / week if we wanted all three there full time.

That's a real big "hell no".

My wife earned negative income for a few years but kept with it. I didn't agree with her decision but supported her in it. She just didn't want to be out of the work force so long that she would have trouble getting back in once the kids were in school.

Considering you usually have better salary with 2-4 years extra experience there is more to it than that. I guess universal daycare is a non starter in the US, and even though we have that here in Sweden women still opt to stay at home more than men, but that difference getting smaller every year. One of the measures says 30% of childcare days are used by fathers, but that is only paid time. The statistics for the unpaid time is usually a lot worse.

How much does an "educated professional in child care dev" cost?

> That sounds wonderful, but it's economically impossible, except for the rich.

In the US, sure, but there are other countries with other models...

It wouldn’t be if society recognised the importance of the next generation and pooled together collectively.