It's not that parents don't want to handle childcare. It's that American work culture and lack of social support makes childcare impossible for parents who don't have a stay-at-home partner/employee to rear the children.
In other countries is it still expected that one parent gives up their career in order to raise children? In America that went out of fashion after WW2.
I think some US employers still took the attitude that women who took significant time off to have a baby were not wanted back as late as the late 70s/early 80s. Like, I was told, the State of New York.