Unfortunately, solving a cultural problem is the second most difficult thing to do, after changing laws of physics. Or, as some web article I read the other day put it: society is fixed, biology is mutable.
And it's not just about two-income households. From my personal experience I can say that, even with one parent working, a poorly sleeping child can bring the parents to the brink of divorce, or depression, or both. Given the importance of loving, caring, supporting family for a child's overall health, happiness, and future prospects, it's fair to consider some interventions as trade-offs for the sake of the household. The article mentions this near the end, but then mostly dismisses the concern.
I know many couples that have merged into larger multi-partner families, sometimes as individual couples, sometimes as polycules, regardless, the commune is back lol, and just my own observation it seems an ideal way to raise kids. There's always someone around, couples can take their own time to go on dates quite regularly, the kids grow up with lots of people around and lots of friends, the close community support is just phenomenal looking. If I have kids, I will go this route.
I have one kid and we are going thus route. The nuclear family is dysfunctional by design. Partner and I both have been with them fulltime throughout their life, living off savings instead of working. This opened my eyes to how very little men are taught about caring for people and how much nonsense I was taught. Nurturing a little person from a perspective informed by anarchism reveals a whole lot of backwards thinking. We've just spent 5 days with 3 people who can actually handle facing the childhood trauma that gets stimulated through allowing a little person to actually make choices for themselves and the difference is astounding.
We can spend time together without interruption and without it being after they're asleep. There are people to help cook and clean, do so joyfully, and play and dance and sing and cuddle.
Why you're getting down voted, I have no idea. Community- oriented approaches to families, no matter what society says or does or thinks, are what humans have done for millenia.
It changes, but it's not exactly easy for anyone to predict or control the direction of those changes. Also, this malleability is not what matters in this context - "over the scale of decades" isn't very helpful to the people alive today.
Reading it generously, I think the cultural problem is supposed to be that parents are expected to go back to work too quickly, not specifically that women are. “Mom” has just come through the sequence of quotes, making it unnecessary gendered.
It could also be seen as a cultural problem that both parents are generally expected to work nowadays, and it would be nice to be able to expect that families had some adult at home (but we’d hope that in a more egalitarian society nowadays the gender balance would be more equal — although men can lift larger laundry baskets on average so maybe we should end being the at-home ones more than 50% of the time, I dunno).
Nice, same, I think the "cultural problem" comment is not saying that the problem is that "women are going to work" but rather that "the parents have to be away from the child for the majority of the time, or they will all be homeless and hungry."
I'm not sure which country the OP is discussing, likely one without good maternity/paternity laws and whatnot, which is really sad to hear about, I hope more citizens demand this of their governments and more employees demand this of their companies, it seems crazy to me that you should have to sacrifice formative time with your newborn so you can go do a capitalism every day.
I'm posting from a German perspective and have to admit, that we still have major problems with gender imbalances on income (for more complex reasons) and the ability for women having careers, but every parent has the right to parental leave for up to 3 years (take fulltime off, or part time!) and one of those is paid (by the state, so by the taxpayer in the end) with up to 1800€/month.
Actually taking 3 years off is depending on the job still a bump in the career road, but I'm optimistic that we are getting there.
Right, I'm countering the accusations of misogyny with "no, we're talking about the flaws of capitalism." Consider that many families in the USA have two parents, both working multiple jobs, to make ends meet. To me, one of the most important things in my hopefully 80 years is family, and so I get sad when I see people forced to trade that little time we get already, for work.
And it's not just about two-income households. From my personal experience I can say that, even with one parent working, a poorly sleeping child can bring the parents to the brink of divorce, or depression, or both. Given the importance of loving, caring, supporting family for a child's overall health, happiness, and future prospects, it's fair to consider some interventions as trade-offs for the sake of the household. The article mentions this near the end, but then mostly dismisses the concern.