I gave my wife the choice, if she wanted to continue her career at the time, she could. We would hire a nanny to raise the children, but we did not need the extra money, so the decision was hers. She chose to stay home or work, whichever choice she felt was best for her.

You raise a good point about why people should purchase long term disability insurance. It is one of the area's where most people are terribly underinsured. That is true of everyone with a substantial household income and less true where only one partner works, since in the worst case, the other partner can work.

One of the first big hires, I made in my career was to hire a 40-year-old mother that was coming back into the workforce after having stayed home to raise her children. I chose her over many younger women with more job experience (at least on paper). When she described the challenges of raising three children, I realized she had developed the perfect skills to be our customer service point of contact. She went on to become VP of Sales, surpassing what her husband earned as a salesperson for another company. I think you fail to appreciate what managing a household requires. In my wife's country, women are "trained to be household managers".

The typical upper middle class income family will have servants. So, the man maximizes income while the woman manages that household staff and family wealth. My father-in-law worked as a dentist; my mother-in-law invested in small businesses through an investment club of women, managed a household staff of five, and oversaw all activities of the "household". Very few families in America have servants, but the other activities are necessary and women that excel at those duties make great future employees and executives. Where you learn your skills is less important that acquiring them. I never viewed women staying home as being "out of the workforce". In fact, one of the last companies, I ran, was a home care company with 300 locations and 42,000 employees. Understanding the various duties needed to provide home care services are best understood by a woman that has managed a home... combine those skills with some specialized training in "assisted living" training and you have someone that can manage an office and earn up to $300K a year, if they can lead and manage people.

My daughter's husband has chosen to take a work from home job, so he can be there when the children need him. My daughter is wrapping up her PhD in Nurse Anesthesia and will earn more than twice what he earns.

These different situations highlight how couples are approaching the challenges of raising children differently. Of course, many women choose not to have children. But among top law firms, many have said, their biggest challenge is retaining top legal talent including partners earning over $300K, because they can't compete with "motherhood".

I think life is full of choices.

I also think people are unaware of how to manage their own careers. My own career would not have allowed me to spend more time with my children regardless of how much financial assistance we received.

I specialized in starting new companies and turning around failing companies in the health care and insurance space. The money was partially related to the skill involved and but partially related to the sacrifice of working 6-7 days a week and up to 14 hours a day to do something that is hard. We used to joke a half day was 12 hours and a workday and calendar day were the same things.

I think you are rationalizing why society should pay women to have children, but frankly, given the state of our country's finances and the burden of supporting the elderly, I don't see that happening in any material way. The one area that has received the most attention is subsidizing childcare.