Sorry, that point has generated more heat than I expected. What I was meaning here (and said poorly) is that for society specialisation seems to work out with a

Sorry, that point has generated more heat than I expected. What I was meaning here (and said poorly) is that for society specialisation seems to work out with a net overall increase in productivity. If some specialise in childcare it should free others up to specialise in other fields and allow those specialised in childcare to look after more children than stay at home parents would. I also should have stated that this is an assumption I was basing my next statements on, not a statement of fact. This was also just a generalisation used to reason from. I'm not trying to speak for anyone's individual situation. I share your belief that a caring parent is going to be better at raising children than a care worker. I would choose this option myself if I were to have children regardless of the economics (here in New Zealand childcare is heavily subsidised by the government, so the numbers would be a little different).