I think you nailed it. Europe is, in general, just a lot more family-friendly. Italy in particular is very enthusiastic about children, probably due to a combin

I think you nailed it. Europe is, in general, just a lot more family-friendly. Italy in particular is very enthusiastic about children, probably due to a combination of culture and their declining population. But generally speaking, my wife and I never felt out of place bringing our then-three-year-old son around to wineries or restaurants. I suspect most of this is cultural and not due to Italian child-rearing resulting in better-behaved children or something like that. European governments are generally much more supportive to new parents. In France, my sister got a nanny subsidized by the government for the first couple of years, for example. Here in the Bay Area, my wife and I had to pay through the nose for a full-time nanny. We not only paid her a good rate, but we paid her above board, Nanny Tax and everything. And guess how much of that is tax-deductible? Absolutely none of it. And because we're in a high CoL area, we obviously didn't qualify for the expanded child tax credit. Our one child has cost an astonishing amount of money -- my wife has been agitating for another, and I'm just not sure we can afford it without decimating our savings. Kids are demanding enough, but when the government basically tells you you're on your own after they're born, society orients itself around that. To anyone who doesn't have kids, they just think, "Well that's your problem", because that's basically the stated position of American society.