If childcare is such a significant cost that a family would make the economically rational decision to forgo the potential income of one parent, then the work of a stay-at-home parent is economically valuable, and moving them into the wage economy would not increase overall economic productivity (your original contention).

> Sorry, I am having trouble finding a gentler parsing of "we went through this already, it halved wages and made single income households a luxury." To what does this refer to if not women entering the labour force?

What I believe the parent is referring to is the lack of change in household wealth from a time when most households had a single earner to now when most have two full-time earners. Household wealth has remained stagnant for decades despite more overall hours being worked by parents. The gains from increased labor force participation have been eaten by higher costs and stagnant wages. More money is moving but the average family hasn't seen their wealth increase.

It was a reference to women having to enter the workforce due to inflation. Only a little over half of women want to work outside the home: https://news.gallup.com/poll/267737/record-high-women-prefer.... For women with children under 18, only 45% want to work while 50% want to be homemakers.

The fact we’re talking about “universal childcare” while ignoring the equally large if not larger demand women have for staying at home shows our warped priorities. Instead of universal childcare, we should just pay families for children and let them decide whether to use the money for childcare or to enable one parent to stay home.