The other thing that’s often not realized is that even if you don’t have children subsidized daycare will benefit society and everyone in secondary ways that are often never realized. Freeing up time for a significant portion of the population creates jobs via demand for daycare jobs, makes companies more efficient and potentially more money by allowing its employees who are mothers to keep working and making money, can allow younger mothers to go to school or back to school if they don’t have to take care of their kid always, etc.

Also I like the term, “motherhood penalty”. I’ve never heard that before but I feel like it’s far more accurate to the problem as opposed to gender pay gap.