I actually have two children and this is nonsense. Obviously the first child gets more attention than the second, but not in terms of the amount of time and money the childcare involves. And most people (in the UK at least) are not delivering obsessive levels of care. Some are of course, but most aren't.
Since what age did your kids start to go outside and play by themselves?
I'm not in the UK, but in France it seems that people generally won't let their kids outside alone until they're 10 or not even then. That makes a difference of several hours of free time a week which is quite significant. Luckily people seem to be fine to leave their kids alone at home, which amounts to a few more hours of time per week. Also luckily there are mandatory public schools starting from the age of 3, so France in general is not bad for raising kids time-wise and money-wise. However I do notice that amount of autonomy people entrust to their kids here is lower than what I tend to do.
That's going to depend wildly on the actual child (my eldest is ridiculously responsible so we'll probably go out when she's younger, maybe 10).
I really don't think people are focusing on how busy lives will be in 10-12 years when they decide whether or not to have children. Obviously things like finances and childcare when they are young are way more important. Kind of insane that we're even debating that.
I guess he's upset not by the existence of school but by the mandatory nature of it.
It's a relatively recent thing, starting 2018 [1]. The official explanation is reducing inequality, making sure rich and poor kids all actually get the same education and not a mere possibility to get it. Unofficial explanations often revolve around integration of immigrants with culture gaps getting too big to bridge by the age of 7.
