It's a shame that there's not the option of providing parents with the choice of free child care or some kind of cash subsidy.

A bit tangential, but the overall problem is that cost of having children is privatized while the benefit is socialized. I'd love to see age and number of children progressively factored into the income tax bracket people pay. Something like a 60-80% tax rate for all income >150k for those >40 without children so those that benefit the most from future generations being born are helping to shoulder the cost