I think that childcare support is pretty good in the UK, and certainly has got better over the last ten years or so. When we were in the UK we earned too high an income to qualify for any of the latest benefits, but we got help towards nursery costs when the children were littler, maternity pay (topped up very generously by my employer) and could have claimed cild benefit too.
When I returned to work when ds was tiny I think the difference between me staying at home and going out to work was about 100 pounds, once I had paid the travel costs etc (and obviously after childcare), but the effect of staying in the workforce has meant that my career continued to progress, and by the time we left the UK I earned very good money. There are significant costs to having children, especially in the early years, and they should be part of any families calculations.
The government encourages parents to return to work because of the taxes received, and the movement of money, but also because of trying to get families out of poverty, and hopefully to encourage the ambitions of both the parents and subsequent children. I can't see why this should be considered a bad thing.
The only problem with this approach is for those at the margins, where the balance between pay and benefits does not work well, and where the tax and benefits system has got more and more complicated because the government tinkers rather than trying full scale reform.
I have no problem with other families pursuing other ways to manage their ear;y years, but I do think in the UK we are totally oblivious to the benefits and support we receive. One of my relatives recently claimed that he had never received any benefits, and why should he pay so much tax. He had five children, but did not see the NHS or education as benefits.
Finally, we moved from London to NYC, and dh paid more taxes there than in the UK, on a similar income. When you include the healthcare insurance we were significantly worse off.