[quote Mycatandme]@MaybeDoctor there are very many women in their fifties who have had very successful careers in all professions and in business and most of the ones I know also have children.[/quote]
Yes - there are. Women in their fifties today might have teenagers or even ten-year-olds, so many would have benefitted from the vast investment in the childcare sector that took place from year 2000 onwards. Or they might have gone back to work later, had family childcare, or the money to pay a nanny. But it doesn't prove that this woman could have done or should have done so, because the higher quality childcare infrastructure that we have today was simply not universal when her children were babies and toddlers.
If she has adult children who were born in 1994 and 1996, say.
In 1997:
Maternity leave was very short - 18 weeks of paid leave was introduced in 1999
Free nursery hours for three and four year olds was still just a Labour manifesto promise. Many schools didn't even run Reception classes 
.
Day nurseries were lightly regulated and no specific qualifications were legally required to work there.
Ofsted was yet to begin inspecting early years provision - this didn't happen until 2001.
Playgroups were often run by mothers on a voluntary basis, with no paid staff.
As I said upthread, provision varied from area to area. Just because one family was able to access good childcare in the 1990s doesn't mean that everyone was able to do so.