If you want parents to have more kids and not be so freaked out about the cost of child care, how about loosening the regulations instead of having people donate time to each other? My family is in the child care business. The reason prices are high is that the cost structure is entirely driven by the government and nearly fixed: minimum wage, teacher education requirements and the designated teacher-child ratio. Zero room for innovation.

Politicians find child care centers to be easy prey for seeming tough. They celebrate more regulation and reducing the ratios as 'protecting children' and then everyone seems shocked when prices rise. They add more and more detailed regulations but little funding for poorly-paid unaccountable local inspectors, who flip from threatening to yank your license on one visit to not even asking about the same thing on the next. Teachers are required to have a bachelors degree and separate education certificates to look after 1 year-olds.

Trust me, we do not want to charge so much, but our hands are literally tied. Salary is 50-60% of revenue and most teachers are already payed minimum wage in many cases. We offer fully free tuition to employee's kids which helps offset the low salary for someone with several children, but most centers aren't that generous and we give up revenue to do it because of the ratios.