> I don't know that there is much the government can do.

One super obvious thing the government could do, that many other governments do successfully, is to simply run child cares. First grade used to be the first year of schooling then kindergarten was introduced, and now pre-K is common in a lot of places. Just keep going down a few more years, and boom, child care problem solved. This would solve a lot of the disincentives to having children, so you would think the people complaining about the low birth rate in the US would be in favor of it, and yet ..