Agreed, this seems like an older relic. If anything you see this situation more often in non- western countries where women aren't as involved in the workforce. In America, for example, it's not uncommon that not only do both spouses work, but they both must work to support the family. The assumption that one spouse is unable to work feels like a rather dated convention. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, it certainly does, but it's no longer the default.

It's also a relic of a time when maintaining a house was a lot of work and reasonably analogous to a full time job. That is when chicken soup involved plucking and preparing a chicken instead of buying stuff from the store and throwing it in a instapot.

Who took care of you? Given it's an ex-communist country, I wouldn't be surprised if child care was cheap/free.

Here in Switzerland, "full-time childcare costs are around two-thirds of an average Swiss salary" apparently, so quite often people prefer to do it themselves rather than work mostly to pay someone to take care of their child.

> Who took care of you? Given it's an ex-communist country, I wouldn't be surprised if child care was cheap/free.

Mostly my grandma. And once I was 5 or so I went to kindergarten. This was already in the post- times. But my first 3 years were still in a communist state.