Wendilla, twice you have said "both parents have to go to work".
Whist I agree there are situations where this is true, but more often than not both parents do not HAVE to go to work. They choose to do that so that, as we used to say, they can keep up with the Joneses. When I was brought up in the 50's and 60's we lived according to our income, if you couldn't afford something then that was that.
Current thinking is that if you want something then you should have the money to get it, whether by working at several jobs (and s*d the kids), stealing something to fund the lifestyle, or getting the state to provide it.
In other words we used to live according to our income, now we want our income to provide the lifestyle we want.
I used to be a sales manager with a good income, expense account and top of the range Omega car, holidays twice a year, eating out whenever. Gave it all up to run my own small business, low income, no holidays, M reg car, ocassional takeaway, and guess what - I'm much happier. So what if my mates show off in their brand new car and sent us postcards from the other side of the world. I couldn't give a monkeys. If more people could revert to this way of thinking then they may have time to look after their kids properly.
End of rant.