I really long for the days when there was one parent at home -- for the sake of the kids and for the family, in general. Politicians are now proposing lengthening the school day by three hours in order to cover that "at-risk" time for kids -- the time between school letting out and their parents getting home from work. I think it's just sad we're putting this burden on our kids. Kids getting shipped off to daycare or placed with nannies as infants, extending the school day so that they be supervised properly because parents aren't there. ...
What a lovely rose-coloured vision -- it's such a shame that it's largely fiction. I don't know how old you are, but I remember those "wonderful days".
Fact is, mothers throughout time (yes, even in the halcyon 1950's) were usually much too preoccupied with household chores to spend much if any quality time with young kids. Those who had enough money to have household help normally used that help as a babysitter as well, which meant that the kids were equally ignored by TWO women, not just one.
When I was a kid in the early 60's, it was perfectly normal for an infant to be woken up and fed at around 6 am, then placed in a play pen for the rest of the day while Mom did the household chores. They got picked up for needed diaper changes and lunch, but otherwise right back into the playpen they went -- kids normally napped in their pens. Mothers did this partly to keep children safe, so that they wouldn't drown in mop buckets, burn themselves on hot stoves, tumble down stairs, or get caught in washing-machine mangles. However, they also did it because they were just too busy to coddle children while there was work to be done, and the playpen was a safe place to leave them more-or-less unattended. When I was home with Mom at age 4, I scrubbed floors, scoured saucepans and peeled buckets of potatoes, because my mother wanted to keep me busy and out of her hair. She got up at 5, made breakfast from scratch for the family, then shoved the older kids out the door toward the bus and started in on the dishes. Once that was done there was the laundry to start, then lunch to make, then after lunch more washing-up, then the laundry to hang out, the garden to weed, and the floors to mop, plus beds to make, rooms to dust, and sewing to do. Her one break was afternoon coffee with a neighbor lady; I played in the yard for that 20 minutes while they had coffee on the porch.
Once I was old enough to go outside unattended, my life got a lot easier, because believe me, if I was in the same room with my Mom during the day, play was never part of the equation. My experience was like most other kids of that era -- once I got to be school-aged, my mother routinely threw me out of the house to hang out with friends once my chores were done, and on summer days I wasn't allowed to set foot back inside except to quickly go to the bathroom and maybe to eat my lunch. If I wanted a drink before or after lunch, then I knew where I could find the hose.
My mother grew up on a farm in the 1920's. At age 4, one of her primary chores was to hold a bucket to collect the blood when animals were slaughtered, which happened several times a week. She was given this chore because she was good at it, and because she was there -- her older siblings were at school during that part of the day. At age 2, my cousin's children on that same farm now routinely feed the cattle using pitchforks; by grade school they are driving tractors out to the field both before and after school hours, plus feeding animals before school and mucking out barns after. They are NOT hanging out with Dad playing blocks or reading storybooks, though he's "home" all day most days -- negotiating prices, stocking supplies, repairing equipment, and caring for the livestock -- worming the cattle and such. (His wife is not home; she's a bookkeeper for the local school system.)
Today's working-class and middle-class kids get a LOT more one-on-one time with their parents that does not involve backbreaking labor and/or physical danger. The "good-old-days" before about 1965 were a time when leisure for women during the weekday was largely unheard of unless she had the money to hire at least some part-time household help.
There was a reason that women at home during the day 60 years ago were called housewives. The idea that your primary responsibility is childcare is a new one; back then your primary responsibility was housework; childcare was a much less hands-on thing, and came in a distant second in importance. Once out of diapers, if your kids were there they were expected to be helping you, not getting underfoot and causing a drain on your time.
My mother didn't choose to be a single parent. As a child, when my mother had to miss activities/school events due to work, I was angry and hurt and believed her work was more important than I was ~ as a child.
That's what my real life is for. 
