When we had just one kid, the math of my wife working or not worked out to basically what you found. If she was feeling engaged in what she was doing, we probably would have found someone to watch our daughter. But she wasn't really, so she stayed home.
Then we had twins.
There is a daycare just down the street that we looked into just for shits and giggles. A mere $550 / week if we wanted all three there full time.
My wife earned negative income for a few years but kept with it. I didn't agree with her decision but supported her in it. She just didn't want to be out of the work force so long that she would have trouble getting back in once the kids were in school.
Then we had twins.
There is a daycare just down the street that we looked into just for shits and giggles. A mere $550 / week if we wanted all three there full time.
That's a real big "hell no".