If you want to life a lifestyle above the poverty threshold, that requires money.

If you want kids and want them to live the same kind of lifestyle you enjoy, that requires money.

Can the median income of a single American support an entire household? No.

Will the average household be financially fine if one partner stops working for a few years? No.

Will a baby thrown into daycare from infancy thrive as much as a baby who stays with its mother as much as possible? No.

Finances do not exist in a vacuum. Money is what allows an individual to enjoy a lifestyle with all the benefits of having modern technology. Gone are the days where a man working a menial factory job could pay the mortgage and all the bills. Nowadays, you can't assume that just any man will be able to fund a reasonable lifestyle with just his income alone.

If a woman wants children, it's in her best interests to find a man who makes enough money to allow her to take a few years off working full time while still maintaining their current lifestyle. It's also in her best interests for her to make sure that this man is generous enough that he'll actually provide that money instead of snidely insisting that she continue paying 50% of the expenses while providing nearly 100% of the childcare.

Men have no skin in the game when it comes to raising their kids. Many think that raising a child is as simple and cheap as throwing it in a playpen for 12 hours a day with nothing but a TV screen and dog kibble. Since men cannot be relied upon to understand what it takes to raise a happy healthy well-adjusted child, the onus of finding a reliable parent partner is put entirely on women.

And since women do the vast majority of childcare, it therefore makes logistical sense to find a partner who can provide enough that she can do all that childcare without having to worry about where the resources they need come from. A stressed mom means a stressed baby (which means a more-likely-to-have-issues baby). If a man is not able or willing to take on childcare duties, he needs to generously provide the resources to make up for it.

And if a woman is childfree? It's still in her best interest to find a partner that is capable and willing to support her if something happens to her (just like, ideally, she would support her partner if something happened to him - relationships are teamwork, people). Since men don't seem think the logistics of a lifetime matter enough to think through, the onus of a couple achieving and maintaining a reasonably comfortable lifestyle still falls on the woman in the relationship.

Do I mean to imply that we as a society need to regress back to assuming that women's primary role is in the home? No. We're in this mess because women do not get monetarily compensated for the labor they provide for a household and men cannot be relied upon to make up for that with the income from their careers. Since men cannot be relied upon (and women are the ones who face the most consequences of choosing the wrong partner), women need the ability to make money and build up their own careers outside the home.

Perhaps in the future, the economic penalties that come with being a mother will become a thing of the past. Perhaps in the future, there will be, say, incentives like corporate tax credits for businesses that employ women with kids under the age of 6 for remote work. Perhaps in the future, everyone will be able to maintain their lifestyle no matter what happens. But until then, the onus of financial responsibility will (unfortunately) be kept entirely on women, and it's logistical common sense for them to thus consider economic factors when choosing a partner.