Basically it’s not really like the whole village raised your kid before, that’s more of a romanticized version. What happened was that your extended family helped because you lived with them for your entire life. So you have a kid, your sister in law watches them along with your mother while you work. Where do you work? Well that’s wherever your family works. If you are born into a farm, you are a farmer. If your family is blacksmiths, you’ll be a smith. Or a dung sifter, etc. If you can’t do it, maybe your farmer family sends you to apprentice with the local smith. But you rarely get a choice in what you do, where you live, etc.
Moreover, if you don’t like your family/they don’t like you: tough. You might hate your sister in law but who else will watch your kid while you sift dung?
What has changed is that we have the free market. Your can move out, have your own career and hire someone to care for your kids while you work. You no longer have access to “free” childcare but you have access to the job market instead. Want to leave the farm and move to the big city to become a jewelry maker? Go for it. But you won’t have much support to start a family. You are paying for free choice.
