I think I'm missing something (or several somethings) in this post. If both jobs are getting more and more hectic, leaving less time for family, how does one person quitting their job change anything? Sure, one parent will have more time to take care of the necessary household chores, but that still leave the second parent working long hours, and under increased pressure as they are the only income. With this being the case, I'm not sure how you get benefits like 'Quality time with kids and each other' (you are still working all the time), 'Enjoyable evenings and weekends' (still working a hectic job! Does this mean you are excused from all household upkeep activities?), 'Much better social life' (still working that hectic job! When is this social life supposed to happen? Is this supposed to be for the SAHP, or both of you? And is the SAHP suddenly responsible for planing all social outings?)
I imagine it works like this (I don't SAH, but I did work PT for awhile):
1. One parent at home means: time to grocery shop during the day, and cook dinner, and meet the plumber, and clean the house, and do the laundry, and balance the checkbook, and change the oil in the car, and help with homework, and take the kids to the dentist, and be at home if the kids are sick.
2. That means...two parents aren't trying to do grocery shopping, bulk cooking, cleaning, and laundry on the weekends. That frees up the weekends.
I remember when my older son was little. We had a really large new parent's group. The SAHMs would get together during the week during the day. I was sort of in charge of the working moms, so I scheduled things in the evenings and on weekends. Well the overall "leader" was a SAH, and I asked her once why she didn't schedule anything on the weekend, and she said "why would I bother, I have plenty of friends I see during the week."
For my second son's group, I met another family in our group at the beach in September. Our weather is good here most of the time. We were the only 2 families, and the husband said "I can't imagine how we are the only two families here, what is everyone else doing?" (His wife SAH.) I said simply: "chores. Laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, going to the bank, going to the post office, etc. etc."
For sure that puts *some* more pressure on the husband. But what I found, when working PT (and paying for FT child care), is that I just took on more of the home duties. I only had to work 30 hours a week, and I scheduled them "whenever". So if my kid had a dr's appt, I took him and went in late. If there was a school function, I left early. If I had to meet the plumber, I did that. I left early enough most days to pick him up, go to the park, then go to the grocery store. Come home, play for 20 minutes (get him started on a project) and cook dinner.
If the kids were sick, I stayed home. Because I could just cram 30 hours into 4 days if I needed to.