Last autumn when Manuela Maier signed her children up for an all-day school program in Germany and went back to work, she was "ostracized" by everyone in town. They called her a "Rabenmutter, or raven mother, after the black bird that pushes chicks out of the nest." (I guess that's the opposite of a "helicopter parent.")
For over 250 years, school for German children has ended at lunchtime. This of course required a parent at home to care for them. As opposed to America, for example, where all-day (or most-day) schooling is the norm, and both parents can take jobs outside the home. A single mother in Germany is in big trouble, unable to accept full-time employment because she has to be home when the kids get out of school at noon.
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