Perhaps the two biggest lifecycle stages--having children and growing old--we deal with absolutely terribly. Young couples go through many sleepless nights taking care of kids, and struggle to find a way to care for them while still maintaining a connection with the outside world. Old people have a different problem: many face total social isolation, feel great sadness at not being connected with their children, and want some way to feel productive. (Indeed, one of the best predictors of year-on-year survival rates is number of friends an old person has.)
They're two problems that seem to me to almost solve one another: why not have older generations help more with the kids? Not like it's a unique solution either, because it's been done pretty much everywhere until recent times.