Parenthood penalises women and rewards men in the labour market, yet the cultural forces behind this asymmetry remain poorly understood. This paper studies the extent to which gender norms shape not only whether parents work, but how, examining eleven labour market outcomes for mothers and fathers across 31 European countries. We merge individual-level data from the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) with cohort-level data from the Integrated Values Survey (IVS) on the gender norm progressivity of previous generations, and instrument regional norm progressivity with a religiosity index constructed for the same grandmother cohort. For mothers, progressive norms expand access to flexible arrangements but do not close the employment gap relative to childless women. For fathers, progressive norms weaken breadwinner pressure, reducing precarious overwork and defensive employment choices, while simultaneously promoting job quality.