Actually, except for the whole welfare thing, I'm all for encouraging parents to stay at home with their kids. I think many of today's societal ills stems from the fact that parents are letting total strangers raise their kids.

Not even "letting", but needing to. I agree with you that it's always better for a kid if one parent can stay home with them for the first few years at least, but it's becoming rare for a young family to be able to make it work on one salary any more.

sorry, this is a dupe

This is good news. I know Finland does this, and I think the rest of the Nordic countries do too.

The more kids have time with a parent during early childhood the better.