Since we're in the mode of thinking BIG, and spending more magic money than will be repaid in a couple of generations, how's this for an idea?

What if, instead of concentrating so much on creating new jobs, we decrease the NEED for some of them?

I have long felt that the women's movement, while great in many aspects, has not served all of us well. Back in the day, we only needed one wage earner in a family to keep everyone with a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. When women joined the workforce in mass, by choice, the standard of living flew up and prices did, as well. Now it takes 2 wage earners to keep up, and women HAVE to work outside the home, whether they want to or not.

In my own family, I have 2 women who want to stay home with their children, but in order to keep their houses, HAVE to go back to work. One gets to take a year off, the other 6 months. In this country they are both VERY fortunate to be able to do that, but neither WANT to go back to work until their kids are at least in school all day.

What if we somehow subsidized women such as these so they could stay home with their children for say, 5 years, while the country gets back on its feet? That would open up jobs for women who WANT to work, and men who need to (let's face it, as sexist as that sounds, legally men are still required to support their families) and allow those women who NEED to work outside the home, but don't want to, to stay home.

The benefits are that moms would be raising their own kids for longer (novel idea, don't you think?) which seems to be a healthier way to do things and the competition for jobs would be temporarily reduced. Families would be a little less stressed. The need to "consume" to create jobs might decrease some.

My daughter-in-law currently receives 60% of her pay in disability payments, and with reductions in costs of her being home (fewer meals out, cooking from scratch, no commute costs, etc.) they are able to make ends meet w/o having to dip into savings (yes, we taught them to save!) She is DREADING having to go back to work. If she continued receiving these payments, she wouldn't need to, and her job would be freed up for someone who WANTS to work.

Now I'm sure there are some downsides to this. Re-entry into the workforce down the road for all these women would cause a whole new set of problems. It would be expensive, but we're printing it as fast as we can spend it, why not spend it on something that actually helps shore up our foundation (better adjusted kids?)

Is this just a completely crazy idea, or can it be modified into something worth considering as we figure out how to fix this mess?