Mums should be given financial help to encourage them to stay at home with their young children.
A study, by the Centre for Social Justice, said too many parents who wish to look after their children are being forced back to work by financial pressures.
It calls for radical changes to the tax and benefit system, including paying out more child benefits to parents of children up to the age of three. This could be worth more than £500 a month to mums who choose to stay at home. However, if they do take advantage of the extra benefits, they will receive less when their children are older.
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan-Smith, said: 'The current system pressurises mothers into going back to work soon after their children are born. .... Yet the research shows clearly the seeds of later unhappiness and anti-social behaviour by young people are often sown by the failure of parents to form a close loving relationship with their children. Society is paying a high price for the quick fix of getting mothers back to work too quickly. We need a fairer system in which the financial sacrifice of giving up work is offset with extra help by the tax and benefit system.'
Although the report - called The Next Generation - praised the Government's Sure Start programme, it said the scheme is very much about encouraging parents to return to work early.
Family researcher Dr Samantha Callon was one of the experts on the panel who created the report. She said that children who grow up without being soothed by their parents when they are babies are more likely to be unable to cope with stress properly later in life.
A poll commissioned for the report found that 84 per cent of parents felt the Government should do more to support parents staying at home to look after their children. More than four in five parents said financial reasons forced them back to work after their children were born.
The survey of nearly 3,000 parents or expectant parents, and more than 2,000 other adults, found around 70 per cent believed parents were 'encouraged' to put their children into day-care and return to work.
Among the 11 policy recommendations were calls for child care tax credits to be changed to allow the payment of relatives who care for children.
September 2008
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