Stay At Home Moms Worth $122,000
I was recently accused of inciting a mommy war between the “stay at homes” and the “working mothers.” I honestly out-right guffawed. Because as a working mom who spends part of her time working from home, I’ve always felt sort of betwixt and between. And respected the heck out of both sides!
Not to mention the list of stay at home dads and working dads I know (including some of my fellow ‘Derby writers).
And now to show all you stay-at-home full-timers how much I think you’re worth, a little math from Salary.com. In the “real” world, you’d be raking in six figures.
Based on ten daily functions described by a survey of some twelve thousand stay-at-home moms (why they didn’t include dads I don’t know – those numbers are growing!), the average stay-at-homer should be earning $122,732 a year. In other words – that’s what they’d be paying someone else to do all of those duties.
The reason I love this number? Because everytime one of my stay-at-home mom friends tells me she feels like she should kowtow to her working partner, I can throw it at her. See, you’re not just worth something as a human being. You’re also worth something in the world of family finance.
My biggest contention has always been that those of us who work out of the home usually PAY someone to watch our children. So a stay-at-home mom or dad is saving the family that money.
Then throw in how many more take away meals are consumed in families where both partners work (because as Keri noted the other day, the finances weigh out – it’s cheaper to cook it than to buy it). Ironically, several comments left on Keri’s post came from parents who don’t believe a baking parent’s time is worth anything special. This survey begs to differ.
The Salary.com survey goes on to list eight other occupations filled by a stay-at-home parent, including “housekeeper, computer operator,
facilities manager, van driver, psychologist, laundry machine operator,
janitor and chief executive officer.”
The survey puts a working parent’s “at home” salary around $76,184. You have to tack on their actual wages to come up with a fair number – but I’d reckon you then have to subtract daycare, take away meals, etc.
So who’s better? Neither one. And I say that as a betwixt and between parent. We’re all just doing what works for us. But we’re all worth something – just ask our kids.
Image: More4Kids
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Why do we have to defend or account for anything we do. Why can we not just be happy with everyones intrinsic worth.
Knitty, I think that’s a succint way of putting it.
I think this kind of argument might be valid if someone had a “Mad Men” style husband who rolled in after work and just put his feet up while his wife served him a cocktail and dinner. Does anyone actually have that problem? That would be interesting.
I’m not sure you can really call it “work,” either. My husband and I don’t consider taking care of our home, pets, and child “work,” we call it our life.
I agree that all parents do extra work. Full time parents do the same job 168 hours a week, working parents are either working or caring for their children/home 168 hours a week. I’ll second Treespeed’s comment about the extra shift all working parents put in on evenings and weekends too. My husband works all week, and when he gets home he jumps right in to help with all the parenting/household stuff that I do alone when he’s not here.
I think the well-intentioned point of this kind of thing is to remind everyone that unsalaried parents ARE working. If the point was to divide working and stay at home parents, they wouldn’t have included the $76,184 working moms “should” get on top of their paychecks. The biggest problem I see is that dads are left out altogether.
That salary.com “analysis” is bogus and it betrays zero understanding of economics. If the market were allowed to value a SAHM’s work, it would be valued at much less than $122K (or nothing). Why? Because (a) it’s women’s work and (b) we do it for free and (c) being a mom is not a job we really would ever pay someone else to do, so it has no value.
Witness the phenomenon of “insourcing.” Note that once someone in the family (usually the woman) takes over the household-related job that used to be outsourced, like preparing meals or housecleaning, it is unpaid and therefore BY DEFINITION it loses its monetary value.
Hello — you cannot just add up a bunch of paid positions and declare that this is the value of a SAHM’s job.
There are many other reasons to feel good about being a SAHM. Unfortunately, putting a fake dollar value on it is not one of them.
I always find it funny that these lists never add up the husband’s second shift, and weekend “to-do lists” I know I certainly don’t have the luxury of hiring a plumber, carpenter, gardener, house painter, and auto mechanic for every little thing that goes wrong throughout the year. Maybe some of these Mom’s should do up an equivalent list for their husbands before they break out their calculators.
I like this, and I especially like that it was written by a working mom. On the other hand (sorry, there just always has to be an other hand!), I’m not crazy about the fact that in our society, “worth” has to be translated to dollar amounts.
I’d add that many mothers who work outside of the house come home and do a second shift, somehow fitting in all the tasks of stay-at-home mothers duringf their “off” hours. Their worth must be astronomical!
and childcare workers get how much? $10 an hour or something?
First of all, I take lunch to work and cook dinner most nights, and work full time while my stay at home mom friends meet at McDonald’s “for the kids.” Second, how many families do you know that really hire a computer operator, facilities manager, van driver, psychologist, laundry machine operator, janitor, and CEO? Didn’t think so. The numbers on my paycheck determine my value at work and my healthy, happy family says our life at home is good, even without silly self-worth lists.