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May 4th, 2007 at 6:47 am
The stay at home mom article is ridiculous, and it seems blatantly obvious the entire “study” set forth to prove some astronomical worth of stay at home moms. The simple fact is that a vast majority of the work they included are obligatory life chores. I’d like to see them calculate my worth, because I work a 40+ hour week, I cook and clean (for myself), I am a friend (which of course according to the study I’m likely a psychologist!)
A 92 hour work week? Give me a break. I’m not for a second doubting that these stay at home moms work hard. There is a lot o work to do around the house. But they don’t do 92 hours of work IN ADDITION to all the work that needs to be done at home, like so many of those who have paying jobs do. It’s not that stay at home moms are not extremely valuable, I think they are, but the study is fundamentally flawed, and taking their logic and applying to working individuals seems like everyone would be “worth” these ridiculously high amounts.
May 4th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Sorry for the double post. At the end of the first paragraph I was going to go on to mock more of the titles they gave the stay at home moms to prove a point, but I think it was well enough understood even though it ended awkwardly.
May 4th, 2007 at 7:25 am
As a stay at home mom myself (as well as running a small business out of my home), it just KILLS me when these articles come out every year or so. And I love how they time them just around mother’s day. What I see/read is…”Stay at Home Moms SHOULD be earning X amount of dollars per year…(dramatic pause) BUT YOU’RE NOT!! And you never will! But, please take comfort in the fact that in some alternate universe, this is what we’ve calculated you are worth. Right, now back to cleaning the kitchen, go on now!”
May 4th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Nathan: I agree. Not too mention that they don’t consider if the moms are qualified for these positions. Van driver requires a commercial license; day care worker and psychological counselling both require credentials as well; and few people are qualified to be a CEO of anything.
May 4th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Even though I have a fierce determination to defend anything regarding Stay At Home Moms, I must admit that I do actually agree with Nathan and Andrew here. When I first read their comments I got defensive, but I realized I’m just upset about this particular article and “study” as it is completely unrealistic. Andrew is right - we do NOT have any licenses or credentials and at best we might be worth whatever a full-time maid and/or nanny makes and maybe plus overtime. So, if we come to that realization, that makes us feel even better! (Sarcastic, of course.) But, of course, we don’t even make that, so what’s the point of this article again?!
May 4th, 2007 at 11:49 am
The real worth of a stay at home mom is the replacement cost. What would it cost to hire other people with similar qualifications to do the work? Obviously, a stay at home mom is not really a CEO or a psychologist, any more than balancing a checkbook makes you a CFO or comptroller. My guess is somewhere in the $60,000 - 80,000 range, assuming you split the job in half so you aren’t paying double time.
May 4th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
What if we fired all the stay at home moms and replaced them with their non-union Mexican equivalents? surely we could get that number down even further then. Probably somewhere in the mid-30’s AND we wouldn’t have to pay health care or likely taxes either.
But the single largest benefit would be we wouldn’t have to share half the bed anymore. Then we could all spread out finally, or better still, get smaller beds, which would save us even more money (think price of square footage of your house thats taken up by a queen bed vs what a single bed would take up, multiplied by 365 days per year. It adds up!).
In other news, the imaginary salary for stay at home dads continues to hover around $150,000, despite the fact that it is the year 2007 and women have been supposedly equal to men for almost 100 years now.
May 4th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
it could just be a cheesy stunt by salary.com to get headlines around mother’s day, although my stay-at-home mom was priceless (which, kinda also means, financially speaking, worthless)
May 4th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
“But the single largest benefit would be we wouldn’t have to share half the bed anymore.”
Don’t bring the bedroom into this. If you factor in outsourcing the “wifely duties” at $1000 a night, you’re talking an extra $3000-5000 per year!
May 4th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Well played Aleks, well played.