I personally don't think that is fair. You have X amount of dollars to give to Y people.
Those X dollars where "earned" on the backs of the Y people that worked for them.
Why should someone that did nothing an entire year get a piece of that pie?

Say 5 people all go collect apples. At the end of the day they make apple pies.
5 other people come when all the pies are done and demand that they be split evenly between all 10 of them (the 5 that collected/baked the pies and the 5 that did nothing but "show up"). How is that fair?

Child care and home making isn't a "highly desirable skill".
If it was, you would see Nannies driving around in BMWs and living in 6 bedroom houses.
They are paid low for a reason.

Secondly, it doesn't require a college education and doesn't require much special skill or training.
The experience required can be had for cheap/free.

For 'extended' hours, nothing says you couldn't just hire two nannys.

Thirdly, I know of no divorced [or "widowed"] man (that has custody) that goes out and spends $80,000 a year on a nanny. Most will opt of day care or rely on family members to help out.

Lastly, your saying a wife is worth $80K/year. That is funny, because that is WAY more then the median income:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_ ... ted_States
If that was true, then it would be in the best economic interest of a "average" household to have the man stay home and watch the kids and have the wife go be a nanny at $80K a year. That would almost DOUBLE their income and standard of living!

But they don't?
Why?
Because very few people will pay $80K a year on a nanny (even if they are in the top 1% of income earns).

Something is only worth what another person is willing to pay.

Just because someone has a PHD is Physics doesn't mean I'll pay him $175K a year to take care of my lawn.

We're talking about replacing the services of a highly educated, native English speaking stay at home parent. Yes, a stay at home parent is worth that. That is why many people have one parent at home. You can't afford to purchase a replacement -- you have to compromise. This discussion stemmed from the question of why a man would have to give up "his" money if he split from his spouse. This is why. The stay at home parent has been providing highly desirable, expensive services that are otherwise unattainable. The point is that the husband can only attain his current lifestyle via the services provided by the spouse. That is why it is not appropriate to compare a guy making $100k with a stay at home spouse earning $0 and to then be shocked that the spouse received a settlement.

I disagree with you and seems you obviously feel the same. I doubt either of us will sway the other at this point and this seems to be going way off topic from the orignal thread, so I'm going to stop here.

It's not so much a disagreement as a misunderstanding. In fact, I think we actually agree on many points. I absolutely agree that most people are unwilling to pay nannies $80k a year. And that is why people don't get the same services as a stay at home parent who has a certain blend of skills. I think we both agree that it is possible to have someone who speaks ESL, has high school education, grew up in another culture and works 40 hours a week for under $40k a year. Heck, if you are willing to be very lax with those things, you could probably get someone for $15k a year. I agree with you there. And I agree that it would exceed the median income to hire someone a nanny at $80k a year. In fact, I don't think all stay at home parents meet the criteria I've outlined -- but we're talking about a highly educated parent, the kind who is married to someone making $100k a year. For $40k, it isn't possible to attain the full services of a stay at home parent who has native English fluency, a bachelors+ degree, US/Canadian upbringing and extended work hours, let alone some of the other services/skills I outlined. Even if a widowed dad hired a nanny, he would still have to provide all the parenting/childcare services when the nanny was off duty. He no longer gets to trade getting up in the middle of the night with kids, spending the evening at the emergency room with a croupy toddler, changing diapers before the nanny is on duty, looking after the kids all weekend, etc. He no longer gains from sharing that time with the stay at home parent. So his workload goes up and he still has to pay a nanny. (The dad who is divorced still benefits from the services of the other parent, depending on the provisions for custody.) And now he has to make all the meals and look after the house, too. Careers writer Penelope Trunk has written a really good description of how much it's costing her to replace her stay at home husband -- check out her blog at www.penelopetrunk.com. I don't agree with everything she has to say, but she makes some salient points.

It'll be amazing if we could earn 20$ / hour

I add some links to rhino quoting:

from 8 to 20$ (which in reality means from 8 to 15), that is from 250 to 1000 per week.

http://www.nanny-training.com/professio ... alary.html - Nanny Salary at Nanny-training.com

However a child care worker's earnings won't usually go past 16,000$ /year

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos170.htm#earnings - Nanny Earnings at BLS.gov