Stay-At-Home-MOMS (SAHM): Worth $130,000+ ???
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Only because I have never seen an article on what the working-dad is worth to the marital home, I’m going to take a stab at it.
Before I get into picking apart this annually regurgitated propaganda by Salary.Com and spread via other media - I will give you my position on stay-at-home parents. While it’s a wonderful consideration to demonstrate the importance of any stay-at-home-parent - their contention and calculations have holes one could drive a truck through.
They’re invaluable. They’re priceless. Regardless of which parent stays home, I believe it’s better for children to be primarily raised by the parent(s) rather than a daycare. I have a great deal of respect for stay-at-home-parents and it’s top on my list of jobs I’d really want to do… if I could make ends-meet while doing it.
“Stay-At-Homers” are overwhelmingly moms. In some of the internet circles I’ve frequented, it’s clear that there are times when they are devalued (ironically enough - a majority of the time in feminist circles) and not given enough credit for the valuable work that they do. For the record - so are stay-at-home-dads, if not, moreso when dealing with challenges to their “manhood” or alleged lack thereof.
Let’s examine some of the jobs and pay-rates used in determining this calculation:
- Child Day Care Worker - $20,259
- Teacher - $44,824
- Taxi Driver - $27,346
- Facilities Manager - $73,239
- Short-order Cook - $27,477
- Laundry Attendant - $17,917
- Janitor - $22,440
- Counselor - $27,638
- CEO - $545,268
- Administrative Assistant III - $37,143
- Accounting Clerk III - $34,842
- Licensed Practical Nurse - $38,111
- Plumber I - $33,155
- Automotive Mechanic I - $30,725
- Cake Decorator - $21,340
Nevermind that no mom, unless specifically trained to do the daily tasks for a minimum of 8-hours per day - has anywhere near the necessary education, training, nor experience to “qualify” for the large majority of those jobs. Fact is, without it - they aren’t entitled to use those average salaries as a basis for determining their “worth” to the household. (For the record, no dad is, either - but to my knowledge - there isn’t any website that would attempt to do this and pass itself or the article off as being completely serious.)
With only the fewest exceptions, most of the items on that list, fathers do exclusively in many households, if not, in tandem with their spouse, while also working a full-time (plus) job. On the flip side, there are number of items on the list that could be attributable to moms that are rather questionable, either exclusively or even in tandem with their spouse.
I’ll avoid a prolonged argument about the “tasks” above, but spin a couple of them this way:
- Clearing hair out of the drain or pouring Drano down the drain: ISN’T akin to being a plumber.
- Calling AAA when the car breaks down: ISN’T akin to being an Auto Mechanic.
- Giving your kids a “high-five” for good work: ISN’T akin to being a CEO.
Get my drift? Now, before you go berating me about how frigging hard being a stay-at-home mom is and all of the things that you do and how you’re running non-stop from the moment you get up until the moment you lay down at night - I know stay-at-homers do plenty of work, but I call bullshit on anyone who claims how hard it is… especially if the child(ren) are of school age and spending the large majority of their day in school.
Cooking isn’t hard. Cleaning isn’t hard. Doing the wash, isn’t hard. Washing dishes isn’t hard. Managing the children can be a pain-in-the-ass, but generally - it isn’t hard. I could blather on and on and you, the reader, can roll your eyes until you sprain them. I’ve been there. I’ve done it as a single parent - if only a portion of the time (but full days) while unemployed. I’ve done it as a single parent while holding down a full-time job. I’ve done it married when PEW was working evening shifts and was walking out the door while I was walking in. I simply never found it to be what she always seemed to compare to hard-labor in a federal prison.
Collectively - it’s hard work and it all can be accomplished with some meaningful planning and execution. Yes, there are some days when careful planning and execution goes right out the window - but over the long haul it’s all pretty manageable, especially when you have a spouse out in the workforce earning enough money for the household so that you are able to do what you’ve chosen to do.
In any event, when Salary.Com gets around to doing an article about the worth of the working father on that same familial household, they should tack at least some of the following onto the list they used for moms: carpenter, floor installer, toilet installer, auto mechanic (for real), landscaper, woodworker, referee, judge, jurist, banker, stock broker, financial planner, assembler, metalworker, roofer, sports coach, furniture repair, electrician, appliance installer, trash collector, gas station attendant…
Of course, I say all this slightly tongue-in-cheek. The point is that the Salary.Com assessment is so ridiculous as to be laughable. Frankly, I think that the worth of the Stay-At-Home-Parent is something you can’t put a dollar figure on - let’s not pretend that being one is akin to being “some portion” of any of those jobs. Before you go up to your spouse looking for a $10,000+ check at the end of the month, the reality is - it’s simply not the case and Salary.Com is doing no household any favors by performing this annual “study” which is rife with flaws. They really should stop doing it, but I guess the attention that their website gets as a result makes it all worth it.
One of the other claims that often accompanies these types of articles is that stay-at-home-moms do “all of that” for nothing. That’s a lie. Here is my list of “somethings” that stay-at-home-moms get for their efforts (in-whole, or in-part):
- Free housing
- Free health-insurance
- Free life-insurance
- Free car-insurance
- Free automobile
- Free gas
- Free water
- Free electricity
- Free clothing
- Free food & drink
- Free entertainment
- Free real-estate
EVERYTHING THAT IS PAID FOR by the working spouse
In addition, legally (in most states), the stay-at-home mom is entitled to at least half of all of the assets: autos, real-estate, retirements, future earnings, paid training to get back into the workforce, education, the children primarily (if divorcing)… and the list goes on.
I’ll wrap this up with these final thoughts… take the article for what it really should be: show appreciation for the value and efforts of the stay-at-home parent. Recognize the important role and significantly positive impact it can have on children, marriage, and the partnership. It’s hard work that is rewarding on levels that probably could never be matched in the workplace. Conversely, appreciate the partner who is in a position to give you and your family that opportunity.
I’m really not interested in seeing a Salary.Com article about stay-at-home-fathers or those in the workplace and their total financial worth with the other jobs that they may do at home. I’m interested in seeing their article where it belongs…
May 30th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Interesting.
I’ve had the same take on that article for all of the years I can remember it being published now. What I find most interesting about it is that working Moms tend to take a hit in SAHM circles.
How dare we maintain gainful employment rather than stay home with our offspring every day? How dare we greedily hoof it off to a job every day just so we can keep up with the Joneses? (or whatever other crap “SAHM circles” tend to spew to justify their thought processes on why they’re so superior to the working Moms out there). For the record? I would bet that roughly 95% of the working Moms out there would give their eye teeth (and maybe even a limb or two) to be able to stay home but financially just can’t make it work.
Do let me say, before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, that I am aware that not all stay-at-home Moms have that opinion. I’ve just found it to be very prevalent in “SAHM circles”.
Anyway, what bugs me the most about it is that I don’t so much have a choice on whether I work or not. In fact, it’s starting to become quite the norm for families to be hard-pressed to have only one wage-earner. In my family, I’m the primary wage-earner.
But that doesn’t stop me from being the taxi-driver, cake decorator, laundry-doer, homework assistant, cook, and chief bottle washer the second I walk in the door. It’s just the deal.
I wish folks like those in the “SAHM circles” and those over at Salary.com would just appreciate parents for being parents, male or female, stay at home or wage-earning. It’s one tough job, the whole thing–whether you have the privilege of staying home with your munchkins all day, or whether you spend 8+ hours a day at a job so you can pay the bills and then spend all of your remaining hours making up for the hours you were gone.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
One of the funniest parts of the “study” from my perspective was that the stay-at-home mom works an average of 94-hours per week.
Is that right?
168-hours in the 7-day week.
Let’s say that sleep accounts for 49-hours per week. That leaves…
119-hours available for the 7-day work week.
Most of the women in my life (DW is NOT one of these women, she despises talking on the phone for any length of time with anyone) spent conservatively - an hour per day on the phone. That leaves…
112-hours available for the 7-day work week.
Let’s figure 1-hour per day for eating. That leaves…
105-hours available in the work week.
Some fairly reputable studies say that we spend an average of 1-hour per day “waiting” for something. Waiting in line. Waiting on hold. Waiting waiting waiting.
That leaves 98-hours available in the 7-day work week.
Showering? Getting nails done? Getting a shower or bath? Putting on makeup and doing their hair? Getting dressed? How many hours per week might that take?
I think we’re creeping into the alleged “94-hours per week working” bunk. I also think that the sources of their working hours were embellishing and doing so quite a bit.
Using the information provided by Salary.Com’s “research” - Stay-At-Home moms have essentially no time during their waking days when they’re not doing something considered “work.” No television time. No entertainment. No breaks. No going out to dinner. No, “nights out with the girls.” No having a party or going to one. Nothing.
Anyway… I also had periods during which I have been a parent with both the PEW and I were working. You know what’s REALLY amazing?
All of the stuff that “SAHMs” do for “94-hours per week” - still got done. I’m not sure how it was even possible, even with the two of us considering the monumental amount of work that needs to be done - but as if by magic… it got done.
Now that DW and I have no fewer than two, and quite often all 4 children in our company full-time… somehow - all of that stuff still manages to get accomplished.
The study purports to be done based on a household with two-children… which means DW and I must both be working and getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,468-hours of work per week done around the house at an imagined salary of $10,908,560 (combined).
So where is all the money?
June 4th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
I don’t know where they get their studies or figure their numbers but….
I’ve raised 5 kids by myself 7 days a week 365 hours a day for the last 10 years. My ex is not like you- he thought the divorce meant he didn’t have to be a dad anymore either. No birthday cards, christmas cards or phone calls. So, 7 hours a sleep a night for me would be a luxury. Plumbing for me means cutting pipe, getting purple cleaner and glue and fixing the problem. A leaky sink to me means climbing under the sink and fixing it. A hole in the drywall means a patch or cutting drywall, tape, mud and paint. And I still play taxi, cook, laundress, yard work, and every other fun thing on your list. And I GET to do all this while paying for the privilege. And it is a privilege! Because the awards that come with all of this can’t be measured by money.
Thanks for reminding me of how much I’m blessed!
June 9th, 2008 at 5:15 am
I hate when they come out with these articles. SAHM say “Look see how much I do.” And while some actually do most of it others well, dont. I was a SAHM for 6 weeks after I had my son. I continues to do my doctorate studies from home and then after 6 weeks it was back to school.
My hubby though wouldnt get enough credit during that 6 weeks acoording to salary.com. He changed diapers and cleaned just like me. He did it after work so I could do my studies. So I dont agree with the article.
Now I work more than 80 hours a week and still manage to take care of the “house”. So any figures they could come up with for working moms wouldnt match either. And my hubby never gets a fair shake either. To my SAHM friends they say ” He works less than you so thats his job”
i am sure I rambled on in this post and Im sorry. Just had to give me input.
BTW, Mister M and DW, I just took on a patient from the hospital er with obvious BPD. It was apparent to me after talking with her for 5 minutes when I got the page. And guess what she is divorced with primary custody of 3 little girls. Keep me in your thoughts. This will be my first BPD patient.
January 8th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
“Cake decorator?” LOL! Did the authors slip that one onto the list as a joke just to see who’d notice?
Why not put “Electrician” on the list too? Light bulbs need to be changed way more often than cakes get decorated.
March 8th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Really? Really? I wish I could say your blog was impressive but it’s the same old rhetoric we’ve heard for the last 200 years. In stating that you have never had the “opportunity” to be a stay at home dad, although you wish you had the chance. It can be said quite clearly that you are passing judgement on something you clearly have no real continued experience with. I left my job as a Systems Engineer (with a good education)at a exclusive IT firm to be at home with my four children. Being used to working 60 hour weeks including middle of the night emergencies.. I thought being a SAHM would be no biggie. I was quickly smacked back into reality.
And to make it fair– are you able to do most of the things on your list? I prepped,primed and repainted our 2200 sq.ft home exterior, did tune up on both our sedan and SUV, repainted the bathroom, replaced a rusty sink, spent 4 months in extensive legal research to fight against my ex who sent me death threats and telling me he wishes our son had been aborted. I cook, clean, organize, pay the bills, handle all the financial aspect, run my husbands business, keep all the kids docs appointments in check as well as my husband who has an incurable disease. I’ve refurnished our entire house on a budget of less than 3K….
What was it you were saying about how SAHM Mom’s aren’t worth what they worth?
Let’s stick to the obvious issues with your very clear disturbed ex-wife, and leave the rest of us Mother’s out of it. Having a relationship with one crazy ex-wife doesn’t allow you carte blanche to call it open season on all those you believe share some of the traits (occupationally) with your ex.
Please don’t ruin your credibility in what seems to be a very worthwhile fight for your kids with rhetoric like this. It doesn’t do much but alienate your cause and those who support you.
March 8th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Sara,
This article has nothing to do with my personal situation.
Further, I would never claim that my efforts as a parent, stay-at-home or otherwise, entitle me to the types of pay that the positions in the article imply.
I have been unemployed and been a “stay-at-home dad” for periods of as long as 9-months… and am again, unfortunately, unemployed as of last week.
Yes, I could be a full-time stay-at-home parent. Yes, I could handle everything that the position would throw at me and then some. I also think that a stay-at-home parent is invaluable and would begin to put a price tag on it.
The point I was trying to make about the ridiculous article is that few, if any, of the jobs to which they compared a SAHP as having responsibility for doing… let alone the associated educational requirement, hours of work required in just those specialties, and all of the other peripheral requirements…. make me any of those job titles in any literal sense (as the Salon Article tries to do).
Try to keep up.
I think what you do, have done, and have achieved is wonderful. I wouldn’t dare tell you any different.
It doesn’t make you qualified to be the CEO of a major company. Understand?
It also gives absolutely ZERO credit to the working spouse, who very likely also contributes around the house while at the same time, holding down a job that enables the stay-at-home parent to do all of those wonderful things that they do.
That was the point of my article and it was clearly offered if you weren’t feeling so slighted about the reality.
March 8th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
That should read “wouldn’t begin to put a price tag on it.”
My guess, Sara, is you missed the repeated parts of the original article where I called it “priceless.”
June 8th, 2009 at 12:24 am
I noticed a heavy emphasis on relative difficulty of the home-mate in relation to the work-mate. I don’t think the argument is that being a stay at home partner is somehow more Difficult than the working partner, only that it shares equal Value. Beating Super Mario Bros is difficult, but it holds no Value. Further, there are people with easier wage earning jobs than night shift prison guard who make 10x the salary. Difficulty of Task and Value of Task - sadly - have little to do with wage earned. The point of the article our author read was not to complain that women in the home have a hard job, only to rightly point out that it is an equally valuable contribution to the household and society.
July 16th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
I have to say, I too disagree with your take on this one. In my first marriage–where I was a SAHM for 15 years because of a decision my husband and I made JOINTLY–I was always so grateful to him for the opportunity that I did absolutely EVERYTHING you can think of in the management of the house and children. Painting (interior and exterior), plumbing (resealing toilets and replacing sinks), car maintenance (tunes ups, oil changes), lawn care (mowing, trimming, planting, replacing), bills and investing, insurance claims, doctor/dentist appts, cleaning (and my house was spotless), shopping (food, kids clothes, my/husband’s clothes), cooking (for 5 on a tight budget), laundry….. I did it ALL so my husband wouldn’t have to. The most I asked of him was to bathe a kid occasionally or read them a story. I thought he deserved it this way since I was home. And he loved it because this left him more time to have his many affairs!
This marriage–I am still a SAHM, though I am in grad school. My husband won’t let me do everything. He enjoys coming home and having a project to work on and actually gets irritated if I have done ‘too much”.
Would I say my monetary pay would be equivalent in this marriage? Nope, probably not. But then this husband thinks I am worth 10xs more than my first husband did.
The point–many SAHM’s do more than their share while many don’t. But a SAHM DOES deserve some monetary “value” for her job.
September 2nd, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Well, for what it’s worth, I look at it not as a validation of my vocation, but as a question of how much I’d have to earn in order to replace me. (Yes, while I was a taxable-income-earning wife, my “earnings” cut into my husband’s salary. And I’m an attorney!)
Granted, the assessment is inflated, because one doesn’t wear all those hats at all times. But I guarantee you that something is amiss when I can quit my job and we start gaining ground immediately.
Maybe it’s because I shop three grocery stores and keep a running chart on where each product is cheapest. Maybe it’s because gas is so flipping expensive (though cheaper than national average), and in our city, it is a common practice to spend a full hour to get to work, much less getting home. Maybe it’s because we hire fewer services, dine out less, and miss fewer bills.
It’s not remotely EASIER being a stay-at-home spouse, but it can actually wind up more lucrative…if you get systems-oriented! (That’s part of what’s behind the SAHM attitude sometimes of looking down on the working wife; it’s easy to assume that you might not really have looked at the numbers, cut your budget to the bone in major ways, and seen whether it was truly unviable. Sad to say that people can be judgmental.)
So, Mister M, I say “thank you” for the kind words, even the words of envy, and applaud your willingness to shoulder your burden during the PEW days despite her unwillingness to hold up the SAHM end of the bargain.