Mothers Don’t Go on Strike Some jobs defy quantification. by Carrie L. Lukas 5/12/2006 Women deserve a raise. According to salary.com, a full-time stay-at-home mom would earn $134,121 if only she were paid for her work. These experts in compensation surveyed 400 mothers and found that the stay-at-home mom is part daycare worker, housekeeper, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive and psychologist. In the spirit of Mother’s Day, it’s appropriate to contemplate the undervalued contribution of stay-at-home moms. Even salary.com’s list of job responsibilities overlooks several roles they assume: They are first-line-of-defense law enforcement officers, protecting children with their presence in our neighborhoods. They are teaching assistants, manning the field trips and fundraisers that help keep our schools running. They are the good Samaritans who make communities work, assuring that the elderly neighbor’s walk is shoveled and that the dog running down the street is safely returned to his owner. It’s an interesting exercise to calculate the cost of replacing these women with hired help, but it shouldn’t be taken too far. In reality, a job posting offering $134,000 to fill the duties of a housewife would be flooded with resumes. Of course, few families could pay that salary. Supply and demand ultimately would meet at a sum close to what’s typically earned by a live-in nanny or housekeeper. Salary.com ignores the important question of who would pay this salary. The study claims that the average housewife spends 4.2 hours a week acting as a CEO. The hourly rate for a CEO is $176.44 per hour; therefore the housewife CEO ought to receive almost $36,000 for her CEO duties. She’s also supposed to receive nearly $11,000 for being a housekeeper, $3,000 for being a “van driver,” and $11,500 for being a facilities manager. Who is this supermom supposed to go to for her raise? The truth is no one is going to pay her. Her family benefits from her work as a CEO, but the rest of society gains little from her individual efforts. She also profits most from cleaning her kitchen, chauffeuring her kids, and repairing her home. The CEO of a Fortune 500 company, by contrast, is expected to create wealth and value for hundreds of thousands of shareholders and customers. All adults, not just mothers, perform varied tasks. A single man is his own CEO, making a strategic plan for his life, allocating his resources, and weighing big decisions. Single women drive themselves, clean up their homes, and manage their household. Is the single woman who fixes herself a sandwich supposed to demand pay as a cook? Salary.com likely focuses on mothers because in most families with children, women take on a disproportionate share of unpaid duties while men focus on earning income. Money is power, according to the old adage, and so stay-at-home moms are supposed to feel powerless. But placing a number on a mom’s value misses the point. Women perform these duties because they love their families. Moms aren’t daycare providers worth $14 per hour—they are loving parents driven to care for those tiny beings who are more precious to them than any amount of money. Serving as your child’s “psychologist” and your home’s “facility manager” isn’t work—it’s the essence of life. Your compensation isn’t measured in dollars, but in building a life that you love. In the interest of fairness, salary.com might examine the compensation warranted by a typical husband’s responsibilities. My husband is part handyman, plumber, electrician, garbage man, mechanic, electronics technician, computer operator, and babysitter. The salary he could claim if he parsed out these chores would be far more than my daughter or I could afford. Good thing families don’t work like that. Life is payment enough. Carrie Lukas is the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism and the vice president for policy and economics at the Independent Women’s Forum. This article was first published on National Review Online. http://iwf.org/articles/article_detail.asp?ArticleID=890
Hmmmm, I sense some underlying sexism in this article. Uh, society gains a LOT from children who are properly raised, socialized and taught. Society has a LOT to lose from people who were not taken proper care of as children. This alone, should garner the 6 figure salary. I personally found this passage very patronizing. I appreciate this author NOT telling me what I think. I adore my children, but by saying "It isn't work" is really really really really insulting. It is DAMN HARD WORK. And, sometimes children aren't all that lovable, but you do it because it is the right thing to do, Mothering isn't all glowing in a white night gown and gazing at sleeping babies and running with children through fields and construction paper projects, it is hard hard work. Some of it we will never be compensated OR thanked for. Many people's job's are the "it’s the essence of life" but that doesn't mean it isn't work. JMNSHO.
I've looked up this writer, and her writings are generally about bringing back traditional values that never really existed. Certainly, being a wife and mother has it's own rewards and I respect housewives for doing a job I could never do, but it's still a job and women shouldn't be made to feel bad for believing so.
My understanding of the article is that she is saying that being a wife and mother is VERY important work that can't be measured in nickels and dimes.
Like I said, my understanding is that she is saying it is work that can't be measured in nickels and dimes. Personally, I can't wait to be a wife and a mom. It's all I've ever really wanted to be. This article did, after all, come from the Independent Womens Forum, of which I am a member. I don't agree with everything they say, but to me all this article is saying is that if you chose to stay home and be a wife and mom you shouldn't complain about it. I think we can agree that there are women out there who do that. Why not do what makes you happy? Whether it be a career woman or a housewife and mother (which in itself is a career). However, no woman should be made to feel guilty if she chooses to be a wife and a mom. Sometimes feminists do make it sound like all wives and mothers are is slaves to men...and that is wrong.
Most people have jobs, or parts of their jobs which do not make them happy. Mothering is a calling, and it does make many womyn happy, but maybe not all the time. What job which you, or anyone else in the "working world" have "chosen" makes you ecstatic ALL the time? The REASON some feminists count up the "nickles and dimes" of mothering is that being a SAHM has been so disenfranchised, so ignored, so disrespected that in our society, the ONLY WAY to get attention paid to something or to give something "value" is to give it a dollar amount. I AM a SAHM, for the most part, I don't think I am at all a "slave to men" but I don't like anyone telling me what I do is "not work" and that I can't occasionally complain about it "because you chose it." How many people DO NOT EVER complain about their chosen profession? Few to none. I love being a mom, and I'll bitch about it if I want to, and if the ONLY WAY to get some people to give it any honor is to give it a dollar amount, that's fine with me. Forget the rest of what this womyn said, this is exactly the reason why. In our society there is more to mothering than "loving" your family. If a job isn't respected giving it a dollar value, may, in some cases, help to legitimise it. The people who do these dollar amount things are NEVER going to get that money for mothers, but it does show those who do NOT respect womyn with small children that there is WORK being done and that that work has value, not just for her family, but for ALL society. What I got from this article, is that the author feels being a mother is all sweetness and light, and that because a womyn is "doing what she wants to" she has no right to either complain about it, or give it ANY value. Being a mother is HARD WORK. Anyone who denies this has NO IDEA what mothering entails. I have no idea what type or IF this author is a mother or not, but she seem to have an unrealistic view of what mothering is. She is entitled to her opinion, I happen to not agree.
