Stay-at-home Mother's Work Is Worth $138,095 A Year

[Kimmi]

Glad you liked my post, Kimmi! Wow - you're a sahm with 6 kids and an elderly grandma??? That's a LOT of work! You must have a big heart and lots of patience. I know that would be way over my threshold! Well, hope you have a wonderful mother's day - will it be a no-cooking or cleaning day? That's my only wish for mother's day - a vacation day from cooking and cleaning and of course... sleeping in!!! Ahhh....

Thank you so much and Very Happy Mother's Day to you as well!! I would like to sleep late too!!! Oh and thanks for not thinking my clothing thing was silly I was afraid it was!!! The post-partum blues can really take the wind out of you, I am so glad you are feeling better.

 

[mistiefan]

it is true, woman just dont want to work and the more defensive a sahm is about her "choices" the less i believe the diatribe tossed around about "the most important job in the world"
it is not the most important job in the world, it is only the most important job to YOU. i hardly think that the people of this world who work hard every day to actually make a difference in this world would take lightly to you and every other starbucks drinking, mall rat, playgroup gathering mommy, suggesting that what they do is just all fun and games. have you ever worked in a mine? did time as a nurse? a social worker? a cook in a restaraunt? a waitress? have you spent 16 hours on your feet yet? i hardly think so..but what you do is far more important than what drs, nurses, surgeons, taxi drivers, housecleaners and service people do for you every day.. the people who fill your starbucks coffee every day, the people who clean your playgrounds, the people who bag your organic groceries and clean your condos and mcmanisions. the people who teach your children. these people work for a living and for you to belittle it as you all do is a crime. the only important person to you..is YOU! and the only people that matter, are you and your family, the rest of the world can go to hell in a handbasket as long as you have your mcmansions,your gaz guzzling suvs, your exclusive playgroups and your oh so important pre-schools. as long as you have what YOU want, who cares, you can watch oprah, feed your children crappy uncrustables and funny shaped food, who cares its too much work to actually teach them to eat real food isnt it?
if you understand any of what i just said, this will have been worth it. if not..just go back to the tv and leave the rest of us alone.

love and kisses
anonymous

 

[wordbox]

^ How mature of you.

 

[guccimamma]

all moms are different, all children are different, all situations are different.

being a sahm is not the picnic that i thought it would be, i thought they just pranced around with strollers and drank starbucks (before i had kids)

some days i miss my working life, some i realize how fortunate i am to see my children grow. i feel that staying home is the right decision for us, at least right now. being home is very isolating, especially when the kids are very young.

i would never judge another parent, i think we are all trying to do the best that we can, in whatever manner we can. we all just love our kids and want the best for them.

 

[Jinxster]

I'd have to say, as someone with no kids and frankly don't want any, I do think sahms are important but I never got the whole sahms are the most important eva idea either. Yes, you cook, clean, transport kids, make appointment, ect, but you'd still have to cook, clean, makae appoints, transport yourself (and others posibly), even if you had no kids. I don't really see what sahms do that makes them any more special that anyone else. Yes, working mom get paid, but they do a full 9-5, sometimes more, and still have to do all the things sahms have to do. Sometimes, by themselves, with no support as single moms. I don't think sahm are lazy, but I do think they grip a ton about the choice they made. I also think MOST, not all, sahms if tomorrow become working moms and/or single moms wouldn;t feel so short chnaged about being a sahm.

 

[merika]

You can not at all know anything about being a parent unless you do it 24/7. You are not married and you do not have kids. Being married and having kids is totally different from living with a boyfriend and helping with HIS child. The ONLY way you are ever going to KNOW the difference is when YOU have your own child(ren) and YOU are married.

I politely beg to disagree with the above. My boyfriend is not married to me and does not have children. He lives with me and looks after MY child. He does not know any difference between being married and having his own children and mine because he doesn't allow it to BE so.

Typical day for him: Wakes up and makes breakfast, puts MY son on the schoolbus on the days I have to go to work early. After school HE makes sure my son does his homework, goes outside and plays football or goes biking with him, and afterwards they assemble electronic circuits together for fun. I usually do the dinner and the bath time and we both do the bedtime story routine. I should add that BF has been doing MORE than what some biological dads do for the past 5 years for my son, and whether I'm married to him or not to him doesn't come into the picture at all.

In fact the love between BF and son was illustrated pretty much during one of our arguments a few years ago when I suggested he move out of the house and he told me that he wanted visitation with MY son if we ever split up.

As for career and parenting - I work full time, I study full time and whatever I did when I was a SAHM I still do, because if I didn't do what I did then and now regarding kid, house, laundry and cooking as well as shuttling kid around for dentist and doctor's appointments, some sports activities and camp, who else would do it? And, as regards this article, if a SAHM is worth $138,095 then I should be worth $138,095 + my current pay! I say this in quite honesty is because the way the above calculation is made I STILL do all the work that I for my home and my son as I did before I started working.

 

[guccimamma]

whoops, pardon...i tried to quote and made a mistake

 

[guccimamma]

^^ BF is a total keeper.

 

[beautiful stranger]

some of these replies are very offensive! I was a working mother .. full time IT job .. + full time mother .. plus i was doing my masters degree on the side .. the hardest one was the mother thing! .. now i am a full time mom (for the time being) and I wish people would really sit down and learn what mothers do .. its not the cleaning and cooking and laundry that stresses us out although it is a major pain in the you-know-what and takes alot of energy but any house worker can do THAT job .. its called SAH MOM not SAH MAID ... raising kids the right way to be good people is the part that mothers stress over because they are THIER KIDS .. we have a saying where i am from that translates to mean that when your mom gets really old and sick now you pray that she dies so she can finally relax and be put out of her misery and be at peace ... but when you were younger and became very very sick she would NEVER pray that you die .. she praied that you LIVE and be well .. a mom's heart is the one that can not be priced not her cleaning and cooking .. you can pay a maid to do the work for you and still be a mom .. its the time that you spend teaching your children the rights and the wrongs and rasing them into great adults who can carry on that to their own kids someday that counts .. I know how hard it is to do the housework .. cleaning a 460 square meter house, cooking for 6 people, doing laundry, ironing, clearing closets, washing cupboards, doing dishes etc. I have been doing that ASIDE my full time job and being a mom .. it is a stressful thing .. but it ENDS!! .. how long does that take? 4-5-6 hours? it ENDS!! you can relax after that (assuming you dont have kids) .. even your daytime job ends at some hour of the day/night and you go home to rest and sleep .. you get no rest from being a mom .. you can turn your phone off and ignore your boss calling but you cant ignore a 4 year old waking you at 3 am with a nightmare .. its a 24 hour thing .. you may not WORK the full 24 hours but you have to be ON CALL the whole time .. kids are so demanding! .. i have a 9 year old .. a 4 year old .. and a 2 month old .. to say that I dont have free time is a lie .. but this free time is not MY OWN .. THEY OWN IT .. try having PMS and talking a 4 year old into taking a shower .. try having period pains and helping your 9 year old with memorizing his history notes .. try being 8 months pregnant with severe back pains and taking your 4 year old to her school play (which you stayed up all night to make costumes for) .. try staying awake most of the night with your 2 month old only to get 2 hours of sleep and waking up at 6 am to your 9 year old "just remembering" that you have to bake 200 cookies by 8 oclock for his school charity fund raiser .. try balancing a breastfeeding 2 month old on your forearm while you wipe your toddler's behind in the bathroom .. try talking a toddler out of wearing her princess dress to the grocery store while having only an hour before your baby wakes up to feed again .. it is always something .. thank god that we women can multitask alot better than men do (something my husband praises about me all day long as he sees what I do and how i do it) .. all that aside from caring for their nutritional intake .. their sunscreen .. remembering their their vaccination shots .. remembering where every little toy and game they own is located at any given time .. kissing their booboos away .. demanding that your baby is breastfed and not bottlefed .. making sure everything is sanitary for their use .. diaper changes .. all this aside from toddlers terrible twos .. grade schoolers turning into teens .. emotional and psychological needs .. raising them to know that hitting people is wrong and talking down to others is not acceptable .. a mom's job is not a 13 hour thing .. its a 24 hours thing that you have to be ready for no matter what your condition is .. i recall having a fever of 39.5 and waking up at 2 am to make sure my kids are tucked in and warm .. they dont understand the concept of "mommy is tired" .. what? tired? but she's MOM!!! .. moms dont get tired .. moms are superwomen to their kids .. they can do anything and everything .. and failing them is not an option .. talking on the phone? .. she needs her pen from the top drawer RIGHT NOW?? what do you think you will end up doing? i dont think raising a kid is an easy thing to do .. its a hard job if we wana do it right .. god knows we have enough psychos and nutcases and criminals out there .. good parenting would lower the risk of yours turning into one of them too ... dont want to go through that hassle and think a career is more important that being a parent and rasing a family? .. cant do both at the same time? cant multitask? cant do both and give 110% to both? .. dont have kids .. period .. dont have them and throw them at the mercy of fate to raise them for you ... do the job right or dont apply for it at all .. for those of us who can do both well and for those who have systems that work for them and their families good for you !! I just hate it when I see people who are so high up on their horses talk about something they know noting about ...
i demand an apology in the name of all mothers ...

 

[shoegal]

^Bravo!

 

[annemerrick]

This is a debate which has been going on forever it seems...who is right??? Is it the SAHM who generally feels unappreciated both monetarily and by her peers??? Or the working Mom, who has too much to do, and feels guilty much of the time about not spending all her time raising her children??? I think the most important thing to remember is that no one has anything to defend, and each persons choice is personal. I stopped defending my position years ago...because what I do is right for my family. Let's all be nice to one another, and remember that while you may not agree with someone else's choice...it is a blessing that we at least have options open to us!!

^^^^His angel...well said!!!

 

[Charles]

As a parent, who has his son 50% of the time (I understand that's not 100%, but it was in the past), it's not hard. Sorry. Being a good parent isn't about worrying or stressing out (although it's definitely involved). It's about teaching them what you can, instilling knowledge, guiding, loving, then letting go. I'm sure once he's 16 or 17 and dating a girl and letting his grades slip, I'll be stressing a bit more, but now, my job is to point him in the right direction and pull back a bit so that he can make his own decisions and suffer the consequences so that when I'm not around to guide him, he'll know what it feels like and know how to handle himself. I don't go to bed every night worried about tomorrow, cause I know that I'm going to be the one who's teaching him to deal with tomorrow. If you want to look to God for guidance, great. I look to myself and what my parents tought me and what I can teach him. Does that make me better than you? No. Does handling your child the way you deem fit make you better than me? No. I'm there when he's scared from a movie. I'm there when he's having girl problems. I'm there when he's having problems with school, and I'm there when he's smiling after he worked through it. I'm there playing kickball with him, and I'm there trying to motivate him and show him how to love life. So, I think I have an idea of what it means to be a good father. To me, that's not hard, it's just something I do. It's what I do cause I love him, and I don't care if it's worth 2 dollars to someone or 2 million. To me, it's priceless, and it's one of the easiest jobs cause those tasks are performed out of love. I don't expect any kind of award or sympathy or attention cause I'm trying to raise my kid right. I don't pretend that raising my son is any more important that every other job that keeps our society running, but it's my job, and I take pride in it. But that also means that I feel good parenting is needed and shouldn't be overlooked. Glamorized, however....no. So please...don't try to come in here and seem like you're some angel sent by god. You're a parent. Do your job, love it, and move on with life.

 

[dallas]

This is a debate which has been going on forever it seems...who is right??? Is it the SAHM who generally feels unappreciated both monetarily and by her peers??? Or the working Mom, who has too much to do, and feels guilty much of the time about not spending all her time raising her children??? I think the most important thing to remember is that no one has anything to defend, and each persons choice is personal. I stopped defending my position years ago...because what I do is right for my family. Let's all be nice to one another, and remember that while you may not agree with someone else's choice...it is a blessing that we at least have options open to us!!

^^^^His angel...well said!!!

It is a personal choice for sure, but I wonder if the children had a choice, what would they choose?

 

[addictedtopurses]

Like many have said, this has been debated forever. In the end, it's simple:

If you are a parent, be the best parent you can be!

For some this will mean being at home and for others this will include working (whether by need or desire).



Also wanted to say to Charles, it sounds like you are an excellent dad who loves his son. You may only see him 50% of the time, but you sound like you give it 110%- he's a lucky kid!

 

[mellecyn]

This is a debate which has been going on forever it seems...who is right??? Is it the SAHM who generally feels unappreciated both monetarily and by her peers??? Or the working Mom, who has too much to do, and feels guilty much of the time about not spending all her time raising her children??? I think the most important thing to remember is that no one has anything to defend, and each persons choice is personal. I stopped defending my position years ago...because what I do is right for my family. Let's all be nice to one another, and remember that while you may not agree with someone else's choice...it is a blessing that we at least have options open to us!!

^^^^His angel...well said!!!

Totally agree with you, (this has been going on and on...)
Also let´s try not to be selfish and think of all the moms who would love to stay at home raising their children and simply can´t for financial reasons. Choice is a privilege.
My Mum was never there to organize me stuff at school or birthdays and other activities and she would say "but the other mothers don´t work outside" I was sad but I also understand she had no choice...pay the mortgage, my future college tuitions, etc..... !!!