Thursday, May 04, 2006

Trying to put a Value on Mother’s Work

In this article, they are trying to put a price tag on what we mothers do! A huge part of me cheers but another part of me is angry, as it makes no real sense. Why put a dollar value on doing the dishes, and caring for our own children. It is what we signed on for. It would be nice to see a little extra money but be real people. In my house (which is far from my definition of clean) and where my husband does as much if not more of the daily living (cleaning, and cooking) chores. I feel like money is what divide family from the lack of it to who make what and who has what and we are loosing a certain amount of family cohesiveness because of this.

They don’t honestly disagree with my assessment, but come on now. I know plenty of single people or even DINKs who do a lot of work around their own homes that we could put a salary on. Granted it is less but on the list of “job” they have on the mentioned they don’t include pet care but they do include both Janitor and Housekeeper. (www.mom.salary.com)

Apparently I could earn an additional $87,321 a year by just being me at home! Have you seen my house? That’s silly.

3 Comments:

At 5/14/2006 10:56:00 AM, Blogger Bill D91 said...

It's the inclusion of CEO that skews the story. There's no way any family has a position of CEO. Small business owner is a far better fit. CEO is included pretty much to skew the results high and sound more impressive in the process. It's kind of sad, really, that they'd do that when the rest of the information could be so interesting and useful for understanding how stay-at-home moms are particularly underappreciated in our economy.

 
At 5/15/2006 01:53:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, I saw the article and was unsure how I felt about it. On one hand it's nice to know that someone out there sees what we do as a "worth something". However it's sad that the only way they have to express that we are "worth something" is financially.

At least it all made us think.

 
At 5/17/2006 02:44:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with the other comments and have a thought to add.

In Stephenson's "Diamond Age" the story centers around three girls, about 60 years from now, who are given the ultimate in an educational toy/nanotech book. The book uses a various real time actors via an advanced internet link to play the parts of the story that is the basis of a rather amazing education. By the end of "Diamond Age," the girl with the book that had a dedicated actress working as the story-teller/teacher turned out to be the most successful. In other words, the author was saying that no matter how great the education, nothing really matters more than a loving mother.

He took about 500 pages to say that. I'm not sure that a blurb article could convey the huge yet indefine-able effect that a mother has.

 

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