William Larsen

What are stay-at-home moms worth?

Today it was reported that stay-at-home mom’s are worth $100,000 a year for the tasks they perform. The tasks include keeping track of finances, grocery shopping, taking care of the house, driving kids to activities and more. I would like to say that mom’s are great, but who chose to be a mom? Ok, this may have come across as chauvinistic, but come on, $100,000? Who could afford to pay this? Is not the position worth only what the market can pay?

Let’s look at the task of keeping track of the finances. Does this mean I get to blame the mom for the market drop or the in value in my investments? Maybe mom should be working outside the home in the finance world and I stay at home? If mom could make $100,000, I would stay at home and do everything she does.

Let’s take a look at grocery shopping. Oh wait; I already do all the grocery shopping. It takes me less than 2 hours a week. What is my time worth, $50 an hour would be $100 a week and $5,200 a year. But if it was worth $50 an hour, I am sure I could pay some teenager $10 an hour to do my grocery shopping so I could pocket that $40 an hour and keep $4,160 a year. Oh, wait, I this was my time off and I have no billable hours at $50, so it would actually cost me $1,040 to have someone shop for me, or I could save $1,040 by doing the shopping myself.

Taking care of the house could be done by hiring a maid at $15 an hour. I know co-workers who have a person come in three times a week to clean up. They say they are there two hours, three days a week at a cost of $90 a week or $4,680 max a year.

As for being the chauffer taking kids to activities, how much is this worth. A taxi does the same thing and runs about 50 to 75 cents a mile (I am only guessing, it has been a long time since I took a taxi). How far does mom drive a day chauffeuring kids? At 40 miles, you have too many kids and activities, but that comes out to less than $40 a day, it comes to $14,600.

Maybe it is the cooking that is so costly. I eat a lot of leftovers so I just do not see cooking as being that compensatable. The whole purpose of doing something yourself over hiring someone to do it, is you can do it cheaper and save money or you cannot afford to have someone do it.

I agree that mom’s do a lot, but what is dads worth? Dads generally fix things around the house; this had lead to the Honey-Do-List. Dad’s take care of the cars, the lawn and do the heavy lifting. If dads owe moms $100,000 a year then what do moms owe dads? You know what; it comes down to a team effort. Pitching in doing what each is best at and using their skills to get the job done.

Whoever comes up with trash like what are moms worth, do nothing. If being a mom is a chore, then maybe mom should not be a mom to begin with.

posted by William Larsen @ 8:38 AM