According to Salary.com, if stay-at-home Moms got paid for their work, they’d be worth $116,805. This is surprising because two years ago the same group showed stay-at-home moms to be worth $134,121. That’s $17,316 less than two years ago! Could it be that the quality of parenting has decreased that much? I can afford my wife much easier now than I could before!
To reach the projected pay figures, the survey calculated the earning power of the 10 jobs respondents said most closely comprise a mother’s role — housekeeper, day-care teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive and psychologist. [Source, Boston.com]
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When they base it on jobs such as housekeeper, which has increasing downward pressure on it from low skill workers in a recession, where people are willing to take less to just plain have a job… then yes, you of course wind up with times when the survey may appear lower as it does with any “job” during difficult times.
Of course, being a parent is really one of those situations where the sum is greater than the parts, so this just serves to highlight how it is virtually impossible to put a “meaningful” number on the job of Stay-At-Home Parent.
With more and more dads staying at home, it is a bit incorrect to be referencing stay-at-home moms. I think they run the survey in conjunction with Mother’s Day.
Really, parenting’s value is non-quantifiable. Cathy and I feel that a stay-at-home parent is so important and valuable that she passed up multiple opportunities to make us a two income family.