Feminism Is For Everyone

Jun 3, 2008,4:38 PM

Mother's love worth $117,000 per year, study says

" If a stay-at-home mom could be compensated in dollars rather than personal satisfaction and unconditional love, she'd rake in a nifty sum of nearly $117,000 a year."

UPDATE: Here's a few words on my thoughts...
I think what's important to gain from this study is simply the acknowledgement that being a stay-at-home mom (or dad) is WORK. Stay-at-home parents are not lazy nor are they just sitting around and having fun. For the most part, especially with younger children, they are performing chores and duties that others are being paid for. I'm not suggesting that stay-at-home parents should be making $117,000 a year, but I am saying that stay-at-home parents are doing hard work that should be appreciated, recognized, and respected. It's pretty evident that our society undervalues their work so a study like this can bring light to their efforts. The article does mention working moms, who should have just as equal value, but doesn't mention dads at all because the study was conducted as a mother's day project. Stay-at-home fathers are also doing valuable work by staying home to take care of their children and perform domestic duties. I also think it would be difficult to dispute that in many (not all) situations in which both parents work, mothers still end up doing more work than the fathers (a task for feminism to change!). People also need to change their attitudes about stay-home dads: Men and women have equal parenting skills yet people find it "weird" when dads choose to stay home instead of work because they expect men to be the providers and money makers. Being a parent (for the most part) is a choice. Yes, making this choice brings responsibilities. Yes, being a parent cannot be given a net worth. Yes, parents are rewarded for their work in other ways besides money. But to deny that parenting is hard work is a huge huge lie. That's all I'm saying. I guess the whole idea of the study is supposed to be one of those feel good thank your mom types of things... which is pretty silly since it's one of those one time kinda things. I know very little about economics, so I can't really say much to the way they came up with this figure. I think a lot of people think it's really quite silly to assign parents economic value... and I agree... but there are different types of values that don't just have to be calculated in numbers.