Market watch just released a statement saying that the average stay at home mom would (if paid for her labors) receive a salary of $117856 per year and that working moms would earn an additional $71860. How do we as a culture value or undervalue the work that mom’s do? These numbers certainly imply that moms perform a lot of work without much thanks, which I think we already know.
Also, why was there no statement on how much dads would make? What are the cultural implications of this missing detail?
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The thing with undervaluing their work is that it’s perceived as expected. You’re female therefore you must not only do this but want to do this, like changing diapers or chasing after your child in the grocery store while your useless husband (if he’s even there) goes wandering off on his own (my friend’s husband did this to her but in general he was a waste of space but who oddly enough was very proud of his son though why I’ll never know as he couldn’t take credit for anything). It’s expected and that’s the problem. What’s worse is it’s expected that the father doesn’t have to do anything but come home from work (since he’s not supposed to stay home) and sit on the couch and watch TV while you serve him dinner. I’m very happy the roles were reversed in my house, I love telling people that my father was a stay at home dad and cooked (both my parents sucked at the cleaning) and my mom brought home the bacon. My dad would have breakfast for my sister and I before we left for school and a snack waiting for when we got home followed by a great dinner. Now I wish my career would allow me to have my husband stay home but it won’t. The other expected thing I hate is “You’re female therefore you must want kids” personally I can’t stand the thought and my husband wants seven (can you say keep dreaming!!!!) I think it should be just as acceptable for a guy to stay home as it should be expected that a guy do his fair share of child rearing, it’s a responsibility not a job one parent works!
These studies are a bit silly because they use the wages of highly skilled full time professionals as the basis of the calculations. For example, the value of cooking dinner is computed using the salary of a head restaurant chef; the value of driving the kids to soccer is computed using the salary of a professional chauffeur, etc. But most of us who do these things around the house don’t do them with that level of professionalism because we don’t do them full time for our job. If you were to use the wages of the worst short order cook, you would get a very different value for cooking dinner!
As for the value of the dad, even in a traditional gender arrangement he does valuable domestic work – fixing, building, and maintaining things, mowing the lawn, shoveling the drive, etc. Many modern dads do a lot more work in the home too. Why is this not computed? Perhaps because dads are not valued the same way moms are? Or moms like to read about how undervalued they are?