US mothers deserve $134,121 in salary



http://imgfarm.com/images/reuters/full/2006-05-03T131147Z_01_NOOTR_RTRIDSP_3_ODD-LIFE-WORK-DC.jpg
A woman holds her five-month-old son at the Lowe's movie theater on 34th street in New York in an undated file photo. A full-time stay-at-home mother would earn $134,121 a year if paid for all her work, an amount similar to a top U.S. ad executive, a marketing director or a judge, according to a study released on Wednesday. REUTERS/Chip East


NEW YORK (Reuters) - A full-time stay-at-home mother would earn $134,121 a year if paid for all her work, an amount similar to a top U.S. ad executive, a marketing director or a judge, according to a study released Wednesday.

A mother who works outside the home would earn an extra $85,876 annually on top of her actual wages for the work she does at home, according to the study by Waltham, Massachusetts-based compensation experts Salary.com.

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.

"You can't put a dollar value on it. It's worth a lot more," said Kristen Krauss, 35, as she hurriedly packed her four children, all aged under 8, into a minivan in New York while searching frantically for her keys. "Just look at me."

Employed mothers reported spending on average 44 hours a week at their outside job and 49.8 hours at their home job, while the stay-at-home mother worked 91.6 hours a week, it showed.

An estimated 5.6 million women in the United States are stay-at-home mothers with children under age 15, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data.

NOT 'JUST A MOM'

"It's good to acknowledge the job that's being done, and that it's not that these women are settling for 'just a mom,'" said Bill Coleman, senior vice president of compensation at Salary.com. "They are actually doing an awful lot."

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, some 26 million women with children under age 18 work in the nation's paid labor force.

Both employed and stay-at-home mothers said the lowest-paying job of housekeeper was their most common role, with employed mothers working 7.2 hours a week as housekeeper and stay-at-home mothers working 22.1 hours in that role.

"Every husband I've ever spoken to said, 'I'm keeping my job. You keep yours.' It's a tough one," said Gillian Forrest, 39, a stay-at-home mother of 22-month-old Alex in New York. "I don't know if you could put a dollar amount on it but it would be nice to get something."

To compile its study, Salary.com surveyed about 400 mothers online over the last two months.

Salary.com offers a Web site (http://www.mom.salary.com) where mothers can calculate what they could be paid, based on how many children they have, where they live and other factors. The site will produce a printable document that looks like a paycheck, Coleman said.

"It's obviously not negotiable," he said.

On average, the mother who works outside the house earns a base pay of $62,798 for a 40-hour at-home work week and $23,078 in overtime; a stay-at-home mother earned a base pay of $45,697 and $88,424 in overtime, it said.

In a Salary.com study conducted last year, stay-at-home mothers earned $131,471. The potential earnings of mothers who work outside the home was not calculated in the previous study.

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20060503/2006-05-03T131152Z_01_N02301962_RTRIDST_0_ODD-LIFE-WORK-DC.html

What a bunch of crap.

In my extensive experience, housewives have the easiest life imaginable. Most days involve some minimal housework (no house takes more than 30-40 minutes a day to keep clean), a little cooking and plenty of TV watching.

Most of the housewife's day is spent having brunch at the beach-side cafe with friends, window-shopping, gossipping, and finding various ways to spend their husband's hard-earned money.

Bloody whining women make me sick.

What a bunch of crap.

Most of the housewife's day is spent having brunch at the beach-side cafe with friends, window-shopping, gossipping, and finding various ways to spend their husband's hard-earned money.

Bloody whining women make me sick.

You've got to be kidding, right? While the figure they came up with is enormous and ridiculous, saying housewifes/stay at home moms do nothing but shop and gossip is nowhere near the truth. True I take breaks to get on here and irc, but during the day, I keep myself busy.

Getting two chlidren ready for school and up to the busstop, figuring out what's for supper, cleaning 2 levels (dusting, picking up, vaccuming, changing the sheets), laundry for 4 people (which when you have kids, there seems to be a never ending pile of clothes that need washed), getting lunch ready for my son who is home by noon, getting him at the busstop, doing the dishes. During the summer, I work in the yard in the afternoons (mowing, trimming, taking care of the garden). Go over my sons new words, work on him with his school work, same with my daughter when she comes home. Get supper started and the family fed, do the dishes again, finish up on any laundry, make sure the kids are bathed, feed the birds and cats. Once a month, we have PACT at school (where the parents come to school for activites, with my youngest), various school projects etc.

I loathe shopping..once a week I get groceries and whatever household products are needed. Once a week we go to the library to check out books and the free movies there. I dont go to cafe's and gossip with friends...since most of my friends are males and wouldn't be caught dead doing that.

But I'm not whining, far from it. I enjoy my life, I like keeping the house clean and the chores caught up. I like knowing my family is taken care of. There are those of us who take pride in being stay at home moms/housewives..I'm one of them. I dont ask for a paycheck for it.

For several years, I worked full time (actually between 50 and 60 hours a week) outside of the home and then came home and worked my butt of here. But I was missing out on my children growing up. Now that both kids are in school, I'm looking at jobs again and school. Rest assured.....most of us are *Not* lazy.

Women are just like spoilt lazy children.


Hrm sounds like a case of "Mommy wouldn't cut the crusts off my sandwich today, so all women are evil mindless whores". Go wank it elsewhere, mkay?

This reeks of judeo-feminist propaganda, but nontheless, I do think a sort of social security for mothers who have multiple children wouldn't be an entirely bad idea. As long as they're white, of course ^O^

mammy needs a new pair of shoes!

You've got to be kidding, right? While the figure they came up with is enormous and ridiculous, saying housewifes/stay at home moms do nothing but shop and gossip is nowhere near the truth. True I take breaks to get on here and irc, but during the day, I keep myself busy.

Getting two chlidren ready for school and up to the busstop, figuring out what's for supper, cleaning 2 levels (dusting, picking up, vaccuming, changing the sheets), laundry for 4 people (which when you have kids, there seems to be a never ending pile of clothes that need washed), getting lunch ready for my son who is home by noon, getting him at the busstop, doing the dishes. During the summer, I work in the yard in the afternoons (mowing, trimming, taking care of the garden). Go over my sons new words, work on him with his school work, same with my daughter when she comes home. Get supper started and the family fed, do the dishes again, finish up on any laundry, make sure the kids are bathed, feed the birds and cats. Once a month, we have PACT at school (where the parents come to school for activites, with my youngest), various school projects etc.

I loathe shopping..once a week I get groceries and whatever household products are needed. Once a week we go to the library to check out books and the free movies there. I dont go to cafe's and gossip with friends...since most of my friends are males and wouldn't be caught dead doing that.

But I'm not whining, far from it. I enjoy my life, I like keeping the house clean and the chores caught up. I like knowing my family is taken care of. There are those of us who take pride in being stay at home moms/housewives..I'm one of them. I dont ask for a paycheck for it.

For several years, I worked full time (actually between 50 and 60 hours a week) outside of the home and then came home and worked my butt of here. But I was missing out on my children growing up. Now that both kids are in school, I'm looking at jobs again and school. Rest assured.....most of us are *Not* lazy.


This is typical of what women do....list all the tiny minutae of their work day, and make it sound like it's such a huge task.

Oh, you do laundry for 4 people... that must sure be difficult pouring in the washing powder and pushing the button on the washing machine. Do the dishes... that's gotta be at least 5 minutes worth of work just right there.

The common saying is "a woman's work is never done"... that's nonsense. It's just that a woman is never done complaining about her work.

This is typical of what women do....list all the tiny minutae of their work day, and make it sound like it's such a huge task.

You give birth and then we'll talk. Listing the simple boring things women do all day? My husband was king of that, I'd listen to his list of what he did at work, seemingly a minute by minute replay. I didn't want to hear it, since I worked in the same company and did the exact same job. The difference was when his shift was over, he came home and sat in front of the tv playing video games the rest of the night while I took care of the kids and house.

Oh, you do laundry for 4 people... that must sure be difficult pouring in the washing powder and pushing the button on the washing machine. Do the dishes... that's gotta be at least 5 minutes worth of work just right there.

Doing laundry is more than pushing a button, they need ironed and put away too, occasionally mended. I didn't say it was a strenuous task, just that there is a lot of laundry when one has kids (not to mention a sloppy/klutzy husband who had more dirty clothes than both kids combined). Nor did I say dishes were a hard task that took forever, I was simply saying I keep busy around the house.

The common saying is "a woman's work is never done"... that's nonsense. It's just that a woman is never done complaining about her work.

:rolleyes: We complain because of mindless fucks who think because they have a set of balls, they're gods.

Cleaning a house, that's pretty much a piece of cake. Keeping everyone else in the house from completely ruining your work within an hour of you finishing it.... now that's another issue.

hey diane come clean my house then will ya? as for jozu he's busy getting his temperature taken rectally by a pediatric male nurse named LaShawn.

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.Yeah, right. Mom stops her kids from fighting over the X-Box and all of a sudden she's a "psychologist." :rolleyes: "Chief executive?" Why? And... browsing on E-Bay does not make one a "computer operator."

Sounds to me like the groundwork is being laid to even more thoroughly stick it to White men in divorce proceedings. "Mr. Smith, in addition to half of everything you've ever accumulated AND half of all your future earnings, you still owe your ex-wife $400,000 in back wages for those 3 years you were married."

I wonder why salary.com didn't do a similar survey to determine what a man should be paid for all of his "in home" jobs? You know, electrician, plumber, mechanic, exterminator, snow removal, ultimate decision maker, etc, etc, etc.

Jozu, feminists use arguments just like yours to demean women who do stay at home and make her feel worthless, and you can't tell me with a straight face that males who think like this don't share some of the responsibility for pushing women into the arms of feminism.

A woman who has not yet taken on the responsibility of being a full time mother and housewife(like myself) might look at something like what you said and say, maybe the only way I can earn a little respect(oh, maybe that is not something we are even worthy of) is if I step into a "man's world" and take on a high paying job.

You tell us our place is in the home and then you basically say what we do in the home is simple and has no value and not worthy of anything more than callous little comments. Gee, I wonder why so many women were so easily able to buy into that idea that maybe a life outside the home might be more worthwhile?:rolleyes:

hey diane come clean my house then will ya? as for jozu he's busy getting his temperature taken rectally by a pediatric male nurse named LaShawn.

Have you got a point you little 41 post fag?

Jozu, feminists use arguments just like yours to demean women who do stay at home and make her feel worthless, and you can't tell me with a straight face that males who think like this don't share some of the responsibility for pushing women into the arms of feminism.

A woman who has not yet taken on the responsibility of being a full time mother and housewife(like myself) might look at something like what you said and say, maybe the only way I can earn a little respect(oh, maybe that is not something we are even worthy of) is if I step into a "man's world" and take on a high paying job.

You tell us our place is in the home and then you basically say what we do in the home is simple and has no value and not worthy of anything more than callous little comments. Gee, I wonder why so many women were so easily able to buy into that idea that maybe a life outside the home might be more worthwhile?:rolleyes:


HG, sorry I didn't mean to belittle the job of housewife at all. I have enormous respect for stay-home mothers, but that doesn't mean I think their job is particularly difficult.

I just get sick of all the overbearing praise that housewives get... all the "a woman's work is never done" type nonsense. Let's be realistic ... cleaning up the house and minding kids is not all that arduous a task. That doesn't mean their work is not important for society, and for future generations... it doesn;t mean housewives should be paid $137,000 a year either.

I just get sick of all the overbearing praise that housewives get... all the "a woman's work is never done" type nonsense. Let's be realistic ... cleaning up the house and minding kids is not all that arduous a task. That doesn't mean their work is not important for society, and for future generations... it doesn;t mean housewives should be paid $137,000 a year either.

I never said I agree with the 137,000 a year thing:p

I don't have any kids so I can only speak from experience of having to watch young kids including my cousins who are much younger than me. And I would have to say just being with them at certain ages for a few hours can be quite a task, so I can't imagine how difficult it has to be to have them around all day, every day.

When we look at minding kids, we think of kids wound up on sugar and video games. That is a full time job, but a competent parent who watches their children’s diet and puts them in the yard to do chores and play actual games won’t have 90% of the problem the bloated lazy parents have.

I saw some kids going down the road the other chugging pure sugar. They had several tubes about 2 feet long full of sugar, while their parents were buying video games. And their parents wonder why they have to be on Ritalin.

If you do preventive maintenance your children will not be a hassle. If you wait 10 years then try to discipline them then you have a problem.

The hour a woman spends a day watching Oprah could do half the chores they have to do around the house. Especially if they pull the kids away from the phone, candy and X-box and give them responsibility and make them earn their allowance.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

As my wife is a full-time stay-at-home mother of two, I must agree that stay-at-home moms deserve not only recognition for having a tough job, they deserve the salary to go with it. $134,121 a year is fair compensation, although you really can't put a price on your children. I guess I am biased, but I cannot think of a more important job, and if my wife got paid this amount a year this salary would enable me to quit my job which I absolutely loathe. We could both take care of the kids and do some traveling to boot.

As my wife is a full-time stay-at-home mother of two, I must agree that stay-at-home moms deserve not only recognition for having a tough job, they deserve the salary to go with it. $134,121 a year is fair compensation, although you really can't put a price on your children. I guess I am biased, but I cannot think of a more important job, and if my wife got paid this amount a year this salary would enable me to quit my job which I absolutely loathe. We could both take care of the kids and do some traveling to boot.


But you would be paying that salary that is the whole point.

But you would be paying that salary that is the whole point.


Well then , my employer needs to pay me a LOT more money!!!

Originally Posted by burnjewburn
But you would be paying that salary that is the whole point


Well then , my employer needs to pay me a LOT more money!!!Yeah, bring that up at your next salary negotiation. :D