Ever wonder what your work as a mom is worth in monetary terms? Blogging Baby today highlighted the Mom Salary Wizard (MSW), a calculator that determines salary equivalents for the “mom job” of both working and stay-at-home moms (SAHMs).
I took a look, though I was peeved the site wasn’t gender-neutral. I never like the assumption that all the housework (in straight families) is done by the woman, nor when gay dads are completely invisible.
What really surprised me, however, was the app’s list of “typical” hours per week that moms spend on various tasks. Apparently, “typical” SAHMs spend 54.5 hours per week doing housekeeping, cooking, and the like, and just over 30 hours on child-rearing activities. (For employed moms, this drops to 24.5 hours on housework and 13.5 on childcare.)
Is it just me, or isn’t the primary responsibility of a SAHM (or SAHD) to take care of the children? Do we really get sidetracked into so much housework? I don’t, but maybe I’m particularly lax. (We don’t live in a pig sty, but I can’t say housecleaning is a strength.) I also wonder if LGBT parents tend to split the housekeeping more equally, since it doesn’t fall into the traditional role of one gender vs. the other.
Luckily, you can enter your own hours into the MSW rather than use their estimates. I’d be making six figures if I got paid for my daily work. I always take such calculations with a bit of salt, though. Should teaching my son to help with dinner be paid as housekeeping or child rearing?
Still, the assumptions in the MSW, if they’re true, say a lot about our society. I feel sorry for the “typical” moms who have such a burden of housework in addition to child-rearing. I hope the kids aren’t shortchanged. I feel sorry for the SAHDs who aren’t acknowledged, and for the invisible gay dads. Of course, the feminist in me thinks it’s good for someone to think about the economic value of the unappreciated work women have historically done. But calling this the “Mom Salary Wizard” reinforces the stereotype.