![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Our friends at salary.com have created a lovely page called What is Mom's Work Worth?. I've seen similar layouts in lots of places, talking about all the different "hats" a mom wears. This one cites an ending number of $126K.
The basic argument is that we ought to place some sort of value on the unpaid work of stay at home parents and homemakers. I don't have any real issue with this-- if they didn't do some work, it might be necessary to pay someone else to do it. Feminists point out that if two women care for their own children, it isn't counted as part of the "domestic product" (i.e. all the work done in the country)-- but if they swap children and each watch the other's, it DOES count. This does seem patently unfair, doesn't it? Let's start by working under the assumption that "if a SAHM doesn't do her job, someone else has to be paid to do it" and figure out just what you WOULD pay someone else to do the same work.
Let's look at the breakdown-- they asked a lot of women what job titles of paying jobs best described the kinds of duties they fulfilled as a SAHM/HM (stay at home mother or homemaker). And here, with many pats on the back, is this year's list for SAHMs, with the number of hours spent on each sort of work, on the average (there are options for how many children under 6, and over 6, you have; I picked 0 and 1):
1. Housekeeper 22.1
2. Day Care Center Teacher 15.7
3. Cook 13.6
4. Computer Operator I 9.1
5. Laundry Machine Operator 6.7
6. Janitor 6.3
7. Facilities Manager 5.8
8. Chief Executive Officer 4.2
9. Van Driver 4.2
10. Psychologist 3.9
...Are we to assume that these women seriously believe that their work at home gives them life experience that would qualify them for all these professions? I mean, okay, obviously if you want to be a psychologist, you need a degree and a license to practice. Yeah, that one's obviously a joke.
But what you may not know is that you need certification even to work in a fast food restaurant! It costs $10 and takes about an hour, but without a card from the health department, you can't even drop fries in the vat or put lids on the milkshakes. Another thing I'll mention is that most of the behavior you'll see in my kitchen at home would get me fired before I could ever work through a single day at McD's. You don't show up there barefoot, you never lick your fingers, and you're expected to keep up with a busy pace of preparing dozens of meals an hour, not sit around reading a book.
My final argument is that part of the money each of the above positions pays is in return for going to work-- that is, you're compensated for putting on nicer clothes (or, uh, putting on clothes), leaving the house, and driving there. Nobody pays you and says "oh, yeah, do whatever you think would look nice in my house." You're paid to clean by their standards, and if you don't, you're fired. At your own house, you clean however you want. But okay, let's assume that the mythical SAHM acts exactly like she would act if she were living in someone else's house doing their job for them.
So, what exactly are we imaginarily "paying" women who do the above jobs? Here's the cited hourly rates for my zip code (although it does state that my zip is in Nichols Hills, a rather expensive part of town):
Housekeeper $9.00
Okay, that's what housekeepers make here-- with the caveat above, that you clean however you want in your own house. Part of why housekeepers make what they do is because they do mostly the dirty jobs; lots of people pick up before the housekeeper comes over, so they get preferentially paid to clean the toilet and catbox and scrub out the sink. If they were doing mostly what people do in their own homes (pick up trash off counter, throw away, put up toys) it wouldn't be worth that. But okay, I'll accept that. (Nevermind that if you hired a housekeeper to clean your house, and they told you it would take 22 hours a week to do so, would you think that was reasonable?)
Day Care Center Teacher $12.47
...in what universe? Day care workers make minimum wage where I'm from.
Cook $14.46
And again, McD's pays minimum wage. I'm sorry, dumping the red bag in the skillet does not make you a professional cook. Alternatively, let's say that you make 21 meals x 4 people or 84 meals in a week. If you were a professional cook, would it really take you 12 minutes to make a single meal? When I go to Braum's and order breakfast, it takes them under 2 minutes to pile my stuff in a bag and get it ready to go. So assuming 5 minutes per meal (i.e. 20 minutes prep/cooking each meal for 4) which is what a professional cook might do, we're only talking 7 hours of work here. And no, that doesn't count cleanup, because you'll notice that housekeeper AND janitor are both listed elsewhere and I'm assuming cleanup goes under one of those, and they're both paying at a higher rate than I think basic cooks should get.
Computer Operator I $14.23
What exactly do SAHMs do that requires 9 hours of research a week online? Or are we talking a couple evenings of WoW a week? Sorry, my boss doesn't pay me to surf the net (ok, technically he does, but that's cause I'm doing something else at the time), and neither should a SAHM count futzing around reading email. If they're doing anything related to the other work they do, e.g. cooking or cleaning (looking up a recipe or how to clean something) then it should be counted under the other category, just like when the baker puts their hair in a hairnet, they aren't "being a beautician" they're being a baker.
Laundry Machine Operator $8.47
OK, they're counting this at almost 7 hours, or an hour a day. That's less than it takes to do a load of laundry, so I'm assuming this is the putting in baskets, sorting, dumping in washer, ironing, and hanging up stuff. In our house, we have 1 full load per person per week plus 1 load of towels and 1 load of sheets. That's 5. I could see having 7 if you don't re-use towels. However, if your kid is old enough to care if their clothes have wrinkles, they're old enough to fold their own. Towels and sheets don't take a lot of care other than putting in the washer and folding afterwards. So, that's an hour of ironing/whatnot for 1 load per person, and 15 minutes per load for the rest, for 4 hours, maybe 5. Oh, and you make $7 an hour working at the dry cleaner's here. I bet with some experience you might make almost $9, so that's okay, I'll go with their wage.
Janitor $10.67
As opposed to housekeeper, meaning what? Actual scrubbing up of messes? For an hour a day? Hm, maybe during flu season. Okay, considering some people's reaction to dealing with bodily effluvia, I'll actually buy this as reasonable even if it's not that amount of time. It doesn't smell any better just cause your own kid did it.
Facilities Manager $35.93
Complete and utter bullshit. I'm sorry, rearranging your kid's room or setting up their birthday party in the kitchen is not worth this amount. I don't think it's work at all, but I'll go minimum wage for it just because I'm easy.
Chief Executive Officer $155.07
And again, complete and utter bullshit. The shift manager at the 7-11 works harder than a SAHM because when their employees call out stupid, they don't get to drag them out of their room and threaten them with a time-out if they don't come to work. And they damn sure don't make $155/hr, they make $10. I'll buy $10 for this kind of work, though. (They could have done a much better job filling this spot with "Queen of England." She makes just as much money, really does get to stay at home a lot, and people are very respectful to her-- just like the SAHMs who claim their jobs involve being a CEO and shrink wish everyone would be to them.)
Van Driver $14.37
And van drivers get paid more because they can't turn around and say "If you don't straighten up RIGHT NOW I am stopping this van! Leave your sister alone, shut up, and put that down, roll up your window, and sit quietly!" In real life, you get 35 cents a mile allowance; assuming you go 30 miles an hour, that's $10.50/hr.
Psychologist $33.32
...and shrinks charge this because they have to carry insurance and pay for their offices and student loans. And because, well, they're professionals and know what they're doing. I call bullshit on this.
The final problem with this is that they're taking some jobs that are paid by salary, and pretending that they pay 1.5 times more if you do more than 40 hours a week of them (i.e. overtime hourly rate). This is absolutely not the case in the real world.
So, here's two adjusted sets of numbers. First, the above numbers, exactly as cited, but WITHOUT paying "overtime" for every hour over 40: instead of 126K, it comes out to 98K. Whew, a 20% discount there. That'll teach those mommies to go on salary!
Second, let me run the numbers that I thought were reasonable, as I described above:
1. Housekeeper: $9 x 22.1 x 52 weeks = 10,343
2. Day Care Center Teacher: $5.15 x 15.7 x 52 = 4204
3. Cook: $5.15 x 7 x 52 = 1875
4. Computer operator: Unpaid, for the reasons listed above.
5. Laundry Machine Operator: $8.47 x 5 x 52 = 2202
6. Janitor: $10.67 x 6.3 x 52 = 3496
7. Facilities manager: $5.15 x 5.8 x 52 = 1553
8.Chief Executive OfficerShift Manager: $10 x 4.2 x 52 = 2184
9. Van Driver: $10.50 x 4.2 x 52 = 2294
10. Psychologist: Unpaid, for the reasons listed above.
And the total in the world I live in is... $28,151, or 7.70 an hour for 70 hours a week.
On the other hand, look at the benefits available:
*No dress code.
*Work at home all the time, flexible hours. Bring your kids to work every day.
*Unlimited maternity leave and sick leave, including extended medical leave.
*As much vacation time as you want.
*Meals at work catered to your dietary/religious restrictions.
*Every holiday with your family, including birthdays and anniversaries.
*Adding staff to your workplace is completely at your discretion.
What would YOU give for these benefits? I think, when you compare working for pay to the job of a SAHM, these are the real reasons people choose to be a stay at home parent...
The basic argument is that we ought to place some sort of value on the unpaid work of stay at home parents and homemakers. I don't have any real issue with this-- if they didn't do some work, it might be necessary to pay someone else to do it. Feminists point out that if two women care for their own children, it isn't counted as part of the "domestic product" (i.e. all the work done in the country)-- but if they swap children and each watch the other's, it DOES count. This does seem patently unfair, doesn't it? Let's start by working under the assumption that "if a SAHM doesn't do her job, someone else has to be paid to do it" and figure out just what you WOULD pay someone else to do the same work.
Let's look at the breakdown-- they asked a lot of women what job titles of paying jobs best described the kinds of duties they fulfilled as a SAHM/HM (stay at home mother or homemaker). And here, with many pats on the back, is this year's list for SAHMs, with the number of hours spent on each sort of work, on the average (there are options for how many children under 6, and over 6, you have; I picked 0 and 1):
1. Housekeeper 22.1
2. Day Care Center Teacher 15.7
3. Cook 13.6
4. Computer Operator I 9.1
5. Laundry Machine Operator 6.7
6. Janitor 6.3
7. Facilities Manager 5.8
8. Chief Executive Officer 4.2
9. Van Driver 4.2
10. Psychologist 3.9
...Are we to assume that these women seriously believe that their work at home gives them life experience that would qualify them for all these professions? I mean, okay, obviously if you want to be a psychologist, you need a degree and a license to practice. Yeah, that one's obviously a joke.
But what you may not know is that you need certification even to work in a fast food restaurant! It costs $10 and takes about an hour, but without a card from the health department, you can't even drop fries in the vat or put lids on the milkshakes. Another thing I'll mention is that most of the behavior you'll see in my kitchen at home would get me fired before I could ever work through a single day at McD's. You don't show up there barefoot, you never lick your fingers, and you're expected to keep up with a busy pace of preparing dozens of meals an hour, not sit around reading a book.
My final argument is that part of the money each of the above positions pays is in return for going to work-- that is, you're compensated for putting on nicer clothes (or, uh, putting on clothes), leaving the house, and driving there. Nobody pays you and says "oh, yeah, do whatever you think would look nice in my house." You're paid to clean by their standards, and if you don't, you're fired. At your own house, you clean however you want. But okay, let's assume that the mythical SAHM acts exactly like she would act if she were living in someone else's house doing their job for them.
So, what exactly are we imaginarily "paying" women who do the above jobs? Here's the cited hourly rates for my zip code (although it does state that my zip is in Nichols Hills, a rather expensive part of town):
Housekeeper $9.00
Okay, that's what housekeepers make here-- with the caveat above, that you clean however you want in your own house. Part of why housekeepers make what they do is because they do mostly the dirty jobs; lots of people pick up before the housekeeper comes over, so they get preferentially paid to clean the toilet and catbox and scrub out the sink. If they were doing mostly what people do in their own homes (pick up trash off counter, throw away, put up toys) it wouldn't be worth that. But okay, I'll accept that. (Nevermind that if you hired a housekeeper to clean your house, and they told you it would take 22 hours a week to do so, would you think that was reasonable?)
Day Care Center Teacher $12.47
...in what universe? Day care workers make minimum wage where I'm from.
Cook $14.46
And again, McD's pays minimum wage. I'm sorry, dumping the red bag in the skillet does not make you a professional cook. Alternatively, let's say that you make 21 meals x 4 people or 84 meals in a week. If you were a professional cook, would it really take you 12 minutes to make a single meal? When I go to Braum's and order breakfast, it takes them under 2 minutes to pile my stuff in a bag and get it ready to go. So assuming 5 minutes per meal (i.e. 20 minutes prep/cooking each meal for 4) which is what a professional cook might do, we're only talking 7 hours of work here. And no, that doesn't count cleanup, because you'll notice that housekeeper AND janitor are both listed elsewhere and I'm assuming cleanup goes under one of those, and they're both paying at a higher rate than I think basic cooks should get.
Computer Operator I $14.23
What exactly do SAHMs do that requires 9 hours of research a week online? Or are we talking a couple evenings of WoW a week? Sorry, my boss doesn't pay me to surf the net (ok, technically he does, but that's cause I'm doing something else at the time), and neither should a SAHM count futzing around reading email. If they're doing anything related to the other work they do, e.g. cooking or cleaning (looking up a recipe or how to clean something) then it should be counted under the other category, just like when the baker puts their hair in a hairnet, they aren't "being a beautician" they're being a baker.
Laundry Machine Operator $8.47
OK, they're counting this at almost 7 hours, or an hour a day. That's less than it takes to do a load of laundry, so I'm assuming this is the putting in baskets, sorting, dumping in washer, ironing, and hanging up stuff. In our house, we have 1 full load per person per week plus 1 load of towels and 1 load of sheets. That's 5. I could see having 7 if you don't re-use towels. However, if your kid is old enough to care if their clothes have wrinkles, they're old enough to fold their own. Towels and sheets don't take a lot of care other than putting in the washer and folding afterwards. So, that's an hour of ironing/whatnot for 1 load per person, and 15 minutes per load for the rest, for 4 hours, maybe 5. Oh, and you make $7 an hour working at the dry cleaner's here. I bet with some experience you might make almost $9, so that's okay, I'll go with their wage.
Janitor $10.67
As opposed to housekeeper, meaning what? Actual scrubbing up of messes? For an hour a day? Hm, maybe during flu season. Okay, considering some people's reaction to dealing with bodily effluvia, I'll actually buy this as reasonable even if it's not that amount of time. It doesn't smell any better just cause your own kid did it.
Facilities Manager $35.93
Complete and utter bullshit. I'm sorry, rearranging your kid's room or setting up their birthday party in the kitchen is not worth this amount. I don't think it's work at all, but I'll go minimum wage for it just because I'm easy.
Chief Executive Officer $155.07
And again, complete and utter bullshit. The shift manager at the 7-11 works harder than a SAHM because when their employees call out stupid, they don't get to drag them out of their room and threaten them with a time-out if they don't come to work. And they damn sure don't make $155/hr, they make $10. I'll buy $10 for this kind of work, though. (They could have done a much better job filling this spot with "Queen of England." She makes just as much money, really does get to stay at home a lot, and people are very respectful to her-- just like the SAHMs who claim their jobs involve being a CEO and shrink wish everyone would be to them.)
Van Driver $14.37
And van drivers get paid more because they can't turn around and say "If you don't straighten up RIGHT NOW I am stopping this van! Leave your sister alone, shut up, and put that down, roll up your window, and sit quietly!" In real life, you get 35 cents a mile allowance; assuming you go 30 miles an hour, that's $10.50/hr.
Psychologist $33.32
...and shrinks charge this because they have to carry insurance and pay for their offices and student loans. And because, well, they're professionals and know what they're doing. I call bullshit on this.
The final problem with this is that they're taking some jobs that are paid by salary, and pretending that they pay 1.5 times more if you do more than 40 hours a week of them (i.e. overtime hourly rate). This is absolutely not the case in the real world.
So, here's two adjusted sets of numbers. First, the above numbers, exactly as cited, but WITHOUT paying "overtime" for every hour over 40: instead of 126K, it comes out to 98K. Whew, a 20% discount there. That'll teach those mommies to go on salary!
Second, let me run the numbers that I thought were reasonable, as I described above:
1. Housekeeper: $9 x 22.1 x 52 weeks = 10,343
2. Day Care Center Teacher: $5.15 x 15.7 x 52 = 4204
3. Cook: $5.15 x 7 x 52 = 1875
4. Computer operator: Unpaid, for the reasons listed above.
5. Laundry Machine Operator: $8.47 x 5 x 52 = 2202
6. Janitor: $10.67 x 6.3 x 52 = 3496
7. Facilities manager: $5.15 x 5.8 x 52 = 1553
8.
9. Van Driver: $10.50 x 4.2 x 52 = 2294
10. Psychologist: Unpaid, for the reasons listed above.
And the total in the world I live in is... $28,151, or 7.70 an hour for 70 hours a week.
On the other hand, look at the benefits available:
*No dress code.
*Work at home all the time, flexible hours. Bring your kids to work every day.
*Unlimited maternity leave and sick leave, including extended medical leave.
*As much vacation time as you want.
*Meals at work catered to your dietary/religious restrictions.
*Every holiday with your family, including birthdays and anniversaries.
*Adding staff to your workplace is completely at your discretion.
What would YOU give for these benefits? I think, when you compare working for pay to the job of a SAHM, these are the real reasons people choose to be a stay at home parent...
