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your stay home mom should be making 131K yr.

Joined
26 June 2003
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So Cal
I think that is just stupid. Yes a stay at home mom is hard work, but it is not a career. And what about Stay-at-Home Dads?

And what about a dad that busts his ass to support his family making $35,000 a year? They are saying someone staying at home with a kid is worth $100,000 more than he makes? Come on.

This was simply a publicity stunt. And it worked. Saw him on the Today show yesterday.
 
I believe it. Day care costs are up the azz these days.
 
Kind of sexist if you ask me. Why is it assumed that the mother works at home and the father works outside the home? Why is it assumed that guys would be any more 'fumed' than women?
 
While I would say a dedicated stay home mom theorhetically should make a good deal of money, I think this is not really practical. For starters, not every family can even afford to have one parent completely stay home and take care of the kids. We are all not that fortunate to have one parent making that much money. For someone like my wife and I, both of us have to work full time jobs. While I work the overnight shift, my wife sleeps at home with the baby and takes care of my son. When I come home in the morning I take over and my wife goes to work. Like mentioned above, day care is expensive so when my dad gets off work he comes over to baby sit then I can finially go to sleep for 6 hours and start all over. If that is the case, both of us are working two full time jobs and we should both be making well over $100K. Raising a family is hard work, but its just something you have to do and get done.

Sorry to be harsh to any stay home parent, but if either my wife or myself were lucky enough and made enough money for one of us to stay home full time with our kid we would be greatful. Those fortunate to be in that position should be thankful they can stay home and take care of the family. I think most of us would glady quit work and stay home with the family of we could. Everything on that list of activities those women do in that article both my wife and I do every day as well, except we also have full time jobs. Just like how I don't assume a women should stay home and cook in the kitchen, I don't like it when people assume fathers are not changing diapers, feeding the kids, bathing them and doing everything a parent should be doing. I mean, what the hell do they think we do when we come home from work? Do they think we just abandon the family?


"I had zero experience taking care of children before I had my own," said Laura Mercer,

No kidding. Like the rest of us first time parents had any experience taking care of children? I never changed a diaper much less held a baby in my hands before I had my son 19 months ago.
 
Based on a 100-hour work week, Salary.com has estimated that a fair wage for the typical stay-at-home mom would be $131,471 for executing all of her daily tasks.
 
I read the same article in Newsweek I believe. I was very surprised to see that figure.

If a stay at home mom worked 12 hours a day (7 am to 7 pm), 365 days a year with no vacation time and zero help from Dad (not possible), she would work a total of 4,380 hours annually. This equates to approximately $30/hour. Very unlikely, given the average skill level of a stay at home mom can earn that wage in the workforce. I could hire a housekeeper for less and she won't talk back and probably make a better meal.

That statistic is pure BS in my opinion.
 
I think the CEO salary is inappropriate and completely skews the numbers. otherwise, I think the analysis is fair. It's not like every stay at home wife :) runs the family. And it's not like a family is a medium sized corporation that would pay that amount ... although i think we would all agree that the family financial stability is job one ... within the family.

Now I haven't shopped day care in a while, but I would challenge anyone that things the rates are high to simply calculate the hourly rate. Back when we were using this service (97-00), the monthly amount came up to about a car payment. That seemed like a large amount of money. But hourly it came out to like $2.50. We were talking about house cleaning services at the time and they wanted way more an hour than that. Now I ask you, is the resource raising your child more important than the one cleaning your house? I don't think so.

We've been fortunate enough to allow my wife to stay at home with the kids. No better care provider can be found. And yes, I know what funds she gains for us even if it's not in salary.
 
"Sorry to be harsh to any stay home parent, but if either my wife or myself were lucky enough and made enough money for one of us to stay home full time with our kid we would be greatful. Those fortunate to be in that position should be thankful they can stay home and take care of the family. I think most of us would glady quit work and stay home with the family of we could."


Is it luck or a matter of priorities? What kind of lifestyle do you want to have. Perhaps by selling the NSX, downsizing the house, and lowering misc. spending a one income family could do just fine. It's true, if you want the nicer things in life then perhaps both parents will need to work...but if you think it is important for kids to be raised by a parent rather than by daycare, then you'll make the necesary adjustments.
 
whealy said:
Now I haven't shopped day care in a while, but I would challenge anyone that things the rates are high to simply calculate the hourly rate. Back when we were using this service (97-00), the monthly amount came up to about a car payment. That seemed like a large amount of money. But hourly it came out to like $2.50. We were talking about house cleaning services at the time and they wanted way more an hour than that. Now I ask you, is the resource raising your child more important than the one cleaning your house? I don't think so.

No doubt child care can be expensive. We pay approximately $28,000 per year for our two small childrens' education. This probably equates to approximately $35,000 gross income dollars.
 
CerberusM5 said:
No doubt child care can be expensive. We pay approximately $28,000 per year for our two small childrens' education. This probably equates to approximately $35,000 gross income dollars.


Yeah, but if you take that and break it out per hour based on every day care with them not in school yet (guess from the small children description) it comes out to ...

$14,000 / 52 weeks / 50 hours (you pay lunch and early drop off and late pick up) and you get $5.38 and hour. What kind of "service" do you think you get for that rate? That's the part I don't understand. Not that I want these costs to be higher, it's just that when you break it down per hour, does it really seem fair or apporpriate from either angle?



chumch said:
"Sorry to be harsh to any stay home parent, but if either my wife or myself were lucky enough and made enough money for one of us to stay home full time with our kid we would be greatful. Those fortunate to be in that position should be thankful they can stay home and take care of the family. I think most of us would glady quit work and stay home with the family of we could."


Is it luck or a matter of priorities? What kind of lifestyle do you want to have. Perhaps by selling the NSX, downsizing the house, and lowering misc. spending a one income family could do just fine. It's true, if you want the nicer things in life then perhaps both parents will need to work...but if you think it is important for kids to be raised by a parent rather than by daycare, then you'll make the necesary adjustments.

No matter what the circumstance, if one of the spouses stays at home, there is a financial sacrifice unless of course the removed income does not cover the expences of day care. So it is a question or prioirty, just not a simply one. But if every couple just had one bread winner, the economy as a whole would be based on a much smaller family income. Until some switched to two incomes again ... and thus the vicious cycle.
 
whealy said:
I think the CEO salary is inappropriate and completely skews the numbers. otherwise, I think the analysis is fair. It's not like every stay at home wife :) runs the family. And it's not like a family is a medium sized corporation that would pay that amount ... although i think we would all agree that the family financial stability is job one ... within the family.
Agreed. All the other salaries looked reasonable, but comparing a mom to a CEO is a bit of a stretch. Maybe a mid-level manager, but a true CEO has a tremendous amount of responsibility- usually for hundreds of people when making that kind of money - and thus the pay scale. Yes, a stay-at-home mom may run the day to day operations of a home, but that doesn't equate to operating a mid-large company; a small business owner is a better comparison.

Also- I would assume that most of these salaries include the overtime expected for the job. The CEO salary certainly does - a CEO wouldn't clock in for the 80-100 hrs that he/she works...
 
Mirroredshades said:
My wife left that up on the pc when I got home. By those numbers, a house man should be worth $161k.


Ouch... This is what I mean.. This article fuel dangerous self entitlement. Not easy to have a 131K profession. This article is just plain wrong. It is written in the the context that men do not help with house work or child care. I especially find it funny that a mom thinks she was ready to be a nuclear engineer because of her multi-tasking abilities.

By that formula. The husband should be making 2.5X his annual salary because of the Overtime.
 
First off, sitting around and eating bon bons? Who uses this phrase anymore? This article is total bs. Not to say that taking care of your children is not an extremely difficult task, but 100 hours a week is a bunch of crap. First off, ideally there are two parents so they share the work load somewhat or should at least even if one parent works while the other doesn't. I work and my wife doesn't, but I still help out in any way that I can at night and on the weekends. Also, this bogus article is rewarding the stay at home mom for not only taking care of the child, but the other tasks that she is completing while doing this which make this completely wrong. If you don't have kids, you still have to get cooking, cleaning, laundry, yard work, etc. done and you don't factor that in to what you should get paid do you? Why factor it in now?

I think that my child, comparitive to other one year olds, sleeps about the normal amount per day. (10-11 hours per night and 3-4 hours per day)
If you do the math, that is 9-11 hours of awake time every day that the child must be watched. Even if I was an awful parent and had a babysitter watch my child every waking moment and every day, even with overtime their wage would be between $23244-$29796. You can't take into account normal day to day tasks like cleaning and cooking.
 
I sure hope the stay at home moms on welfare don't find out about this report and sue for fair wages. Imagine how much our taxes would go up.
 
Clearly there SHOULD be tax applications for those of us who choose to have a stay at home mom. Seriously, why can I deduct childcare expenses if my wife went back to work but not have ANY deduction if we choose to parent our children ourselves.

It just is not right. I am not suggesting that she should make money from it, but I should be able to claim equivalent to daycare or whatever against my income.
 
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