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Yours truly, in all my stay-at-home mom glory.
These stories pop up from time to time, usually around Mother’s Day.
If you monetized everything a stay-at-home parent does each day, how much would they be pulling in annually?
According to a report by Paula Bernstein nearly a year ago right here on Strollerderby, stay-at-home parents should be rolling in the dough to the tune of $118,000 smackers.
A new number has been tallied by the folks over at Mint.com, and it doesn’t come close to the previous figure. As the Washington Post reports, if the job of a stay-at-home parent were salaried it would draw, on average, close to six figures: $96,261.
Why so much less than the earlier figure?
Investopedia is reporting that it would cost nearly $100,000 annually to pay for all the services a homemaker provides. The economists say they calculated only those tasks that have monetary value (because my love and nagging are priceless, obviously) and used the lowest value for each calculation.
Private Chef, House Cleaner, Child Care, Personal Driver, Laundry Service, and Lawn Maintenance were included in the tally, bringing the grand total to $96,261 per year. It was noted that Lawn Maintenance was a “less common, but possible duty of a homemaker.”
As Strollerderby reported last May, Salary.com offers a calculator that lets you determine the worth of a homemaker, based on the number of children and your region of the United States. Using that calculator, my annual worth as a Philadelphia-area stay-at-home mom of four kids is a whopping $122,011.
Sisters are doing it for themselves, but they want help from their employers.
As I noted earlier, Working Mother magazine recently interviewed nearly 4,000 mothers nationwide to determine what their worries and needs are. We know now that both mothers who work outside the home and stay-at-home moms carry the weight of retro expectations on their shoulders when it comes to their domestic life, but what about life outside the home? What do career-oriented mothers want and need in order to both flourish in the workplace and feel as if they’re providing fully for their children?
According to Working Mother, the 5 most important benefits for working moms are: Continue reading »
What's the one thing working mothers and SAHMs worry about? You won't believe it.
Working Mother magazine released a study this morning called What Moms Choose: The Working Mother Report, “a survey of 3,700 mothers nationwide reveal[ing] surprising insights into the differences and similarities between moms who work outside the home and moms who stay at home, as well as the factors that influence their decisions.”
As mothers, we’re all aware of the hot-button issues that make us feel divided and judged by our peers, and working vs. staying at home is certainly near the top of the list. Each lifestyle choice brings with it its own set of guilty feelings, sense of inadequacy and source of pride (sometimes verging on arrogant righteousness). So, besides caring for our children, what do working mothers and stay-at-home mothers have in common? It turns out, there’s one thing both groups of women worry that they’ll be judged on, and it’s honestly so hilariously, ridiculously sad and retro that you’ll laugh when you read it.
The one concern both working mothers and stay-at-home mothers have in common is… Continue reading »
My husband Serge, and our daughter, Violet.
“My husband is an excellent father — if only I would get out of the way.”
It’s the last sentence of Lyz Lenz’s fabulous article titled Leaving Baby With Dad.
Studies generally show that despite the fact that most women now work outside the home, women are still responsible for the majority of the child-rearing.
Lenz is exploring whether the problem is a result of a male-dominated culture or if moms are actually to blame. Continue reading »
Perhaps we're multi-tasking too much?
A Forbes poll recently revealed that whether you are a working mom or a stay-at home mom, you are a little stressed out.
In fact, they say that both groups are equally stressed. While the poll made some buzz in the media, was any mom really surprised by it?
Me, at home with my daughter, Violet
For the past decade I’ve worked as a producer in local television news. I’ve covered a lot of amazing stories during my career including the kidnapping and unbelievable return of Elizabeth Smart, the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, and some pretty high profile murder cases.
I loved it. I was never bored. And then I had a child and I hated it. The guilt over not spending more time with my daughter was crippling. She bonded more with her dad than with me and I felt left out. I determined that it would not be the same with my second child.
I gave birth to Henry a little over two months ago and was able to quit my job to become a freelance writer while on maternity leave. I am now a stay-at-home-mom who works from home. Guess what? The guilt is the same. I feel guilty I’m not entertaining the kids enough or that they may be watching too much TV.
The whole experience made me wonder: are working moms more prone to depression than those who stay at home?
I have an answer.
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