Kevin's Watch

What the first 2 years of a new baby's life will cost - $32,000.

The 2 year cost for each additional child - $24,000.

What a middle-class family will spend on average to raise a baby to age 18, not including college or lost wages from a parent who stays at home - $190,980.

What it costs to raise the average middle-class child to age 18, including college savings and lost income if one parent stays at home for that time - $1,589,793.

The number of hours per week a stay-at-home mom works - 92.

What a stay-at-home mom should be earning each year, based on median national salary for the various jobs she performs, from cook to day-care teacher to psychologist - $138,095.

Source: Newsweek, May 14, 2007 issue

What a stay-at-home mom should be earning each year, based on median national salary for the various jobs she performs, from cook to day-care teacher to psychologist - $138,095.

This one always bothered me...I beleive it's been around if various monetary amounts for quite a while.


Now I dont want every woman on the watch pissy at me; so we'll use the term stay at home Parent, instead of Mom.

There is that old argument that a stay at home parent Is getting paid; through the free room and board and utilities provided by the working parent.

For one thing...I don't think we live in the thirties anymore...if there is a stay at home parent in the household (as there is in mine) it's not like the other parent does nothing in the household.
I cook meals on the weekends, I help the kids with their homework, drive them to their Basketball/baseball/art classes (No hockey for us, we just haven't won the lottery yet)
I do my share of the housework; Normally washing the evening dishes, and folding the laundry that she washed through the day.

Now when She does work, the duties are split up even more; I don't expect her to do everything including work.
But when she's not working, obviously she does more.

If it ever came to pass the she was the main bread winner, then I would be expected to do the majority of the housework.

As a SAHM now, Drew, I completely agree with your statement.

What bothers me about that particular statistic is that it never takes into consideration single parents who have to do both. Earn income and do everything a stay at home parent would do.

Oh, they might hire a once a week maid, or have after school care, but essentially all of the other duties remain the same. What should they be paid?

In my case, I did most of the cleaning, dishes, laundry, lawn maintenance, car maintenance, and for the last year and a half, all the cooking and most of the parenting. I guess my point is, I did it because I was responsible for my kids, and my reward was seeing them healthy and happy. There is no monetary value for what I did, because I got (and still get) more than I gave. Articles like this are in my opinion stupid.

Unfortunatly.

A full time nanny; who also does the work of a stay at home parent...at least for eight to ten hours a day, cooking meals most do laundry, and not to mention taking care of the kids...they don't make an overly large amount of money.

My mother in law has been a full time nanny for a number of different children...usually form infant age until they start school; then she finds a new family; I think she made between twenty and thirty dollars a day.

My ex did that for a while when our kids were really young. Then we got her through nursing school (which explains the period I was doing so much of the home stuff) and she makes much more money. Frankly, I don't think I'd want to take care of other people's kids as a career.

As is true with all statistics, these numbers are of limited usefulness.

It seems like the intent of running these numbers are to monetarily quantify the 'salary' that a SAHP should expect if they were performing it for a third party, with a goal of shocking us by how valuable this particular service is. To me, this doesn't make sense for a couple of reasons.

First, we all know that a SAHPs work is never done, so I'll bet they cost it using a 14-18 hr work day to inflate the number higher.

Second, they make no attempt to judge the quality of care that is received. Just like in the corporate workforce, two people doing the same job will produce significantly different results. I've seen some really terrible SAHPs, whose kids would have turned out better had they put them in daycare, regardless of whether they got a job outside the home or not. If you think a day off work at home with 2 toddlers is akin to a vacation day, then you've obviously never done it before, and ould make a terrible SAHP. Some people make great SAHPs, some manage to fake it really well for a time, and some people just aren't cut out for it (whether they want to be or not).
The attempt to add relevance to the number by stipulating "middle-class" doesn't work -- look at two day-cares that charge the same amount of money, and tell me they are the same, and then tell me that that is the equivalent of staying at home with Mom or Dad, as far as attention, learning, socialization, values-modeling, nutrition, enjoyment...

I guess my point is that there are too many intangible factors for the job of SAHP to be quantifiable in the manner they suggest.

dw

Even though I'm not a parent (nor likely to be at this stage - my eggs are past their 'use by' date!) I see my bro & sis-in-law coping with a four year old and a 10 month old. He works full time, sis has started going to part time work again as a nurse since DannyBean started kindy. But in between, they do EVERYTHING ELSE. And they are constantly sleep-deprived (the bub is a handful, and Bean is so full of beans that he requires loads of attention as well) I know from just the Saturday afternoon when I look after the boy how MUCH energy you need just to keep up with him. And that's just for half a day!

Single parents do it even tougher. Well, the ones who aren't actually out there mass-producing for welfare benefits that is...

The ex used to say that kids are energy magnets -- they get theirs by pulling it out of the adults who take care of them....

Thanks for the nods to single parents, folks. I've been doing that dance for 12 years (since the girls were 6 and 8 ) and I am here to tell you that I am TIRED.

People keep asking me what I'm going to do with myself in the fall, when both girls are away at college. I think that for starters, I'll just sit quietly for, oh, about a week. Maybe two.

What a stay-at-home mom should be earning each year, based on median national salary for the various jobs she performs, from cook to day-care teacher to psychologist - $138,095.

When I showed this to my wife (who is a SAHM,) she quickly said "Pay up!"