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What do you think about the estimations regarding how much a "housewife's" work is worth?

Asked by JLeslie (65412points) October 15th, 2012

A facebook friend of mine just posted this:

‎$112,692 is the salary a 2012 stay-at-home mom would earn (that is, if she were paid), as determined by Salary.com. The income was calculated by combing the average wages, plus overtime, for the jobs a mom typically performs, including laundress, janitor, driver, cook, facilities manager, psychologist, and CEO (of the household). The results also showed that the average stay-at-home mom works a 94.7-hour week and would make an average of $22.94 an hour.

Do you really feel that work is worth that amount?

Don’t most people do some housework? Do we think about how much we should be paid when we are doing it?

Is it just stay home spouse’s trying to get some credit and value for the work they do, because they feel they are looked upon as not successful or not working hard?

Since they don’t get paid the money, does it matter what someone else doing the job would get paid?

Any other thoughts on the topic are appreciated.

Also, let us know if you are stay at home yourself, or your spouse, or ever have been.

About me: I have not worked in over 3 years, no kids, so now I do all the housework (once in a blue moon I have someone come to clean it) run, the errands, cooking etc. Previously, I had a career outside of the home. For me the thing that I think is the most undervalued is dealing with service people, I don’t think my husband has any idea how much time and frustration is involved with that. I was responsible for it our entire marriage, even while I worked. My life is much much easier and calm not working, even though I have taken on more of the housework. I don’t feel comfortable saying my work is worth $100k, because really what has happened is we lost my salary when I stopped working, and both my husband and I have less to do now that I don’t work. The one expense that might be higher is I had my house cleaned a little more often by a housekeeper at times when I worked. That totalled up to around $1,000 a year when I average it out.

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