Speaking of Numbers

I'm not here to bash men. I'm not here to bash the system. I'm merely here to point out that I'm worth a lot more in theory than in reality. Or is it reality than in theory?

A story in the Boston Globe recently revealed findings of a study by Massachusetts-based company Salary.com. According to that study, a mother who works outside the home would earn an extra $85,876 a year on top of her actual wages for the work she does at home. And a full-time stay-at-home mom would earn a whopping $134,121 a year if paid for all her work, which the paper pointed out is an amount similar to a top U.S. ad executive, a marketing director or a judge.

To find these rather shocking numbers, the survey determined the earning power of the 10 jobs respondents said most closely make up Mom's role in the household:
-- Housekeeper
-- Day-care teacher
-- Cook
-- Computer operator
-- Laundry machine operator
-- Janitor
-- Facilities manager
-- Van driver
-- Chief executive
-- Psychologist

I love the numbers they came up with in this study. That's at LEAST what I think I'm worth. However, I think I might have to split my extra home wages with my husband, who shares the duties of cleaning, interacting with the child, operating the computer, doing laundry, and shuttling the child to and from daycare. And we all know I'm not exactly an expert in the psychology department. He probably deserves extra pay for dealing with that.

Still, there's an unwritten rule, a pressure, a social expectation, that working women, whether outside the home or within, should do it all. Be everything to everyone in every situation.

Employed mothers reported spending on average 44 hours a week at their outside job and 49.8 hours at their home job, while the stay-at-home mother worked 91.6 hours a week, it showed.

We have to pinch pennies and live in houses less desirable than we'd like and refrain from spoiling our kids as much as we'd want.

And we're tired.