This essay pisses me off

[pegkerr]

Salary.com recently came out with an estimate of what a stay-at-home mom would earn if awarded their proper due by the market: $134,121. Carrie Lukas writes an essay on the National Review to denounce the very idea that women should think of being paid for their work raising children and managing families.

I will concede that she makes a good point here:

All adults, not just mothers, perform varied tasks. A single man is his own CEO, making a strategic plan for his life, allocating his resources, and weighing big decisions. Single women drive themselves, clean up their homes, and manage their household. Is the single woman who fixes herself a sandwich supposed to demand pay as a cook?

Here is where her logic breaks down:

Who is this supermom supposed to go to for her raise? The truth is no one is going to pay her. Her family benefits from her work as a CEO, but the rest of society gains little from her individual efforts. She also profits most from cleaning her kitchen, chauffeuring her kids, and repairing her home. The CEO of a Fortune 500 company, by contrast, is expected to create wealth and value for hundreds of thousands of shareholders and customers. (emphasis added)

That's her blind spot. Mothers socialize children. Children, in their raw state, as kijjohnson says, are simply primates, who would fling their poo unless taught otherwise. The process of socializing children so that they can become educated and from there go on to do every fricking job necessary to run the entire goddamn planet--that job falls mainly to mothers. Lukas goes on to say:

Women perform these duties because they love their families. Moms aren't daycare providers worth $14 per hour—they are loving parents driven to care for those tiny beings who are more precious to them than any amount of money.

True, women perform these duties because they love their families, but also because society refuses to see and acknowledge with payment the value of their time. And because society gets away with chintzing out women with treacly condescension like this: they are loving parents driven to care for those tiny beings who are more precious to them than any amount of money. Women's work is soooooo important that they are unmoved by ignoble considerations like mere money.

How very convenient for society in getting it off the hook from paying the bill.

For an excellent essay on motherhood's societal role, and how society gets away with undervaluing it, and how as a result women see the strains of raising their children as only their individual problem, see The Motherhood Manifesto here.

Cross-posted to bad_feminists.

Comments

[liadan-m.livejournal.com]

In doing family system research this weekend, Mom and I came across the following quote:

"A two-income household is not a two job household. It's a three job household; his job, her job, and managing the house."

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a potent argument for polyamory. Or possibly better social systems, so managing could be limited to managing and not have to include washing cleaning, shopping, and cooking.

It also makes it very clear how unfiar it is when one half of a couple has to do two of those three jobs.

[liadan-m.livejournal.com]

I'm for the poly route, myself. But managing the household when there aren't children involved is a lot easier, esp. according to my mother.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Well, you could have a poly household and still have children. I'd think it would be easier to have multiple incomes funding one person staying at home raising kids and managing the house.

[moony]

Mental image of small children running about flinging poo = *SPORFLE*

Ask any service industry employee about badly-behaved children whose mothers (and fathers) do nothing to discipline them, or abuse them in public, and they will say that parents who DO actively parent their children are doing society the biggest favour of all: preventing the ongoing development of future adult entitlement brats.

For that, mothers (and fathers) deserve medals. Or at least foot massages.

Being paid

[duponthumanite.livejournal.com]

I think women should get paid:

1) Minimum wage
2) Small business schemes
3) if they have a child with a disability: adoption subsidy or carer's pension.

Adelaide

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

I have to add that not every mother loves her family -- there are mothers who don't care, or regret having children. And there are even more mothers who love their children, but do not happily or easily perform the socialization required for whatever reason.

It's a pervasive and I think destructive myth that maternal love is universal. The assumption that all mothers feel or think or act the same way with the same motivations makes me berserk. Yet another example of marginalizing a woman's autonomy.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Mothers socialize children.

What about the rest of us? Shouldn't active aunties (like me!) get a cut of this too? Mothers are definitely not the only ones socializing children. My mother spends about 15 hours a week with my nephew; my father spends about 10 hours a week with him. I used to spend that time with him too, when I lived in the same town; now I just see him a couple of times a month and talk to him on the phone a couple of times a week. What about neighbours and friends who are helping to socialize children?

Also, can we charge bad parents who screw up their children and make the rest of us suffer? :P

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Coincidentally, the original article pissed ME off. It's just a stupid puff piece apparently intended to raise the self-esteem of stay-at-home mothers (the fact that they specified "mothers" rather than "parents" is no accident - it was clearly aimed at women). I think it's sad that prattling about pretend salaries is supposed to make women feel better about themselves. But apparently it does, since this type of article has been resurfacing periodically for years in magazines like "Lady's Home Journal." I found it condescending the first time I encountered it, and I still find it so.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of the bitter Army joke: " 'Nothing's too good for our soldiers,' but they haven't figured out how to pay us less than nothing yet."

[mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com]

Ya raising healthy productive members of society certainly seems like a good solid investment for a fortune 500 or a society.

I think stay at home mothers should have it somehow contribute to their social security fund. They should get bonuses when their kids turn out as working non-violent members of society too.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

Women perform these duties because they love their families.

Aarrgghh!!
I hate that and the corollary that if a woman complains about the amount of housework she does, it's because she does NOT love her children/family. She should be singing a happy song all day, as she scrubs the toilet, washes the dishes, fixes the meals, etc etc. No greater joy than serving her family. She should be energized by all this loving service she does. It's a privilege. An honor. Wanting to have time fo personal enjoyment, following personal goals, or simply her own hobby, well, that is just is SO selfish.

[skg.livejournal.com]

I agree that stay-at-home mothers are devalued by society, but the concept of the salary being $134K I think is a bit askew.

What about mothers who work outside the home?

I'm willing to bet that a good chunk of the work that stay-at-home mothers/parents do during the day is done by working moms/parents (and working people) in a much more concentrated timeframe. After all, the house still needs to be cleaned, laundry done, grocery shopping completed, meals cooked and served and cleaned up after, homework checked, children bathed, etc.

If they are going to write an article like this, it should go beyond the fatuous (as dreamshark pointed out), patting people on the head and telling them what they would have earned and making them feel all self-righteous. Tell us what the incremental value is that should be paid to all parents for raising productive members of society. Tell us what (as ivyblossom mentioned) we can bill back to those who do more harm than good.

Our society may devalue stay-at-home parents, but it shouldn't also patronize them on top of that.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

I think the survey said stay at home moms put in around 90 hours a week of housework, while work outside the home moms put in around 49.9 hours a week of housework. So, WOH moms "earn" more than half of the theoretical $134K.

[mark356.livejournal.com]

Though Lukas's question is more "who would pay the mothers?" than questioning their value, I think.