[quote=CA renter]
And please do not do what UCGal did, where she claimed that I said something that was neither stated nor implied.
[/quote]
I quoted you directly, previously, showing you directly compared a nanny working 40 hours a week to a SAHP working 24×7 – and pointed out the comparison was invalid because the working parent does the labor for free (like a SAHP) for the rest of the week outside the nanny’s hours.
That and your rants about feminism that seem so far off track to what mainstream feminism is. You’ve chosen some fringe folks to rant about – even though they aren’t representative, they’re fringe.
Here are some quotes of yours that I have issue with. I agree we’re probably talking past each other.
[quote=CA renter]
How much would you have to pay for someone to be there for your children 24/7? How much to make all the appointments and shuttle people to these appointments and manage all the follow-up? How much to manage a family’s finances — including bill paying, negotiating contracts and doing due diligence on service providers, doing investment research and allocating financial resources? How about a family’s financial/legal business like estate planning, insurance, home purchases, etc…especially if that tends to be managed by one spouse? [/quote]
My issue here is that many households with 2 working parents manage to do many of these tasks without paying outside people. You are comparing what you do 24×7 to what many working parents cram into the remaining 128 hours of the week that they aren’t at work. I’m not saying it doesn’t have value. But it’s unpaid work in the vast majority of households – whether the parents work or not. And outside that 40 hours of work time, parents are with their kids. (16×5 + 24×2).
I went back and re-read your response – and you clearly miss my point.
[quote=CA renter]
I think that people aren’t getting what I’ve posted for some reason. I never said that a SAHP’s work should be valued more than the same work done by someone who works for wages. The point is that if the SAHP isn’t doing these things, then somebody else is. The cost of these things should be ascribed to the value of what a SAHP does. If the parents are both working outside of the home and both sharing these duties, it doesn’t change a thing. This work still has the same value.[/quote]
To the bolded – most of these things (perhaps outside of 40 hours of childcare) are done by working parents in the remaining 128 hours of the week. The tasks still get done. Usually unpaid. By someone who already spent the day working for wages.
My point is: For most households these are unpaid, do it yourself tasks. Sure – you CAN pay to have someone manage your money, run your kids to soccer on the weekends, run the family…. But most of us either can’t afford to pay outside people, or choose not to spend our money that way. You don’t get to count the value as both unpaid earned income and also as saved money. Some families choose to pay for these tasks other choose to do them themselves to save the money.
I am currently not working outside the house and have an 11 year old and 13 year old. I have made the choice to not work outside the home right now – because we were fortunate enough to be able to afford to have this option. It is a CHOICE. It is not one that I get paid for nor do I expect income, imputed or virtual. In fact, it had tangible negative impact on our income stream. (obviously.)
I am mostly doing the same tasks I did prior to retiring – just less time crunched to do it. My house might be a little cleaner, though. I don’t really see that I am owed money or that my “value contributed to the household” went up. My amount of sleep went up because I’m no longer juggling as much… I can pace out the tasks of cleaning/yardwork/estate planning/negotiating contracts/child-rearing/coaching robotics teams/baking bread from scratch/investing/travel planning/meal prep. But I was doing all of that prior to retiring – and working a 32 hour work week.
Obviously you add value to your household with everything you do. That’s why you made the choices you did. Hopefully Mr. CAR isn’t one of the cads you describe who doesn’t appreciate what you do.
But you seem to fail to recognize that many families manage to accomplish most of the tasks you describe, in the hours outside of earning income. Yes – it adds stress to a household and exhaustion to the parents – but it gets done. Usually for no income… but in order to save money so that it can be spent on other things.
Again – You obviously add value to your family. But so do parents who juggle many of the same tasks while working.
