work outside the home is extremely easy to value; as there is a wage attached to it…[/quote]
This is precisely the problem. Since wage-earning is easy to value by default, since one’s paycheck shows the perceived value of the work, there is no dispute that it is “work.”
OTOH, we rarely compute the work that caretakers do if they are working within their own homes or for their own families. 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? And even though the subject is taboo, what value do we place on having biological children who will carry our last name…should the person who facilitates this do it for free, especially when they risk their health, their bodies, and reduce their value to future potential suitors?
Is any of this “work”? If so, how should we value it? Because it’s traditionally been done by women (who were owned by men, much like slaves…does a slave’s work have value, even if he/she was not paid?), should we assume that this work has no value?[/quote]
CAR, if you’re a SAHP and you perform all the above business tasks for your family, that is way more than the vast majority of SAHP’s do. They can’t possibly perform these tasks because they don’t have a clue how to do them. The italicized portions of your post (above) DO cost money and those tasks have worth.
As Russ mentioned about the (complaining-about-being overworked?) homeschool moms at his gym, that is a choice. It can’t be monetized because public school in the US is essentially “free.” Sure, property owners pay taxes which go to the school districts but renters and those many public school students living in MX and “stealing” a spot at SD County schools are attending for “free.”
The reality is that the two-earner couple doesn’t do every household task to perfection. They may get someone 2-4 times per month to clean for 7-8 hrs (abt $60 per visit here in Chula Vista). Many homeowners with lots over 10K sf (working or retired) employ gardeners 2-4x monthly. Two-earner families with young children have FT daycare or after-school care. The cost varies wildly in each situation or income level. It is also partially tax deductible for income-qualified families.
It is absolutely worth it for a SAHP to work FT who earns at least $30K per year and who has no more than two children at a time in FT daycare or afterschool care. This is so because the cost of being absent from the workforce for years at a time is very great, especially for a SAHP with limited (or dated) education. The cost to the SAHP is far greater than any perceived “emotional cost” to a kid who must attend daycare or afterschool care during the business day. In CA, this is manifested in the domestic courts where judges (no matter which gender) view each parent as an equal parent. Whether the parents are married or not makes no difference. It doesn’t matter if the working parent EVER had any interaction with their kids and was a road/sky warrior 8-25 days per month for most of their child(ren)s life! They are EQUAL parents to the SAHP in the eyes of the law and deserve 50% custody timeshare because they are the natural parent and they petition for their 50%. The vast majority of the (child-support) payor parents (the ones who are working FT and the other parent is a SAHP) lawyer up immediately in the event they sense a “breakup” and will be counseled immediately to petition for their 50%. They’re allowed to get live in care for their household to take care of their kids if they travel for work frequently or work night shifts and they do. THIS is much cheaper for the CS payor over the long run because it is not court-ordered and garnished from their pay and the amount doesn’t set a precedent for future CS hikes initiated by the receiving parent. The payor can stop it (the overnight childcare) at any time and just pay for the service intermittently when they need it. If the payor should get a new live-in partner or spouse in the future, that new partner may be willing to contribute some child care to the payor’s children.
In nearly all cases, the former SAHP is left with 50% of their time without their children and if they don’t seek any kind of work and begin working (if they don’t have other types of monthly income), they may very well eventually be imputed a salary by the court and that arbitrary salary will be used to compute permanent CS against the payor’s monthly income.
The vast majority of kids (especially toddlers and preschoolers) LOVE daycare with all the attention, toys and other kids once they get used to it … this usually takes 10 minutes to 3 days, lol. These kids are usually highly socialized upon entering kindergarten and don’t have unhealthy attachments to parents and toddler habits they’re still working on getting rid of like many 4-5 yr olds do who always had SAHPs.
The second child in FT daycare is typically discounted 25% if both are at the same facility/home daycare situation. Many, many young parents drop their kids off at a grandparent’s home 2-5 days per week, which cuts their daycare cost significantly. Headstart, DASH and other sliding scale preschool and afterschool programs are available at reasonable prices to income-qualified families. Scouting has daycamp in Balboa park with daycare afterwards for several weeks in the summers. So do the YMCAs all over the county. These non-profits offer sliding scare daycare services, activities and camperships to income-qualified families.
Meanwhile, the $30K FT working parent at the age of 24 (assuming HS Diploma and possibly a 1-yr certificate program at a CC and working as a car dealership bookkeeper) can get raises and attend one CC night class at a time relevant to their job. This could enable them to make $35K in 2-3 yrs time and close to $50K by the time both their kids are in school FT. If they work for any branch of govm’t, they will get step raises automatically and be in line for promotional opportunities which are not open to the public.
H@ll, this same parent could have gotten a degree after their kids were in school FT and started making over $100K by the time their kids were in MS or HS!
I myself worked with many, many parents of babies and young children over the years while working in local govm’t and also long before the FMLA was passed into law in 1993. NONE OF THESE PARENTS EVER QUIT and several had 4-5 kids all born while they were employed FT. Several were military spouses who let their member spouse deploy by themselves repeatedly for up to two years so they could keep their jobs!
When I began working for the gubment, the beginning clerical salary for an “Intermediate Clerk Typist” was just over $16K per year! By the time my co-workers were 50 yrs old, the vast majority had rec’d several promotions and were making $55K to $69K per year. Only a few had furthered their education beyond a HS Diploma but had taken evening classes at CC relevant to their duties. The vast majority of my former coworkers are now retired with pensions and their kids are grown. Most have paid-off homes. Some take care of their grandkids part of the week.
Sorry for the rant here, but I don’t think all simple household tasks can be monetized and like scaredy stated, not every parent cares if their houses and yards are perfect (even if the SAHP does). We must accept that society does not value household work and child care the same as it does working outside the home for pay.[/quote]
BG, I do all of this work, as do many other SAHPs…and some do even more than I do. I think your views are skewed by your own experiences and personal beliefs. It’s fine that you chose another option, but in no way does that invalidate what other people do in their own lives.
You’ve mentioned before that you didn’t take your kids for walks or let them play outside. And while your kids have turned out great, according to you, many others would have serious problems with your child-rearing decisions. Also, in EVERY case that I know of where there is a SAHP, the choice was made by the family; it was not a unilateral decision. So the risks should be borne equally between both spouses if things don’t work out.
You come from the era of “Mommy Wars,” and we could go back and forth about which choices are “right” or “wrong.” But the truth is that there is no black and white here. What’s right for one family might be wrong for another, and vice versa.
And do NOT confuse cost-shifting with “free” or “low-cost.” None of those things you’ve mentioned above (“free” public school, sliding-scale tuition, grandparents taking care of kids, etc.) is free. The cost is simply borne by someone else. And all of the duties I’ve mentioned in my post — not just what you’ve italicized — can have a value ascribed to it. If you were to have someone in the marketplace do those tasks, it would cost you a LOT more than $30,000/yr.
