FWIW, I meant to put this in the other thread, but got pretty exhausted over there. When our kids were little and we were updating our life insurance, we had to calculate what it would cost to replace the SAHP (me) if I died. For us, the minimum was $65,000/year. These were our calculations, and they were based on real costs, not the calculations of the insurance agent who would have liked to pump up the numbers even more for a better commission. It would be a bit less now if we were to put our kids in a public school, though we would still have to arrange for someone to pick them up and care for them for the rest of the day and through the night, often for multiple days at a time. If my DH were to choose to continue homeschooling them, it would cost the same or more than $65,000.
This is the value to our family of having a SAHP, and that’s just taking into account the financial value, not including the “intangibles” of having a SAHP at home full-time. That’s why the value of these services would fall on a range, as some families have greater needs/desires, and some people are able to contribute more than others. But there is no denying that SAHPs provide services that have a very real value — emotionally, socially, and financially.
While this number might seem high to someone like UCGal who has a spouse who was willing/able to share all of the duties, and where both parents were able to work reduced hours (but still make a fairly decent income because of their particular career choices — well done!), our family is not in the same boat. My DH has a very chaotic, erratic, irregular schedule, so we had to calculate the cost of having someone available 24/7 — literally — to care for the kids and home (that’s where the 24/7 came from in my post, UCGal, I wasn’t engaging in “Mommy War’s” by trying to compare the value of a SAHP to an income-earning parent…I was literally referring to needing someone who would be available 24/7, often at a moment’s notice, so that the income-earning spouse could continue to work).
Many couples have to deal with this issue, BTW. Truck drivers, oil rig operators, doctors and other healthcare workers (especially those who are regularly on call), airline pilots, people in the entertainment industry, traveling salespeople, and others who have to travel out of town/country regularly for business, etc. There are actually quite a few jobs that do not have regular days/hours. For a family like this, having a SAHP or someone with the flexibility of a SAHP is probably “worth more” than they would be to a family where the primary income-earner has a local job with a standard M-F, 8-5 job (or better), where they can more easily arrange for “traditional” childcare.
