How much should a full-time mother's salary be?
All new mothers and homemakers know that devoting themselves fulltime to their children and homemaking activities is a job. But if it is a job, how much should they be paid?
This is a never-ending question and a hot-button issue that often sees opposing opinions between mothers who are full-time homemakers and mothers who work outside of the home.
There is a website called ProntoPro.it that has attempted to respond to this question by trying to quantify the work of a full-time mother in economic terms. And, here is what they say the monthly net salary should be.
via prontopro.it
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration/Wikimedia
To determine the hypothetical monthly salary of a full-time mother and homemaker, all the tasks carried out in a week were quantified in hours. The ProntoPro.it website has estimated that a full-time mother spends about 4 hours a week in her car driving her children to school and to their various recreational activities. Considering an hourly wage of $15 USD (13 EUR) that amounts to a total of $238 USD (208 EUR) per month.
In addition, a mother who is a full-time homemaker also dedicates about 7 hours a week to child care, for which she should be paid $263.46 USD (230.40 EUR) per month. Then there is the laundry and between washing, drying, and ironing clothes, this requires 4 hours a week, which is a total of $177.70 USD (€155.40 EUR) a month.
Furthermore, a full-time homemaker also does housecleaning for an average of 14 hours a week for a total of $640 USD (€560 EUR) per month. Next, add $1440.77 USD (€1,260 EUR) per month just for cooking. Then when the children start going to school, their mother helps them with their homework for at least 6 hours a week, which corresponds to $548,50 USD (€480 EUR) a month. Therefore, the monthly total, which also takes into account some additional tasks, amounts to $3,482 USD (€3,045 EUR).
But wait ... there is more. The website also admits to having actually calculated the monthly salary downward, omitting some aspects of being a full-time homemaker which specifically involve children, that require a high capacity for multitasking, considerable medical knowledge, and excellent time management skills. This is if we limit ourselves to only considering the material aspects. However, there are also the educational and formative aspects to consider, which are practically impossible to quantify in terms of money.
