Stay at home mothers, and that salary stupidity: They actually presume a 96 hour work week, and two kids. Why more or less children should actually matter to a great degree is frankly beyond me.

This is the actual list from some ridiculous survey. The email gives a few more careers, and that's actually what I would love to find, but could not. (Else, I would have added them, as well)

Here goes...why this is utter bullshit:



How Much Should a Stay-at-Home Mom Earn?
Job Title National Average Annual Salary

Teacher-Daycare Center $26,891

If this mother is not an accredited teacher with a teaching degree, she is nothing more than a freelance tutor. Those make anywhere from NOTHING as volunteers, to minimum wage, or perhaps a couple of dollars over, to a maximum of around $10-$12 HOURLY for dealing with kids in HIGHSCHOOL level courses. So, assuming that Moo has nothing more than a Highschool or partial college education herself, and that it's not in education, we can pretty much safely say, with children at a median age of 9, that she'd be making about $9 dollars an hour, maximum. Chances are, she's not spending more than 2 hours a day doing this, five days a week..so that's around $90 bucks, at the most generous figure, per week.

Then, let's call all the rest what it properly is...BABY SITTER...that often below-minimum wage under the table job with which you saddle teenagers.

We'll figure out this figure mooooomentarily.

Let's assume, however, that Moo makes $5 an hour plus another $1 per hour per child. That's about right considering the figures I've heard on the afternoon judge shows. So...here, $6 per hour, above and beyond the rest.

Van Driver $30,762

In who's DREAMS. School bus drivers around here make around $7.00 an hour to start. Let's assume that Moomy, being the involved sort, spends about two hours a day shuttling around, 7 days a week. That's another $98 bucks there, per week.

Housekeeper $18,750

This is about right. I won't argue. Let's see...that's how much? Around $8 bucks an hour? All depends really on how much of a housekeeper she is, really, doesn't it? If she's a slob, she spends maybe half an hour a day on this, or less. If she's not, well, perhaps one to two hours. Let's go with the one hour figure. That's $56.00. Let's subtract 25%, now, because she also has to clean for herself...making that what...$42?


So far, we've taken up 31 hours. We'll get to that actual time count figure in a moment, as well...

Cook $31,099

What kind of cook? I doubt most short-order cooks make nearly this much, and they have to serve HUNDREDS...not just four. But let's take this figure, and assume..hmm...45 minutes per day. REALLY doesn't take that long to slap together macaroni and cheese, or a PBJ, now, does it? Of course, there are women who spend more time, or make really good meals on weekends, etc...so...we'll up that to 1 hour, and be really generous, per day, average. We'll also go for the slightly more realistic figure of around $10 per hour..which is frankly still pretty damned generous, even taking into account the possibility of the odd dinner or birthday party. Now, let's deduct 25% for the woman's having to cook for herself anyway, and another say...25% for the nights they eat out, or she goes through the drivethrough at McMoo's...and we get $35 dollars per week.

CEO $612,623

NO. Just, no. IF she even handles the finances, this doesn't even qualify her as a full-charge bookkeeper. THOSE only make around 50k a year in a good market, with some pretty heavy experience. MAYBE 60k, if lucky, long term, very good, or posessing a degree in accounting. Balancing a checkbook, and paying a few bills is simple clerical scutwork...and that's around $10 an hour again, generously. It's highly doubtful as well she'd be the only one making budgetary decisions, and again, the level at which she'd be doing it would be simple clerical, anyway. How much time might she spend on something like this? Let's say generously four hours a month...so..one hour a week. That's another $10 dollars. But wait..she'd have to do this for herself, anyway...so we're going to give her...1/4 of that, being generous, for the added complexity of a few extra bucks and a couple of extra bills...this comes to a grand total of around $2.50 a week.

So, we are at 39 hours per week. Let's continue, shall we?

Nurse $56,113

Not unless she's got a degree and licensed, she's not. At best, she's a souped up aid or orderly...and you guessed it, around $10-$12 bucks, hourly. Of course, she'd have to be watching those kids, anyway, and fetching cups of water, etc., anyway, so we can cut whatever 'nursing' time there is by about half right there. The time spent taking them to the doctor goes into driving...so no money there. And there's no flippin' big deal about tweezing a splinter, putting a band-aid on a boo boo, or shoving a bit of triaminic down bratleighs throat...none of these things take more than minutes. Unless one or more child is VERY sick...of course, this figure is so negligible as to count for SQUAT. I'll be generous, though, and figure in 1 hour, or $12 bucks, per week, averaged.


General Maintenance Worker $29,656

In between Phil and Oprah, or game shows and judge shows? If it's home improvement beyond what went with the house work, well, I've known electrician's assistants that make less than this, and handymen who make a whole lot less, so I have to wonder what state this is presuming, and whether or not it's union. Since Mommy is a non-union job, and since I'd lean more toward labeling her skills/marketability somewhere around day labourer in general, I'd say we can play pick the minimum wage if she does home improvement at all, and maybe go generously a buck or two over..say, $8 an hour? Let's figure she has been a REALLY busy mommy, and over the course of an entire year maybe repainted one of the kid's rooms, recaulked the tub, and a few other miscellaneous goodies. Including half of that with the house work already, and being very generous, I'd give her half an hour a day over the course of the year. So...3 1/2 hours a week. Deduct a quarter of that, because she'd need to do at least some of this even if she lived all on her own, and we are not counting her redoing her OWN room, in either event, and you get around $28 bucks a week, VERY generously.

So, let's see what Moomy's weekly salary actually would be!

Base Pay (40 Hours) $43, 461 (Their laughably silly figure)

$307.50 per week, straight salary, at around 43 hours per week, or, I believe, $15,990 per year, gross. That means before taxes. Since moomy there should at least be PRETENDING toward a supervisory role, we are going to give her the benefit of the doubt...she makes SALARY. That means..you guessed it...NO OVERTIME. So, their overtime figure (Overtime Pay (60 Hours..Exaggerated from the actual already exagerated 96 in the survey) $88,009 ) becomes even more ludicrous.

Add to this those probably off-the-book babysitting hours (The other 45) at that generous $6 bucks an hour, and you get an additional $270 per week, or $14,400 per year.

So, Moomy's gross would be a rather appropriate $30,390 dollars per year (As opposed to the hugely ridiculous figure given by Salary.com of $131,471)

less taxes on the $15,990 to get the net, or on the entirety if you want to make the moo honest or paranoid...Which places playing Moomy squarely where it belongs: Moomy would be bringing home just about $23,300 bucks per year for a 96 hour work week.

Also, all things considered, we probably could deduct a few of those hours, now, couldn't we? Moomy sleeps sometimes. That's possibly up to 8 hours per night, once the little dears are out of diapers. She also doesn't have to deal with them from around seven am until around 4pm, depending (Eight to three if they are not bussed) Once they are around five. Once they turn 13-15, depending on maturity, and just how overprotective moo gets, she may even do other things for all but an hour or three a day (IF that!)...that do NOT involve the kids, especially as she (hopefully) places more and more of those mooly duties onto snotleigh and bratley in the form of chores.

So that 96 hour figure? Only counts until the kids hit FIVE. At that point, an averaged 40 hours a week can be dropped right off from the baby sitting side of the mootime. Once the kids are old enough to take on chores, you can drop another five to ten hours a week from Moo's straight pay from the appropriate areas involving working around the house, along with probably an hour a day from 'teaching', and by fifteen, pretty much all babysitting hours, DONE. By this time, the kid also probably should be long used to public transit instead of that 2hr per day figure that went into the moomobile. That brings Moo pretty much down to a part time job for the last third of Moo-time.

(Of course, you can also make deductions as needed if Moomy has hired help, such as a maid's service, housekeeper, cook, and/or Nanny.)

I hope that that was helpful, and made some form of sense.

*EDIT: Please know, I do allow for that in-home work being worth something as a part of a parenting couple. He makes money outside of the home. She should have some input on household finances, and some money of HER own, as possible, of course, because they should both be working together as a family. It's not worth a damn, of course, to anyone ELSE beyond that home, and otherwise, it IS frankly volunteer...but since BOTH parents volunteered to do this by sprogging, where possible, salaries commensurate with his realistic earnings SHOULD come out of DUH. Of course, if she didn't put him through college, etc, and this is all she ever did, frankly, I don't agree that she should get any MORE than this in alimony, with child support another issue...and less if she never had to do shit, instead of more because she married rich...but that's a whole 'nother rant.*

-Dira-