Moms carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. We know about the mental load and the stress and the impossible-to-meet expectations, but then there’s the physical workload, too: The hours of cleaning done every year, countless loads of laundry, untold amounts of time shuttling kids back and forth to school and friends’ houses and practice, the dozens of quick trips to the store and hours spent meal planning and cooking. If you were going to pay a person to do all of that for you, there’s no telling what it might cost! Or is there?
A new study from the folks at Insure.com has done the math and estimated that the average mother’s “salary”, a fair wage to compensate for all the hours worked — that normally go completely uncompensated! — would be $140,315.
That’s up from the same group’s estimate of $116,022 in 2021. A separate study also done in 2021 put the number at around $184k.
The number isn’t pulled from thin air. It’s based on the fair market value of real work.
Photo by Wesley Mc Lachlan on Unsplash