What is Mom Worth?

Being a stay at home mom sounds like a wonderful career choice. No more rushing out of the house just to sit in morning traffic. Wearing whatever you want. An end to all the meetings and reports, more time with the kids and think of all the projects around the house that you can get done. But that is just fantasy. The reality of a stay at home mom is more daunting. There is no vacation time, no sick days, and you are not in charge of your own schedule, the kids rule that area. And no matter how much you do in a day, there is always more. More laundry, more dirty dishes, more vacuuming, more toys on the floor, and more food to prepare.

So what is mom really worth? The folks at Salary.com have released their 9th Annual Mom Salary Survey. This year a stay at home mom does the equivalent of ten different jobs for an annual salary of $122,732, up five percent from last year. At least she got a raise!

How does Salary.com come up with these numbers? They take 10 jobs that closely match what mom does around the house. Things like housekeeper, laundry service, cook, driver, daycare teacher, psychologist, facilities manager, and CEO/CFO. Then they survey over 12,000 moms to quantify how much time they spend doing each job every week. The salaries are divided and weighted based on time given to each “job” mom performs. Next they add overtime. According to their survey, stay at home moms put in 56 hours of overtime a week, versus 17 hours a week for the average working mother devotes to the same jobs. So that means moms in the office work about 57 hours a week, while stay at home moms are on the job a whopping 96 hours every week.

“This is our ninth year looking at the value of mom's work. It has become a popular annual event because it not only recognizes the critical value of what moms do, but educates the public on the key factors that determine what employers are willing to pay for a given job," said Meredith Hanrahan, senior vice president at Salary.com, Inc. "We value the job of mom based on her job description and calculate what an employer would have to pay in cash if they were to hire someone to do all that a mom does."

If you want to know what you or any stay at home mom should be paid, check out the Mom Salary Wizard. You can create a fake pay stub and show the family what you are really worth.