AIBU to think the economic value of what I do as a mother and housekeeper should actually be quantifiable?

[AndreaMartina]

I've been on maternity leave and somewhere between the 3am feeds and the fifth load of washing this week I started actually adding it up. Not venting, genuinely doing the maths.
Childcare alone in London runs £15-20 an hour. I'm doing that plus household management, appointment coordination, emotional labour for the whole family, meal planning, the mental load of remembering literally everything.
I built a calculator to invoice for it properly. Mine came to £83k.
AIBU to think this number should be part of every conversation about the gender pay gap? Not as a joke as an actual economic argument.

yanbu at all

I think part of the bigger picture issue here is that you see it as the gender pay gap, the automatic assumption that women do all this work isn’t inherent it’s society’s expectations. Why are you doing absolutely everything? (Unless of course you’re a single parent)

From an economic perspective who do you think should fund this?

I never understand this argument. Why are you doing everything?

If you have made the choice to have children then you are responsible for them. I chose not to so am not going to contribute via my taxes to raising other people's kids. Is this what you are asking for. Apologies if im is wrong, I often am!

But all adults have to do those things, it just increases the bigger the family. I know it tends to fall to the woman if there are children but it doesn't have to. When you go back to work will your baby's father pick up his share?

Most people do life admin and offer support to friends and family, clean, cook etc. It's not specific to being a parent (although it increases if you have children) or being female.

And if two adults made the choice then one fucked off after the first year so you’ve been lone parenting for over 13 years now?

Appointment coordination? Unless you have a chronic condition needing regular treatment how many are there to coordinate? Emotional labour? Sorry what’s that talking to your family?

Can’t tell if this is a genuine post or not

I always think back to my grandmothers who lived long before the time of mental load and ‘emotional labour’. I haven’t heard that one before! Both were born round about the turn of the 20th century. One had six kids, the other four. One was a hospital laundress, the other a hairdresser. Both worked all their lives. Children went to work with them until they went to school. My father remembered being left ‘out back’ at the hairdressing salon. Both had husbands in trade. Both outlived their husbands.
My point is that they worked very very hard. They expected to do so and never had a moments self pity. They were funny and intelligent and would have done anything for their families. They never expected anything from the state and they would have no understanding of the term emotional labour.
I remember feeling safe and loved by these strong women.
I worked full time until my mid sixties. I do lots of childcare for my grandkids. I help with money and have given significant sums to my kids to help them with houses and cars. Should I instead be charging a huge salary for helping my family? I just don’t get the resentment for helping, nurturing your own children. I worked to make sure I could provide for them. It has been a privilege. Most of my friends are the same. Helping youngsters, both your own and others, is part of the fabric of life. I just don’t get the overwhelming resentment from women who have the choice whether or not to have a family. If you don’t want kids you don’t have to have them. Contraception is effective and freely available. I have been married forever and we both consider ourselves so lucky to have prominent roles in our grandchildren’s lives. It all goes so fast. Count your blessings whilst you can. Few people at the end of their lives wish they had charged their family more for ‘emotional labour’.

I have also seen a number of my contemporaries die. I remember when an NCT mum died when her children were five and three. It was heartbreaking. More than anything she wanted to live and see them to adulthood. She would have given anything for the opportunity to provide emotional labour to her family. But she died. It is frightening to face death as a young parent. It is frightening to watch other parents die when they have young kids. It puts stuff in perspective. I remember vowing that I would never complain about anything as long as I got to see my children grow up. Life teeters. Don’t waste it on resentment.

Not really because it’s nothing to do with your employer or the government what happens at home (unless it impacts on your work). A lady in our work has two parents with severe issues she’s caring for, there’s no difference really between her and someone who has children (except different issues and worries, and also if I could at this moment pay for her to take a few years out of work I’d do it!!)

Am I misunderstanding? It’s your own DC that you chose to have. It’s just part and parcel of the life you chose. I’m not sure it will ever come into a conversation on the gender pay gap rightly ot wrongly. I have been a single parent to my 2 DC for 17 years working full time. I have never seen it as anything more than working hard to support the life I chose and the DCs I had (well ok I didn’t chose my ex having an affair and running off whilst I was pregnant). Maybe more the fool me.

A meaningful measure of whether someone has been a net contributor or net beneficiary of the state must include all forms of socially productive labour, not just taxation. That means valuing paid work, unpaid work, training, and civic participation at today’s economic rates.

T = total taxes paid
V = value of paid labour
E = value of education/training
U = value of unpaid labour

All translated into today's values.

This is how I value my personal contribution to society as a child free highly educated professional.

I think the father of the children should appreciate all you do and support you accordingly.
But together you chose to bear children so there are consequences of that choice and it isn't always easy. Sacrificing an easier life is part of the package with children.

I get what you are saying @AndreaMartina

That the SAHP (usually Mum)is classed as a scrounger as they aren't bringing any cash into the house but people forget the hidden 'economic' benefit to the household & don't value any of the things you.
That also applies to women who work part time & full time who are also doing the household stuff as even in this day & age when both parents are working full time few men do their fair share.

And before anyone says it's the woman's fault for not making them - well you can't bring a horse to water.
It really is society's attitude

You actually don’t have any choice in the matter.

SAHM is more of a luxury these days.

Yanbu

And you are not the first woman to mention it

Men, however, seem to keep quiet about it

And the opportunity to earn gap. And the visibility gap, when seeking to return to the workforce at a comparable rate of pay.

In my mind, there is a huge shortfall to be made up to accommodate childbirth and the attendant caring responsibility. It’s a massive financial opportunity cost only for women and IMHO it should be compensated.

Isn’t that what marriage is for though?

No. How? Marriage doesn’t miraculously increase the dual income. It doesn’t replace in any way the lost economic opportunity of the mother/wife. And in any case coupledom whether in a marriage or not does not protect the mother’s earning income in any way that compensates for what is lost. Declining birth rates to support an aging population in any country signal that not enough is being done to sustain household incomes, be that single or dual. Conversations about being able to afford a second child (the replacement rate) have to consider that a working mother is often forgoing a full income by taking time off.

I used to really enjoy explaining to men who were separating when going through the financial mediation stuff that their partner’s “homemaker contribution” counted just the same as their big salary in their important job that they only had because they had a stay at home partner. Especially when they said scornfully “she doesn’t work” (I never had the genders switched on that one). There may not be an exact figure put on the work (mainly) women do to keep a family running but at least the Australian Courts recognise its value.

I get that. I’m just saying if one was to divorce, the lost income is normally considered in a settlement.
having just completed my 2nd maternity leave I’m very aware of the financial hit I’ve taken. However it’s a tricky line to suggest my employer should pay me full time for the whole year. I’m very aware that working is an easier option than full time childcare, but who is going to pay? If you incentivise the population to have children for money you end up where we were 20 odd years ago with a low income low educated population

You are not going to have your taxes raising other people’s kids?

You already do you silly billy!! Your taxes go to schools and to benefits.

Thanks for responding. I’ve the perspective of being the post-divorce parent facing a very narrowed window of opportunity trying to make up several-years salary gaps and a pension gap, and a changed societal attitude to those maternal years would not have put me in such a financially disadvantaged position. Even in a secure marriage, I’d have been hugely penalised. Divorced, the lost opportunity years of maternity are impoverishing. So it’s a very tangible cost within or without marriage.