One of my good friends said to me just the other day, “Staying home with my kids is hard. I feel like there is so much more to me. I’m more than just a house maid.” She’s an awesome woman who stays home for the sake of being there for her boys, even though she could probably be whatever she wanted to be.
I struggle with this myself sometimes. I don’t get a salary, so sometimes it seems my job is not as valuable as others. Why do we think salary determines our worth? It reminds me of Pride and Prejudice. I picture a stuffy old British woman of the 1800’s saying proudly, “He’s worth $100 pounds per annum.”
What is a Stay-at-Home Mom worth? I found this on salary.com:
According to this I am worth $112, 962 a year. Wow! I wonder if My Man knows how much money I am saving him by being the Laundry Operator at our house . . . though I could probably do better at getting the clothes out of the dryer before they wrinkle to earn that full salary . . . Anyway, it’s amazing what mamas can do.
I don’t get paid for anything I do, but My Man and I work as a team to support our family. It has always been my choice to stay home with my children–through good times and bad. I’ve learned to love it.
I had to decide a long time ago to look at my job with different eyes than the way the world sees it. My worth as a Stay-at-Home Mom has nothing to do with money. It has nothing to do with how talented or not I am at mothering either. It has everything to do with how much HEART I put into my job. I’ve said before that motherhood is about constantly trying to create a better world. We moms do this by teaching and helping children grow up valued, loved, and able to make a positive difference in our society. Does that mean our house is always clean in the process? No. Does it mean we’ll never lose our temper? No. But the more we see how valuable we mothers are to society as a whole, the more we’ll see ourselves as more than a house maid. And when we see ourselves through our children’s eyes, we are worth more than all the gold in the world.
There is no price you can put on the value of a good mother, because mamas are priceless.
