I have mixed feelings about these kind of arguments because they're pretty nebulous and I think they trivialize the actual wage gaps between men and women doing the same work. We wouldn't argue that a caring friend is the same thing as a psychologist and that someone with any kind of responsibilities for managing people is the same thing as a CEO.

And it seems like it would be more honest to cut these figures in half; unlike a day-care worker or housekeeper, these moms are taking care of their own children and their own houses, which means that the benefits of their labor go to themselves as well as to their husbands. These studies can be a good thing if they make men realize how dependent they are on the unpaid labor of their wives, but the economics is somewhat questionable.

Anyone else here remember this article?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3745779.stm

"...In sub Saharan Africa, women comprise 60% of the informal sector, provide about 70% of the total agricultural labour and produce about 90% of the food.

"In the world of economics, much of this subsistence and informal labour falls into the arena of household activity and, as such, does not feature in national accounts.

"Market activity, on the other hand, is where formal businesses and commercial agriculture are counted.

"If you don't know who is doing what or what obstacles they face, how can you come up with a sensible budget?..."

"I have mixed feelings about these kind of arguments because they're pretty nebulous and I think they trivialize the actual wage gaps between men and women doing the same work. We wouldn't argue that a caring friend is the same thing as a psychologist and that someone with any kind of responsibilities for managing people is the same thing as a CEO."

Yeah, this stuff came up on another thread too. I'll repost what I quoted there since it's even more relevant here:

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/CollegeandFamily/P46800.asp

"...The economists who make these calculations -- for wrongful death suits, airplane crash settlements and insurance purposes -- recognize that while homemaking has economic value, it's nowhere near the six-figure range.

"The reality is that many homemakers don't have the skills of, say, a professional bookkeeper, a licensed chauffeur or a recreational director, says economist Evan Schouten, vice president of the economic consulting firm Charles River Associates in Boston and an expert witness in many wrongful death trials.

"And families who lose a stay-at-home spouse typically do not rush out to hire 17 professionals to take his or her place, let alone employ them 24/7. They may hire one or two people, usually for 50 hours a week or less, and pay them an hourly wage of $10 to $15.

"That's why the economic payout is typically less in wrongful death and other lawsuits when the victim is a stay-at-home spouse than when the victim is employed. The _lifetime_ economic value of a female homemaker who dies at age 30 is currently about $300,000, Schouten said, based on statistics from a seminal study in this area, The Dollar Value of Household Work.

"...If you doubt the veracity of all this, just try to buy life or disability insurance on a stay-at-home spouse.

"If you use the most inflated statistics as a guide, and multiply the annual figure by the 10 years of care until the kids are grown, you could come up with an insurance need of $5 million. But unless your insurance agent has extraordinary pull, you're not going to get that coverage.

"That's because life insurers don't want you taking out policies that have no economic basis. Their theory is that it becomes way too tempting to snuff an overinsured spouse..."

That last bit is especially ominous.

"And it seems like it would be more honest to cut these figures in half; unlike a day-care worker or housekeeper, these moms are taking care of their own children and their own houses, which means that the benefits of their labor go to themselves as well as to their husbands."

Which reminds me, how would these strikes work?

When assembly line workers go on strike from their assembly line work, that's part of negotiating with the factory owners.

When a nanny goes on strike from her childcare (or his) work, that's part of negotiating with the parents of the children she (or he) looks after.

When a mother goes on strike from her mothering work, that's part of negotiating with whoever asked her to have a child in the first place - sometimes her husband, sometimes her extended family, sometimes herself...

Part of the problem people have with putting a monetary value on the work that women and girls do is that we've conflated feminine love with self-sacrifice and martyrdom. Therefore, if you compensate women for their work, it means they don't love their masters (husbands and sons) anymore. The idea that the slave should “love,� not merely obey (although obeisance is required and enforced with [the threat of] male violence), her master (see Uncle Tom) is very much alive and well with regard to gender relations.

It is important to remember, though, that just as the slave served both her master and his society, women do not only serve their husbands and sons in doing uncompensated domestic labor. They serve the state by instilling in their children values that behoove the government: strict gender roles that guide people to produce an endless supply of cannon fodder for regional or global military/corporate domination.

To follow up, I think that the reason this bothers me is that the media have a problem framing this issue as one of unpaid labor that women do for their husbands, because that might put the onus on men and suggest a highly unromantic economic analysis of marriage. So it turns into a fuzzy paean to how much women's work is worth without ever addressing to whom this work is worth so much and who would pay for it if it were salaried at the level these studies suggest. And then we get the patronizing, "I may be a highly respected doctor or scientist, but my wife is the real brains of the family; she's the CEO, psychologist, etc." Until the divorce when someone suggests that he should compensate her for the opportunity costs of the unpaid labor.

i agree with you justice- and this follows us into the work place in pink collar professions such as mine... i am an advocate against violence against women. whenever the subject of wage comes up, my boss (who makes double or triple what i do) commiserates by saying 'we're not here to get rich. we're here because we care about ending violence against women.'

so... being passionate and caring about your work (at home and in the market) should be inversely proportionate to the amount of money you make?!?

I'm not sure that insurance providers are actually going to provide the most reliable, unsexist economic assessments of SAHM's economic worth. Nor am I convinced that we can judge the economic worth of work by its replacement: it's true that when a mother works outside the home, families don't hire 17 24/7 professionals to replace her, but that doesn't mean the value of her work in the home wasn't equivalent to those 17 professionals; it could just mean that they've decided to do without some of that work. Further, unless the woman is in a very unusual situation indeed, it's been well-documented that she will continue to take care of the home and emotional life of the family--the second shift.

Something that I rarely see raised is that some years ago, a sociology professor told me that women are wildly disproportionately represented in volunteer work--another aspect of women's unpaid labor and its importance.

I think the problem is that the work women do in the home has been specifically exempted from economic compensation or recognition for so long, that there just aren't any perfect cognates. I'd suggest "personal assistant to several people" and "housekeeper," myself.

I'm sorry, justicewalks, but I don't see taking care of one's children as slave labor. Some work, sure, is done solely for economic benefit. But, as was said before, one does not get paid to be a friend, or a lover, or a parent. It is something you choose to do, and I think it's a mistake to express a stay-at-home mother's value to society in monetary figures.

Except that along with the emotional relationship, SAHMs do work with economic value. Denying that fact denies them part of the recognition they deserve.

It is a giant mistake not to express the work of childcare in monetary figures. It does not matter whether you choose it (and some people are forced to do it), such work has economic value. Until we understand that economic value, women will be slaves.

A connected issue is the refusal in the U.S. to fund early childhood education. All research shows that the first five years provide the intellectual background for the rest of life. Why don't we insist on getting young kids out of the house and into learning environments (pre schools, head starts, etc) earlier? Two reasons: 1. You would release women from their bondage. 2. You would equalize the class-based education gap and educate away the underclass needed to prop up the oligarchs.

I am so tired of this particular survey. Stay-at-home mothers are NOT psychologists or CEO's, and including those numbers *massively* inflates the salary.

The CEO of a microbusiness with 2 partners and 1-4 employees which does not earn money makes NOTHING. There is no way in which a SAHM's work is similar to that of a CEO of an enterprise-class business with more than 50 employees. And the whole point to a psychologist is that they are *not* related to you, and therefore have much more objectivity. Even a trained psychologist would be a fool to practice her trade on her children or husband.

On the other hand, perhaps that's needed to compensate for the lower pay of "feminine" work. Because when you add in the unpaid work *men* do in the household, it turns out, what a surprise, that handymen make a lot more than maids, although arguably they do a lot less actual time and thererfore earn less.

I also note that "bookkeeper" and "accountant" are not even options, though I am the third in three generations of women who manage the household finances (and in my case, the taxes). Is my family just really rare, or did they overlook real work women do in favor of the bullshit "psychologist" and "CEO" stuff?

But, as was said before, one does not get paid to be a friend, or a lover, or a parent.

This is true, but how many of your friends and/or lovers need you to teach them how to blow their nose? Or wipe their ass? How many of your friends and/or lovers need to be instructed to not throw food at restaurants, or reminded 800 times a day how to take turns?

You don't get paid to be a friend or a lover because the relationships are between two equals. You only accept as much responsibility for your friends and lovers as you choose to, and even so, there's only so much anyone /expects/ you to take responsibility for. If your friend drinks themselves stupid one night at the bar, people aren't going to be giving you the stink eye and tsk-ing about what a horrible friend you are to their friends for a week, are they?

It is something you choose to do, and I think it's a mistake to express a stay-at-home mother's value to society in monetary figures.

So in what figures would you suggest we express a SAHM's value to society? With the current "currency" of being conflated with apple pie as an American icon? That and four bucks will get me a latte, thanks.

"Nor am I convinced that we can judge the economic worth of work by its replacement: it's true that when a mother works outside the home, families don't hire 17 24/7 professionals to replace her, but that doesn't mean the value of her work in the home wasn't equivalent to those 17 professionals; it could just mean that they've decided to do without some of that work."

OTOH, isn't the whole point of life insurance and wrongful-death payments replacing the economic value of the deceased's work, instead of having her or his survivors do without some of that?

"i agree with you justice- and this follows us into the work place in pink collar professions such as mine... i am an advocate against violence against women. whenever the subject of wage comes up, my boss (who makes double or triple what i do) commiserates by saying 'we're not here to get rich. we're here because we care about ending violence against women.'"

Good points. Also, I heard that's a problem in the whole nonprofit sector, not just in its pink collar jobs.

"The CEO of a microbusiness with 2 partners and 1-4 employees which does not earn money makes NOTHING..."

Speaking of family size, now I'm wondering if whoever did this math at salary.com also thought of extended-family households.

"...I also note that 'bookkeeper' and 'accountant' are not even options, though I am the third in three generations of women who manage the household finances (and in my case, the taxes). Is my family just really rare, or did they overlook real work women do in favor of the bullshit 'psychologist' and 'CEO' stuff?"

OTOH, maybe "CEO" *includes* "bookkeeper" and "accountant" for very small businesses? Then again, maybe it should also include "computer operator" and "facilties manager."

so... being passionate and caring about your work (at home and in the market) should be inversely proportionate to the amount of money you make?!?

But it’s not the work you should be passionate about. Passion for work is what men feel, which is why surgeons who are passionate about “medicine� but not their patients are lauded and well-compensated. Passion for people (ie, “love�), on the other hand, can only be corrupted by excessive monetary compensation, which is why nurses, daycare-givers, and teachers (who have changed their focus in the years in which the field has been feminized from education, full-stop, to the emotional well-being of their students) shouldn’t be paid as much as doctors and administrators.

But, as was said before, one does not get paid to be a friend, or a lover, or a parent.

Friendships are, if they're worth anything, reciprocal. I give as much friendship as I get in return, and am thus compensated, not monetarily, but compensated. As for the other 2 relationships (“lovers� and parents), men pay prostitutes to fuck them, but it's unseemly that a wife should likewise see intercourse as a commodity because she ought to be doing it out of love. And society does pay men to be fathers. It's part of the reason for the pay gap. "He's got a family to support." Mothers, on the other hand, should be happy, out of sheer love for their children of course, with whatever combination of minimum wage jobs (but not stripping or prostitution!) will allow them to keep a roof overhead and food on the table. And they should prefer this to welfare because it is only right and proper that women be martyrs.

It is something you choose to do

I would also point out that being a professor is something I choose to do as well, and I damn well better get paid for it.

EG: That's true, but what I'm trying to argue against is the prevalent belief that we should reduce everything to its economic value. Should I feel grateful every time my boyfriend has sex with me for free instead of charging me for what is a marketable service?

Yes, I realize being a SAHM is a lot of work, and that it is underappreciated. But I think that the fact that one is not paid to be a parent is not in itself worrisome. What is more disturbing to me as a feminist is that women are encouraged to take on all the burdens of parenting while being economically dependent on their husbands, not that parenting is free.

Also, the "choice" argument doesn't fly. Police officers choose to be police officers - they go to a special school for it and everything. Does that mean we don't have to pay them, since they chose that work? Of course not, because we recognize the inherent value of the work they do, and don't penalize them for loving that work and feeling called to it, as I've heard many police officers describe being.

Alara: I believe the ten jobs are chosen from a larger list based on a survey of mothers as to what functions they perform during a week and how many hours of each job they do. They then pick the ten jobs women put the most time into. I'm sure "bookkeeper" and "accountant" are on that larger list, and if I recall correctly they used to be included in the "ten jobs". Not sure why they fell off - perhaps more moms are using computerized home accounting software and so it's taking less of their time? Just speculation, there, I have no real idea.

But when it comes to understanding the importance of SAHMs, adding economic value to the mix does not reduce our understanding of the worth of their work, but enhance it. The emotional importance of mothering is practically an article of dogma in our culture, and it's gotten SAHMs diddly-squat. As Barbara Ehrenreich once wrote, any time that something becomes elevated to apple-pie status in terms of rhetoric, you can pretty much tell that its actual monetary, material worth is skidding toward zero in this country.

It's not a zero-sum game. Acknowledging the economic worth of SAHMs' work doesn't mean that we can't value its emotional, human worth as well.

And one is paid to be a parent--that's what it means to get a deduction on one's income taxes for supporting children. The problem is that one isn't paid enough.

"I would also point out that being a professor is something I choose to do as well, and I damn well better get paid for it."

"Also, the 'choice' argument doesn't fly. Police officers choose to be police officers - they go to a special school for it and everything. Does that mean we don't have to pay them, since they chose that work?"

Indeed. There's a huge difference between (1) just plain choosing to do some work and (2) also choosing to be one's only employer/client/customer/etc. for one's work.

"I would also point out that being a professor is something I choose to do as well, and I damn well better get paid for it."

"Also, the 'choice' argument doesn't fly. Police officers choose to be police officers - they go to a special school for it and everything. Does that mean we don't have to pay them, since they chose that work?"

Indeed. There's a huge difference between (1) just plain choosing to do some work and (2) also choosing to be one's only employer/client/customer/etc. for one's work.

I would also argue that there is a huge difference between (1) choosing to do some work for the sake of making money and (2) choosing to work for the sake of the work.

This does not mean that the fact that women are in the volunteer force in much higher numbers than men is insignificant, or that people who happen to love their jobs shouldn't be paid, but I still think that the choice argument is valid.

So mothers are actually practicing psychology on patients without a license and, in their capacity as CEO of the “company�, employing child labor at below minimum wage? Quacks! Sweatshop bosses! They don’t deserve to be paid. They should be punished!!! ;) ?

"As Barbara Ehrenreich once wrote, any time that something becomes elevated to apple-pie status in terms of rhetoric, you can pretty much tell that its actual monetary, material worth is skidding toward zero in this country."

Unless it's, um, apple pie. Those aren't free yet, right?

http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/pie.htm

mmmmm! pie

This does not mean that the fact that women are in the volunteer force in much higher numbers than men is insignificant, or that people who happen to love their jobs shouldn't be paid, but I still think that the choice argument is valid.

Except that it's only employed sometimes. Nobody argues that hey, stockbrokers choose their line of work, so why should they expect high pay? Or, hey, lawyers often love to practice law! Let's lower their salaries! It's only invoked when the work in question benefits others.

This is ridiculous, people. The amount of money you make is equal to the amount of money you can get other people to pay you. It is that simple.

I would note, also, that some stay at home mothers are compensated well, assuming they marry rich without a prenuptial agreement.

It's also never employed when we're talking about people who are already fabulously wealthy. Incredibly rich people don't have to work, but they often choose to, making dreary dreadful sequels to movies that were lousy to begin with, or releasing albums that nobody in their right minds would ever want to listen to, Paris Hilton, or merely raking in millions of dollars a year by heading up some company. None of those people need to work at all; they're all choosing to. But they get paid lots.

***imagined conversation between government officials***

"What the fuck are we going to do about the woman problem?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there are more women in college than men, they're harping back on that goddamned ERA like a broken record again, getting divorces, being lesbians, asking for equal pay, and generally being a thorn in my side. What the hell can we do?"

"Why don't we chip away at Roe v. Wade. That way, sluts who can't keep their legs together will have to be accountable."

"That's a good start. But then they're just going to be welfare moms."

"Not anymore! That moneysucker welfare system is getting phased out. Those sluts are going to have to work, wherever they can, for whatever wage, if it kills them!"

"Well who is going to take care of the kids?"

"Who wants bad influences like poor sluts to be around kids anyway? No, we'll pay for licensed daycare- not for family members to take care of the kids. Keep the kids away from their families as much as possible, get them socialized right. And the sluts can work 2, 3, jobs to keep a roof over their heads, that's just punishment. Accountablity! Building Character! Bootstraps!"

"What about the married women?"

"Now they're alright. They can keep working if they want to, as long as it doesn't take anything away from their raising up the next generation, and taking care of their men."

"So how's that going to affect the women with degrees and stuff?"

"Well, if they're making enough money, they'll think that it's cause they're special and super smart, so they won't have anything to do with the dumb sluts who work at Walmart. Because they'll understand they are different. They worked harder. They deserve it. That's what free market capitalism is all about anyway, right?"

"Good idea! And with all the work that the sluts of America will be doing, the ones with kids, they won't have time to read the news, volunteer, or get into politics!"

"Right! And let's make sure they know buddy God is on OUR side, because none of them are going to have time to actually study religion THEMSELVES, so they'll never know the difference!"

"You bet! Want a cigar?"

"Bootstraps! Accountability! I like it! I like it alot...yes, I think I will have a cigar!"

I think I like this idea of turning motherhood into a job. That way, we only have to hire competant employees, and we can fire the ones who underperform.

Nobody argues that hey, stockbrokers choose their line of work, so why should they expect high pay? Or, hey, lawyers often love to practice law! Let's lower their salaries! It's only invoked when the work in question benefits others.

EG, my theory is that it has to do with the difference between male passion for “work� and female passion for people. See my comment at 12:05.

Bravo, Hasenauer.

My husband and I are expecting a child. We are both going to work part time instead of one of us working full time. We are both, for the present, putting our careers on hold to raise our children. We have always split the housework evenly. Sure, we're taking a financial cut just when you need extra money but that's life, that's a choice. Adults make choices and if you resent the time and money it takes to raise children then you shouldn't have them.

And if a woman is doing all the cleaning, all the cooking, all the errands, all the laundry, and all the child-rearing, then the problem isn't that she doesn't get paid to do these things, it's clearly with her partner. Any woman who stays with a partner who does none of this is disrespecting herself.

Well, Hasenauer, how lucky for you that you and your husband can work part-time without losing your health insurance. That is not the case for most families in the US.

if you resent the time and money it takes to raise children then you shouldn't have them.

I agree--but who here has said anything about resenting it? Why is it just that when women insist on having the value of their work recognized, we get told not to complain? People here aren't complaining about the work; we're complaining about the lack of recognition, respect, and material resources. How and why are you transforming a demand that women's contributions be recognized into "resentment"?

Any woman who stays with a partner who does none of this is disrespecting herself.

Nice to judge the woman for her partner's behavior.

The problem with this number is that SAHMs do not do any of thos things professionally. It's not a profession; and no one is going to pay them.

Also, lets face it, most of those things need to be done by single and childless people as well. Is anyone going to pay me for my laundry skills? No, they won't be adding that into my life insurance. I do all those things, but I do them by myself, because I am by myself. There are less things to do because I am along, but certainly much of it is the same- cooking for one verses for three is not that different.

Yeah, choice. Except that women don't have the same choices as men, do they? The culture clearly accepts men's bad behavior in childcare. Yet we do not accept it for women. To call the situation women find themselves in (having a child with a less than perfect, but still perfectly acceptable in our culture partner) choice is laughable. I'm quite pleased that your partner (like mine) does more than the culture expects, but we just aren't there yet as a whole. That's why we need to keep having these conversations. What we don't need is blame for women and talk about disrespecting themselves. The point is that the whole culture disrespects them (and you and me too, despite our self-respecting choices, sorry to say) just because of our sex.

mirm wrote:

"Why don't we insist on getting young kids out of the house and into learning environments (pre schools, head starts, etc) earlier? Two reasons: 1. You would release women from their bondage. 2. You would equalize the class-based education gap and educate away the underclass needed to prop up the oligarchs."

I agree vehemently that there's a class based education gap, and that this gap has serious and tragic consequences for those on the crappy end of it. I don't agree that taking kids out of the home and putting them in "learning environments" during their first five years of life is necessarily the best thing. Part of what helps people develop in their earliest stages is stimulation of all kinds, especially what's considered "play." Our schools are often so rigidly controlled in curriculum as it is that I don't really want people getting stuffed into MORE of that busywork at an earlier age. I don't think there's anything wrong with a parent, including a mother, being home with their kids in their pre-schooling years. What I don't like is when women are expected to do it whether it's what they want or not, and that men do not have to make that same choice (work inside or outside the home?) in order to be parents. Never mind that men aren't expected to do both as matter-of-factly as women are.

I don't agree with the claims of this study, about how stay at home moms are a combination of all these professions and then some. And I find that kind of thing a distraction and an easily-dismissed straw man. I care that parenting is not a paying position to the extent that some women do not have full freedom to choose NOT to get pregnant. I care that women take on things that they should not take on, and I care about the pressures that make it hard for women to stand up and say no fucking thank you. But frankly, actual stay at home moms are in a position that implies someone else is out there making enough money for their stay-at-home-ness to be possible. It's an increasingly unaffordable option for many families, and the politics of it are not as simple as "women are forced to pump out babies and then do all the work at home for no pay, in order to benefit The Man." There ARE women who are "freed" from the bondage of staying home with their kids before they go off to kindergarten - women who HAVE to work, and cannot get the wages they need in THOSE jobs, and who have to pay to put their kids somewhere else (where often other women are similarly underpaid) while they go off to do those jobs. I don't really care about the women who get to stay home, and are angry that no one's paying them for the fact that their husbands won't pick up their own socks or watch the baby more. I would like to see some agency exercised by women who could refuse (and I know not all can) to take these things on and don't. I don't feel like it makes anyone freer or more powerful to continue doing things they're not okay with and then being angry about it. Now talk to me about WHO should be compensating these women (as I believe someone mentioned in an earlier response - the men in these women's lives) and I'm less cranky about the subject.

certainly much of it is the same- cooking for one verses for three is not that different.

I have to disagree. I live alone, and I cook for myself, and I can make one bout of cooking last for four dinners, which means I only have to do two meals a week. I can cook a vat of chili, or mushroom barley soup, or the fixings for tacos, or a stir-fry, and it'll last me most of the week. Try that with three or four people and it just doesn't work--most of what you've made is gone in two meals at the most.

When my mother was a SAHM, she spent hours reading about nutrition and kept up with all the latest research on it. She planned our meals every week based on her nutritional research. When she had to go back to paid work, obviously she stopped doing that (though she felt guity about it), and we didn't have the benefits. But that doesn't mean that the work she did didn't have economic value--it was economic value we simply did without, and that our society refuses to recognize.

Obviously you don't get paid for doing your own laundry, but that doesn't mean that your work doesn't have economic value.

But frankly, actual stay at home moms are in a position that implies someone else is out there making enough money for their stay-at-home-ness to be possible.

Yes and no. I've met more than one woman who ended up being a SAHM because if she worked outside the home, she wouldn't be able to make enough money to offset the cost of childcare. In those circumstances, being a SAHM is the result of not having enough money.

also. please keep in mind that cooking for yourself is generally done BY yourself, which, as any task around the house, is generally much easier and speedily accomplished that way. rather than having a screaming toddler, exploring infant, or other child who concurrently needs your attention and supervision.

uncommon american- what about fatherhood? do we get to fire the dads who underperform?

hasenauer- please google 'domestic violence', spend at least ten minutes reading up, and then come back with that smug tone...

Yes, dads can also be fired, but their severence packages are about 25% higher than that of a mom.

P.S. Regarding EG's comment about women asking for their contributions to be recognized and why people translate that into resentment, and tell women to stop complaining - you make a good point, and sorry if I was doing the same thing. It's a good thing to be discussing these things.

Actually EG we are losing our health insurance, it was one of many such issues to be taken in hand.

Perhaps 'resent' was too strong a word. And you are right, any person who dedicates themselves to raising their children while also running a household, especially single handed, deserves much respect and recognition. But seeking payment to raise one's own children doesn't seem logical to me.

I'm sorry if you find me judgemental but I do believe that anyone, be they male or female, who does all the work in a partnership, is doing themselves a serious disservice.

I agree with Joan Kelly and the Uncommon American and I'd like to add...

Whenever compensation for mother's work is brought up it's usually assumed that the government will provide that money. However, while parenthood may be work, it's most certainly not a job. Theoretically, employees only get raises and promotions for doing good work. Theoretically, they get fired for doing a bad job. It takes incredible amounts of neglect or abuse for a parent to get "fired." Who is going to offer raises to parents who go above and beyond the call of duty (the minority of parents, as far as I can tell)? Who is going to fire or demote parents who leave their young children to wake themselves up, get themselves dressed, and go to school without having eaten breakfast because mommy and daddy couldn't be bothered?

Lastly, what happened to the idea that women should stand up for ourselves and force men to change?

A lot of people have been complaining about "CEO" and "psychologist" being included, and I agree that's a bit much. What would probably be a fairer way is to figure out how much it would cost a single father to pay people to get done what normally gets done in a household with a SAHM, with him doing only what an average husband of a SAHM does. I think would also help people understand if it was phrased in that way because it would remind people that they're not just doing it for themselves, they're doing it for their husbands who are benefiting a lot from it. I don't think most men could have children if they didn't have a woman taking care of the day to day responsibilities of them, or at least it would be a huge wakeup call for them to find out everything she does that they take for granted.

Actually EG we are losing our health insurance, it was one of many such issues to be taken in hand.

That's a shame. I'm so sorry, both that you're going to lose your insurance and that I assumed you wouldn't (actually, I kind of assumed you were in one of those civilized countries that provides healthcare). It's a rotten choice to be forced to make; I don't think I could make the one you did (asthma, among other things), but it shouldn't have to be made by anyone. And I really appreciate your change of heart about "resent."

I'd also like to put it to EG, in all seriousness, to explain what exactly are the "economic benefits" of raising a child? I will be open with you and say I think children, if anything, are an economic BURDEN. Shouldn't mothers pay me?

Economic benefits of raising a child to society?

Well, the perpetuation of that society. If, when you are fifty, sixty, seventy, and eighty, you wish to reap the rewards of having doctors, busdrivers, baseball players, ballet dancers, janitors, shoe salesmen, and all the other people who keep an economy going and a society functioning, then you should be thankful that there are people who want to raise children. You will get the benefits of their labor. Adults don't just spring up out of nowhere. If you're in the US, which I suspect you are, judging by your name, it is those children who will be providing your social security, unless Bush & Co.manage to destroy it (and I don't think they will--AARP is a reasonably powerful lobby).

You're right there EG, every person in the world deserves free healthcare. I moved from Australia, where we do have it, to marry my husband and had always taken it for granted until now.

Uncommon American, children certainly are an economic burden to parents, the benefits there are purely personal. But I believe that children are highly beneficial to the economy, which is why a lot of European government give families serious tax benefits.

There's also the economic benefit of not having children running wild in the street, smashing windows and suchlike--and the benefit to children, who are also members of society.

Well, there's no way to argue that having children is necessary to the survival of humankind, but surely you also understand that there is also a cost, especially when each new human further strains and increases demand for a finite set of resources on Earth.

A sudden absence of children would destroy certain aspects of the economy: garments, tutoring, teaching, publishing. Of course, eventually it would destory all aspects of the economy.

there is also a cost, especially when each new human further strains and increases demand for a finite set of resources on Earth.

Well, you asked about child-raising, which is not the same thing as childbearing, and you also asked about it in economic/social terms.

I am a rather unabashed humans-first person, and while I am concerned about the future of the planet, I do not believe that any headway will be made by demanding that people abjure having children; for many people, it is a non-negotiable aspect of their happiness.

So your argument, then, is that we should have kids because it benefits Toys R US and Harper Collins?

If you got rid of children, the parents would have a lot more money to then spend or invest. It washes in the long run.

So your argument, then, is that we should have kids because it benefits Toys R US and Harper Collins?

No. My argument is that people who want kids very much should have kids. My other argument is that raising children benefits society in the long run, unless you want to be doing your own heart surgery when you're 75. That last was a purely economic observation; you asked about economics, I pointed out that several industries depend on children.

What if the child grows up to be a murderer? Or a thief? Or a really really really bad president? That's not a benefit to society. In some instances (the latter, especially) it can be devastating. Children are not 100% beneficial to society.

I notice, by the way, that many people seem to feel comfortable making economic arguments about children that they wouldn't make about any other group of human beings. Children are people. They are not pets or playthings or vermin. Why should their existence have to be justified in economic terms? Would you ask that we justify the existence of old people in economic terms? After all, they drain resources for health care, and they contribute very little, and they get all these discounts, and if other people didn't have to spend money and time looking after them, they'd have more to invest and spend. And what about people who are severely mentally retarded?

Why is it that treating children as "other" and bigotry against children is acceptable to so many on the left? Nobody should have children unless they want them, but children are human beings and deserve the same respect other due to human beings.

Children are not 100% beneficial to society.

Neither are adults. We could get rid of them, too.

Of course children aren't 100% beneficial! Children are human beings. But unless you have superpowers that are simply unprecedented, you can't sift out the ones who are going to be Bush (well...probably one could have predicted Bush, actually. Generations of privilege will tell.). If you want the ones who'll help you out, you'll have to take the chance.

Mothers are definitely not psychologists--but a lot of them do help keep psychologists employed!

*rimshot*

The Canadian government recently stated that immigration is what will keep the economy going because fewer Canadians are having children, and less children. This is true of all countries where less children are being born. So to maintain a certain population is necessary.

I completely agree with you EG. Now, if parents, including myself, can raise their children with the notion in mind that their children are the adults to come, who will take their childhood experiences into adulthood with them, maybe we can start to have fewer criminals and bad presidents.

Saying that something is a person doesn't get you out of the argument. People are objects before they are living things before they are mammals before they are primates before they are homo sapiens. Just because it responds to its name and is somewhat self-aware doesn't excuse it from its place in nature and its effect on the global economy. Unless you believe we are built in God's image there is no way to justify that we are not each of us a part of the world we live in.

My point is that this whole story about compensating mothers for child-rearing is based on the belief that children are always a benefit. Whether a child will be a net gain or a net loss for society cannot be known until she passes on. If I sat in an office and worked all day, but couldn't prove to my boss whether I was actually productive, I would be paid nothing for my work.

If it's just recognition for the work you're looking for, so be it. I love my mom and I always will. If I can afford it, I'll take care of her when she's old and helpless. But if you're looking for such recognition, raise your own damn kid.

What would probably be a fairer way is to figure out how much it would cost a single father to pay people to get done what normally gets done in a household with a SAHM, with him doing only what an average husband of a SAHM does.

I totally agree. I have run the figures both ways -- what it would cost my husband to replace me, and what I would make if I did my jobs for money at market rates -- and it definitely costs much more to replace me than I would make by doing the work myself. This is because every employed person, including self-employed sole proprietors, have overhead associated with the cost to their employer of running a business, so they *never* make what the client paid them.

And I actually cost quite a lot to replace because my husband can't drive and is legally blind. But it's nowhere near $138K.

The other part of the equation, as I mentioned, is that while men might do less work around the house than women do, the fact that they *are* men causes their work to be overvalued. Replacing my husband is something we *tried*, as far as the work he does in renovating our house. The expense was *not* worth the work we got. My husband doing this work for free saves us something like $1,000/month, even given how little time he can put into it. Because it just costs a lot more to get a contractor than it does to get a maid. Admittedly a bit more skill is required, but not much more; my husband does better work than carpenters with 16 years of experience, not because he's all that but because they suck.

Saying that something is a person doesn't get you out of the argument. People are objects before they are living things before they are mammals before they are primates before they are homo sapiens.

I couldn't disagree more. People are not objects. Period.

You asked "How is raising children of benefit to society?" Implicit in that question is the assumption that children are not part of that society, because if they are, then the answer is obvious and the question wouldn't even come up. My question to you is what makes it OK for you treat children as a group like that? The answer to "How are children of benefit to society" is exactly the same as the answer to "How are adults of benefit to society"? They are members of society. Why do you ask that children's existence be justified rather than any other group of humans?

People get paid to do plenty of things that are not of benefit to society, like filing frivolous lawsuits, or stalking movie stars, or selling machine guns.

My point is that this whole story about compensating mothers for child-rearing is based on the belief that children are always a benefit.

No. That's what you're assuming based on your set of values. It's based on the idea that raising children is work that is of net benefit to any society that wants to last longer than a generation. Now, if you think it's better to let kids run wild in the street, that's one thing. But claiming that child-raising in general is a net detriment is specious.

But if you're looking for such recognition, raise your own damn kid.

Which is what these women are doing, so your point is...?

Thanks, Hasenhauer!

...so my point is that if your children's love is enough recognition, why do you want a cash payout and a medal for raising a kid? It's a lot of work, but it's anything but heroic -- billions of people have done it before you.

Anyway, this is getting off the subject so we can just stop. I have work to do now (at work).

Interesting debate- Uncommon Am and EG. I thought EG was mentioning a mix of industries- including those that rely on child labor- toy, garmet... Of course that takes the conversation in a whole new direction.

I've been watching this thread from a computer that didn't allow me to leave comments, but was struck by Mina's comment early on-
"When a mother goes on strike from her mothering work, that's part of negotiating with whoever asked her to have a child in the first place - sometimes her husband, sometimes her extended family, sometimes herself."

While I advocate the use of a strike as a negotiation for wage gain- strikes are also a means of calling attention to work place conditions- safety, long hours, no insurance, lack of appropriate training... For me, much of this discussion on the economic value of work provided by SAHMs is less about direct pay for this work- than truly RECOGNIZING its value. I see a strike or even just discussion as a call, not just to husbands/partners, but to society. This work is being provided and could be better supported with a shift national attitude towards the value/importance/difficulty of "women's work". Societal shifts that provide foundational support for such work might include- national health care, a corporate structure that allows for p/t or off hour work, pedestrian and child-friendly communities, mass transit, and "healthy food" production.

Getting hung-up whether mothers are CEOs or accountants, if OR what they should be paid, is a baby step in working towards broader social shifts. Such changes could improve life for the employed and volunteers of every age.

“A sudden absence of children would destroy certain aspects of the economy: garments, tutoring, teaching, publishing. Of course, eventually it would destory all aspects of the economy.� – EG

Not compensating stay at home mothers monetarily clearly has not resulted in an absence of children in the world. Why should people be compensated for something they are willing to do for free?

Yeah noname I agree. We should have kept slavery legal.

You know, this does cut the other way too. Mothers do put in 'unwaged labor' but they also get 'unwaged income' because of it. The housing and heating and other goods they get out of their unwaged work also has value which you can account for. You can't just assume these women are being ripped off, the market value or replacement costs of their unwaged remuneration (which people never talk about) could be higher than that of their services.

"Until the divorce when someone suggests that he should compensate her for the opportunity costs of the unpaid labor."

This is a minefield too. They're drafting legislation to allow cohabittees to 'divorce' in the UK. The idea is to allow women who are homemakers to make a claim for economic costs of the relationship against their ex-boyfriends. But they're having to be very careful about how this is phrased, because they don't want their ex-boyfriends to be able to claim against homemakers for the money they saved in living expenses.

"Yeah noname I agree. We should have kept slavery legal." - sojourner

I said "willing" to do it for free.

noname- i think the argument that you were trying to make was: why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

those goddamned cows, eating all that food, shitting all over, and needing fences, vet care, udder balm...

kpsisu - Not really.

I don't understand the point of this argument. The economics work ONLY if SAHM's did an OPTIMAL job of parenting. The overwhelming majority of mothers due not do "household tasks" perfectly---should they be paid less? Hell, when I was a kid, I did my own laundry and fixed my own meals. I also cleaned my own room and had to vacuum the house on the weekends. Perhaps if parents (mom AND dad) would actually delegate around the house, this whole "payment for a job done" would be moot. Plus, alot of SAHM's don't do ANY household work (because of nannies, maids, their own kids); should they be paid as well? If you feel doing household duties are so difficult, that they are worthy of recognition(which I don't), then don't do them all by yourself!! Hello! Get your husband to help out; get your child to help out!

"If you feel doing household duties are so difficult, that they are worthy of recognition(which I don't), then don't do them all by yourself!! Hello! Get your husband to help out; get your child to help out! "

If you are doing them for people other than yourself, than they are worthy of recognition. I don't know your household in intimate detail, granted. But if growing up the only housework and childcare your mom had done was doing her own laundry, fixing her own meals, and vacuuming on the weekends, could it still have functioned the same way?

I'm sure any woman doing more than her own personal work would /love/ to have her husband and kids helping her out. Sometimes it's not so simple. I know plenty of kids who whine about doing chores, and plenty of men who simply opt-out of doing them.

"The economics work ONLY if SAHM's did an OPTIMAL job of parenting"

How so? Plenty of people are paid even though they don't do an optimal job in their profession -from the high-income bracket to the low. Have you ever had a bad professor? Or heard of a CEO who delegated all his work? As long as they do the minimum required for their job...

I think it's interesting that no one bothered to assess how much at-home, unpaid labor men do around the house? I'd be surprised if it was less than 40,000 dollars worth, at least based on Salary.com's metric. (especially when you consider that things like yardwork, household fixer upper things, etc. that are "traditionally male dominated" tend to be more highly paid by hour than things like cleaning or childcare--a mediocre carpenter or plumber can EASILY make about 50 dollars an hour, whereas childcare workers or maids make at most 10-15$ an hour.) Basically, I think you need to do the following to get a more realistic sense of a SAHM's economic value: figure out how much unpaid labor a person who is single or married without children does, and then subtract that amount from the amount of work SAHM's report doing. That is the true economic benefit provided by SAHMs that is specific to their job. But to be fair, I think people should also do the same for men; I'd be very surprised indeed if the "net economic worth of labor" doesn't wind up being around equal. (Of course, that is in part due to the fact that traditionally male dominated professions are paid more, and that there's a wage gap between men and women in the same profession, which is shitty for many different reasons)

Another quick assessment can be done this way: look at how much unpaid labor a working mother does, then subtract that from the unpaid labor a SAHM does; if you buy Salary.com's ridiculous calculations it should be something like 50,000$. That's the marginal economic benefit that an SAHM provides that a working woman does not. And when you consider that the average childcare costs figure at around 30,000, it means an SAHM only provides an additional 20,000 dollars of unpaid labor that is not associated with childcare. And that's taking into account the assumptions that SAHM's are equivalent to CEO's or psychologists, etc, and that labor is being valued at the going rate for those professions.

Of course, the way we assess economic value of things in this country is total shit. We should adopt a model like Bhutan, where we measure Gross Domestic Happiness or WellBeing, rather than GDP, and then maybe we could even start to have a discussion of what raising your own children is worth, etc.

"Another quick assessment can be done this way: look at how much unpaid labor a working mother does, then subtract that from the unpaid labor a SAHM does; if you buy Salary.com's ridiculous calculations it should be something like 50,000$. That's the marginal economic benefit that an SAHM provides that a working woman does not. And when you consider that the average childcare costs figure at around 30,000, it means an SAHM only provides an additional 20,000 dollars of unpaid labor that is not associated with childcare."

Well, I think economic calculations are debateable no matter how you do them. However, even $20,000 would not be insubstantial in the household income of working Americans (i.e. the average)

I was also raised in a household where my mom does vastly around the house than my dad. She even does what many people continue the traditionally "male" chores. I would hazard a guess that people who would be reading a feminist website on average have parents who share duties much more equitably than your average American. I would like to simply see a study estimating the number of hours women spend doing work at home vs. the number men spend doing work at home. For the reasons I mentioned above, I'm not convinced they would change a study like this one to be much more in men's favor.

I think the get a rough estimate of how much men do around the house, you can look at this article:
http://www.careerjournal.com/columnists/workfamily/20050520-workfamily.html

It seems to be a 60/40 split.
If you assume that men do 40% of the household work, then they are doing 138,00*.4=55,000$ worth of unpaid labor around the house (whether for their own personal benefit or for the benefit of their children or SO, who knows.) And of course who knows how much the average hourly wage of their work is, but just to get a ballpark estimate.

I'm not incredibly trusting of the Wall Street Journal. They also had an article in there not too long ago that had this whole tone of "Men staying Home to raise kids so their very successful wives can work. These poor men and the hell they go through." And the article spent a lot of time talking about how hard these men worked and how little respect they felt they got from society -funnily enough, the article didn't seem to have the slightest hint of a feminist interest. It seemed like it was just generally interested in talking about how hard a time men have these days, and was honestly unaware of ways people could spin the article.

And of course, If men and women who are both working full-time are doing 50 hours of work and (2/3) times 50 hours of work, respectively, that would still be a substantial difference.

I think childcare is a difficult thing to calculate, also. For the first three years of a babies life a women is spending vastly more time doing work at home. But if you're averaging that out over the age of working people 20-50 years old and asking them how much they work at the time of the survey, the impact of having children is not going to show up significantly in a survey like that.

However, while parenthood may be work, it's most certainly not a job.

While I think the parenting-as-paid-labor thought experiment is fascinating--and a very useful tool to talk about how non-wage work is often invisible or derided in our society--I, too, have misgivings about using the economic paradigm to speak about familial relationships.

It seems like, instead of arguing that parents should be economically compensated for the parenting and homemaking work they do, we should be working to make sure they have the time and political/cultural support to do this valuable work--work that is valuable, but which we can't really effectively put a dollar value on.

"Should I feel grateful every time my boyfriend has sex with me for free instead of charging me for what is a marketable service?"
I believe that you commented that you are repaid in your friendships by friendship in kind.

Sex is the same. If you're doing it only for him and don't get reciprocal pleasure, that's a pretty crap relationship

"EG, my theory is that it has to do with the difference between male passion for “work� and female passion for people. See my comment at 12:05."
How is nobody else offended by this?! Jesus.

Who said women are passionate about people and men aren't? What kind of comment is that?

I work at a vet clinic because I like animals and I like doing a job that I am monetarily rewarded for. So I like animals, and I like working for pay. What is difficult to understand about this?

housekeeper, day-care center teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive officer and psychologist

They took the median income for these jobs. Who cares if they're the median income of men's and women's jobs? The point is SAHMs and working moms do these jobs. They surveyed 40,000 mothers for the number of hours they spent on each of these jobs. I don't see any problem with the study since we're trying to value women's caring work anyway. Imagine - women only make 10 percent of the income in the world. If SAHMs were paid $138,095 a year, women would suddenly make 90% of the income in the world (or something like that)!

Why should people be compensated for something they are willing to do for free?

Oh, gee, I don't know--because it's the moral thing to do, and it'll better the lives of a significant portion of the population?

Fenris, my understanding of what justicewalks was saying was that she was commenting on traditional perceptions and assessments of the worth of traditionally feminine values and occupations as opposed to masculine ones, not that she was saying that such was truth.

leederick, nobody ever talks about "unwaged remuneration" because unlike waged remuneration, it's almost never reliably under the worker's control; look at what happens to SAHM in the even of divorce. She can't bank it and invest it and prepare for the future.

Yes, morality is the point of this exercise. People get upset about remunerating love but it's really work!

housekeeper, day-care center teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive officer and psychologist

as mothers is working for other people. Remember, when Roseanne called herself a domestic engineer? Coordinating the activities of family is like running a company. Don't even get started about psychology. Try talking a 2 year-old into eating something or making a toddler go to school. The things parents have do to work with their kids would try the most patient psychologist.

Another major component of the care crises that doesn't get nearly enough attention is the amount of work and time that goes into caring for elder parents- this is something that needs to be politicized a lot more than it has been.
It would be interesting to see what percentage of this care work is done by women. I would suspect way more than half- But whatever the
gender breakdown on this, its a huge burden that's not talked about nearly enough in this country when
people are forced to work ever more hours outside the home just to maintain their standard of living and then suddenly facing the issue -mid-career- of taking care of parents. Sorry for straying a little of topic.

Don't even get started about the patience it takes to care for an elderly father with Alzheimer's. Or any serious illness.

"And I actually cost quite a lot to replace because my husband can't drive and is legally blind. But it's nowhere near $138K."

You are certainly free to undervalue yourself if you want, but my skills are certainly worth 138K.

"And I actually cost quite a lot to replace because my husband can't drive and is legally blind. But it's nowhere near $138K."

You are free to undervalue yourself if you want, but I am worth $138K and then some.

The things parents have do to work with their kids would try the most patient psychologist.

The most patient psychologist wouldn't *do* them because it is not part of a psychologist's job description to make a toddler eat. You may be *using* the discipline of psychology, but people who use the discipline of psychology to get you to buy things are called marketers, not psychologists, and people who use the discipline of psychology to get toddlers to eat are called child care professionals. Interestingly, marketers are paid much, much more than child care professionals, though one uses some psychological training to make people buy crap they don't need and the other uses psychological training to promote the health of children.

$138K is not realistic because they threw in jobs that SAHMS don't do. In another sense, however, it *should* be realistic because women's work is consistently undervalued. A teacher should make more than a marketer does. So should a child care professional. So should a therapist in government practice, such as a licensed social worker. But you're not going to get at the real worth of mother's work solely by comparing to the jobs this work translate into in the real world, because the very fact that mothers do them makes them cost less than their value would otherwise bear. Perhaps this is what they are getting at with the ridiculous "psychologist" and "CEO" tags.

BTW, the actual survey *does* have a way to assess the unpaid work of Dad. It is less actual time than the unpaid work of Mom, but does it shock anyone that it's close to the same amount of money, or sometimes more? Male jobs with minimal skill pay more than female jobs with minimal skill.

A quick google turns up that an au pair living in would appear to be paid roughly $14,000/year for 45hrs/week. Au pairs do cooking, cleaning, child care etc. So even doubling this value for the remaining hours puts the au-pair at $42,000 a year for 90hrs/week living in your house. This would seem to suggest that the survey is a little out of proportion.

Yes, but au pairs are famously underpaid, in part because what they're getting is the experience of living abroad. Which SAHMs are not so much getting.

These numbers ONLY apply if the mother does all of these "duties" WELL. If a psychologist sucks at her job, she will have no clients; if a janitor sucks at her job, she will be fired. MOST mothers do not do all the duties the WSJ listed anyway. Instead of trying to put a numerical value of household responsibilities (which is simply another way of ignoring the actual problem because our country will NEVER pay ANYONE to take care of their homes), why not simply DEMAND equal participation in your home? Why are you marrying/living with a man who does not due the equal amount of household chores? If you feel that what you do for your family (AND for yourself, primarily) is so difficult, then don't do it. Why does your house have to be spotless? Why do your kids have to participate in a gazillion activities? Why do you have to prepare four-course dinners every night? Alot of mothers (middle-to-upper-middle class moms, especially) put too much pressure on THEMSELVES to have some "perfect" home. When I was young, my sisters and I cleaned up; my father made dinner half the time---my mother simply demanded our participation. This issue only applies to a certain demographic, anyway; the moms I knew growing up (and now) had fulfilling careers outside the home, included their kids and husbands in the management of the household, and simply didn't have the inclination to have the perfect home. As an aside, what is the diference between a housekeeper and janitor, anyway?

These numbers ONLY apply if the mother does all of these "duties" WELL. If a psychologist sucks at her job, she will have no clients; if a janitor sucks at her job, she will be fired.

And you're assuming that SAHMs don't do these things well enough? Because most workers don't have to excel at their jobs, as has been stated over and over, merely to keep them. I can't be the only person to have noticed this.

what is the diference between a housekeeper and janitor, anyway?

A housekeeper makes sure the house runs smoothly. She doesn't necessarily scrub the bathroom floor herself, or deal with heating problems, or plumbing problems.

If you feel that what you do for your family (AND for yourself, primarily) is so difficult, then don't do it. Why does your house have to be spotless? Why do your kids have to participate in a gazillion activities? Why do you have to prepare four-course dinners every night?

Ah, so because you don't think the labor is important, it has no economic value? Sorry. Wrong.

AND for yourself, primarily

Ah. You know lots of people who prepare four-course nutritionally balanced meals for themselves? Or do the laundry of three or four other people for themselves? Are you seriously saying that there's no real quantifiable difference between the domestic labor done for a family that done for a single person? Because that's just...wrong.

Ahhh, EG: just because YOU think I am wrong doesn't make it true, dontcha know. And please show me where I said "labor is not important". I have been looking ALL morning and I just can't find it! Anyway...most men and children do not care if the house is spotless or if the dinners are worthy of James Beard himself. Who says your house has to have the Good Housekeeping seal of approval---relax your standards. The women who try to run a perfect household ARE doing it primarily for themselves (and their egos). At the end of the day, when all is said and done, nobody cares that their childhood home was dustfree or that the meals were four-star. What I remember most was the warmth that my mother and father gave to me---warmth and love that is priceless. But, hey, maybe if you bust your butt trying to win Mother of the Year, you might get a raise!

How am I getting "the labor isn't worth anything" out of statements like "nobody cares that their childhood home was dustfree"? I can't imagine.

Which is to say--I've met people who grew up in dirt and squalor, and they care.

Ummm, there is a HUGE leap from not having a dust-free home to living in dirt and squalor. And I have known people who lived in dust-free and pristine homes who WISHED their mothers would have chilled out and paid more attention to them then to the curtains. And I have met people who have lived in cars, but had a mother who loved them dearly. Guess who turned out to be the better person?

there is a HUGE leap from not having a dust-free home to living in dirt and squalor.

Indeed. But you're importing your own assumptions about how focused SAHMs are on dusting. Cleaning is one of the activities SAHMs are responsible for, but your assumption that they're obsessive about it isn't anywhere in the original post. Still, to prevent things from degenerating into dirt and squalor requires a certain amount of labor--the good-enough labor I referenced above.

“Anyway...most men and children do not care if the house is spotless or if the dinners are worthy of James Beard himself.�
Oh yeah? Are you saying most men don’t want clean clothes to wear to work? They won’t complain is there is never a home-cooked meal on the table? That it is ok for children to gow up on a diet of KFC and McDonalds (And who is going to pay the healthcare cost due to obesity, heart attack, etc when they become adults? So men won’t complain if the place is covered in kid’s toys and dog shit? (Oh, then what was that Forbes article about, a while ago on “don’t marry career women b/c your house will be messy and you’ll get sick because you won’t have a nanny/wife to take care of you and make sure you eat properly). And surely it’s not important to a childs wellbeing to engage outdoors activities that mom would have to drive them too. You know they can just run around the house and bank their toys on the walls. Surely mom only likes to take them to soccer practice for her own “ego�. “Warmth and love� are the only things children and men need and you can provide those while laying on your back. Jared I am really concerned for any woman you might marry or cohabit with.

Good point, sojourner! "Warmth and love" don't just magically fall from the air like fairy dust. Economically valuable labor is one of the ways in which children are able to experience warmth and love.

Clearly, women's work is undervalued. But I'm not sure the answer is to pay SAHMs for being SAHMs.

Will moms who work outside the home be paid for their domestic work as well?
Who gets to decide upon the pay scale? What will be the difference in pay between a married SAHM with one child and single woman with 4 children?

My biggest concern is the issue of quality of work. It certainly wouldn't be fair to pay two SAHMs the same wage if one were a far superior mother/wife.

Which brings me to the question: Who decides what makes a good SAHM? Personally, I think indoctrinating children into right-wing ideologies is bad parenting. But what if a right-winger is elected to make the rules?

Why does the discussion of attributing economic value to "women's work" (NOT paying, just recognizing value) always lead to the pointing of fingers? Individual women (wives, mothers) are told they should simply expect their husbands/partners do 1/2 the household work. Their also told they shouldn't have kids if it's such hard work.
blah, blah, blah.

If this were a discussion between two friends where one is seeking advice about the inequitable distribution of parenting and cleaning in her home, that type of response might be appropriate.

But we're NOT talking about the work load of an individual woman. What we have is the SYSTEMIC, culturally sanctioned undervaluing and trivializing of "women's work."

Reversing entrenched social patterns of inequity requires broad public support. Asking individual men to increase their household-work contributions is important, but should not be relied on as the sole solution.

that would be "to do 1/2 the work" and "They're"...
I'm having multi-tasking challenges, but want my comment taken with all the significance proper spelling and grammar might influence!

"leederick, nobody ever talks about "unwaged remuneration" because unlike waged remuneration, it's almost never reliably under the worker's control; look at what happens to SAHM in the even of divorce. She can't bank it and invest it and prepare for the future."

This isn't true. If you are provided with accomodation and a company car as part of your employment, this isn't reliably under your control either, or bankable/investable, but it still counts as remuneration.

Why does the discussion of attributing economic value to "women's work" (NOT paying, just recognizing value) always lead to the pointing of fingers?

Because the discussion so often tiptoes around the question of whom the work benefits. And that would be the man involved (as well as the woman herself.) Okay, sure, "society" benefits, but that's true of a lot of private-sector jobs and many hobbies. I know it's certainly not the intent of anyone here, but framing the discussion in this vague way leads to pitting stay-at-home moms against women who work outside the home in a contest for who contributes more to society.

To Sojourner:

Don't worry about my marital prospects, as I will be doing half of the housework (washing my own clothes to boot!). But, I guess in YOUR household, you have to cook, clean, balance the budget, be CEO, yadda, yadda. That must suck for you. The women I know don't really care about getting "recognition" for household tasks BECAUSE THEY DON'T DO EVERYTHING THEMSELVES (hell, that's one of the benefits of having kids--to do shit). How easy would it be if the father would make dinner, or the kid could wash his own clothes? If your family won't pitch in, and you have to do everything around the house, ultimately that is YOUR problem, not the state's.

"How easy would it be if the father would make dinner, or the kid could wash his own clothes? If your family won't pitch in, and you have to do everything around the house, ultimately that is YOUR problem, not the state's. "

You could try and make that argument for every social problem in the world, frankly.

Sometimes the state does try and help with cultural change. Brown vs. Board of Education ring a bell?

I sure hope you wouldn't try and make the same argument for domestic violence. Anyway, if this thing of women doing most of the work is happening on a wide-scale basis (which it is) then it is a cultural problem, not just an individual problem.

There's nothing wrong with the state providing compensation for housework. The state could do the same for men's housework, if men decide to take maternity leave. The whole point is just to help our families be healthier and happier.

Women don't typically enter marriages hoping to have to do all the work -quite to the contrary, I think a lot of women expect child-rearing to be less time consuming and emotionally taxing than it actually is, and they expect more help from their husbands than they actually get (at least, that is the opinion of my mom and all of her college friends, and other random women I've talked to, so I'm tempted to think it's something of a trend). But once you're married with kids, and economically connected to a husband, it's not so easy to say, pick up and leave if things aren't going fairly housework-wise.

"Don't worry about my marital prospects, as I will be doing half of the housework (washing my own clothes to boot!)."

That sounds great. We need cultural change so that all men will be like that. You know who I think has a duty here, then? YOU, to go and convert other men to do the same. Because men who opt-out of housework because of a sort of machismo culture cultivated by their friends tend not to listen to women's opinions on the matter to much. I think you perpetuate problems when there are so many men *cough* who refuse to have sympathy for women, and who feel no obligation beyond a very narrow range of personal actions to try and change the less-fortunate attitudes of a lot of men.

if you are provided with accomodation and a company car as part of your employment, this isn't reliably under your control either, or bankable/investable, but it still counts as remuneration.

Yes. But I think we can gauge the real-world value of such compensation by looking at how many jobs compensate their workers with only unwaged remuneration. That would be none.

Well, good for you Jared. If you do housework then you should know that it takes a lot of times when there are kids; and that it’s not about selfish women who want to have spotless homes so they can show off to other women. Maybe you can report back to us in a few years.

“The women I know don't really care about getting "recognition" for household tasks BECAUSE THEY DON'T DO EVERYTHING THEMSELVES (hell, that's one of the benefits of having kids--to do shit)� There very few things kids can help you with around the house (that is actually help and does not generate additional work) until they are at least 8 or nine.

“How easy would it be if the father would make dinner, or the kid could wash his own clothes? If your family won't pitch in, and you have to do everything around the house, ultimately that is YOUR problem, not the state's.� If the guy doesn’t do anything around the house, that’s the woman’s fault? Is this what you’re saying? Because of course it is the woman’s “problem�, and when something is so many women’s problem, then it’s society’s problem. Like Ninapendamaishi said “I sure hope you wouldn't try and make the same argument for domestic violence.�

Do you *really* not know any women who toil away in the house without being recognized as equal partners, to their breadwinning spouse? Or women who get home from work and start preparing dinner and picking up the clutter while their husband sits in front of the TV with a beer? In many (traditional) households, where the woman is the homemaker and the man is the breadwinner it doesn’t even make sense to have the man do as much of the housework as the woman. The point is, when one partner (male or female) stays at home and takes care of the household, and the other goes out into the world, gets paid, achieves and accomplishes, the stay-at-home partner has been paying the price, therefore s/he should be compensated in a way that s/he has economic independence and is not worse off in case of divorce or breakup.

"A teacher should make more than a marketer does. So should a child care professional. So should a therapist in government practice, such as a licensed social worker."

Hmm.

How much would one teacher make if she or he was teaching classes with as many people in it as one typical marketer's audience has?

How much would one marketer make if she or he had an audience with as few people in it as one typical teacher's classes has?

"...because the very fact that mothers do them makes them cost less than their value would otherwise bear."

More accurately, the very fact that so many people do them makes them cost less.

We've all been going on and on and on about the *demand* for these services, but so far this thread has ignored the *supply*.

"What we have is the SYSTEMIC, culturally sanctioned undervaluing and trivializing of 'women's work.'"

Either that or the SYSTEMIC, culturally sanctioned efforts to restrict women to doing less-valuable work and having fewer valuable job opportunities then men get to have?

"...Because the discussion so often tiptoes around the question of whom the work benefits. And that would be the man involved (as well as the woman herself.) Okay, sure, 'society' benefits, but that's true of a lot of private-sector jobs and many hobbies."

Exactly.

"...But I think we can gauge the real-world value of such compensation by looking at how many jobs compensate their workers with only unwaged remuneration. That would be none."

What about subsistence farming and bartering at bazaars?

Very, very few societies function only on the barter system--certainly none in the first world do, which is, I think, largely what we've discussing, is it not? And subsistence farming is a notoriously difficult way to survive. How many farmers really don't sell any of their produce for money to buy things that they can't themselves make?

"How much would one teacher make if she or he was teaching classes with as many people in it as one typical marketer's audience has?

How much would one marketer make if she or he had an audience with as few people in it as one typical teacher's classes has?"

I think the point is that education should be considered a lot more valuable than marketing (and especially if you're talking about commercial marketing, I agree).

"Either that or the SYSTEMIC, culturally sanctioned efforts to restrict women to doing less-valuable work and having fewer valuable job opportunities then men get to have? "

Mina, trying to earn respect for women who work at home is not about trying to get women to work at home as opposed to out in the workforce. We all want women to have the option to work outside the home and make an equal wage and be respected for it. Trying to improve conditions for women who do a lot of housework is not a threat to that. Feminism is about trying to improve the rights and life quality of /all women/ relative to men, not about improving the lives of certain women at the expense of others.

Also Mina, even when women work full-time outside the home they wind up doing an average of 40-50 hours of work inside the home, which is more than men do. If what they do can't be acknowledged as "real work" then I don't think that is going to help us as a culture in getting men to do equal amounts of housework (a goal which I hope you agree with).

"Very, very few societies function only on the barter system--certainly none in the first world do, which is, I think, largely what we've discussing, is it not?"

OTOH, many societies have both barter and currency in their economies. Even first world societies seem to have some barter going on. For one example, when a white-collar worker gets paid both money and "benefits" instead of currency alone, that sure looks like it includes barter to me. ;)

"And subsistence farming is a notoriously difficult way to survive."

It's still a job in which the worker doesn't get paid only currency for her or his hard work.

"I think the point is that education should be considered a lot more valuable than marketing (and especially if you're talking about commercial marketing, I agree)."

...and my point about that point is that it totally ignores the supply side of supply and demand.

"Mina, trying to earn respect for women who work at home is not about trying to get women to work at home as opposed to out in the workforce."

I was thinking more about how this work and these workers got so little respect in the first place.

""I think the point is that education should be considered a lot more valuable than marketing (and especially if you're talking about commercial marketing, I agree)."

...and my point about that point is that it totally ignores the supply side of supply and demand."

There's only demand because there are a lot of people favored by history, who now have a lot of spending power and buy a lot of things they often don't know. Capitalism is as construed as any other human system, IMO. The big-wigs in charge of big companies absolutely have some ability to control supply and demand such that it changes significantly in a short time-span based on their desires, it's been well-documented.

"I was thinking more about how this work and these workers got so little respect in the first place."

Now I'm confused. I thought by saying: "Either that or the SYSTEMIC, culturally sanctioned efforts to restrict women to doing less-valuable work and having fewer valuable job opportunities then men get to have?" that you were implying women's housework was inherently less valuable than men's traditional work?

""I think the point is that education should be considered a lot more valuable than marketing (and especially if you're talking about commercial marketing, I agree)."

...and my point about that point is that it totally ignores the supply side of supply and demand."

There's only demand because there are a lot of people favored by history, who now have a lot of spending power and buy a lot of things they often don't need. Capitalism is as construed as any other human system, IMO. The big-wigs in charge of big companies absolutely have some ability to control supply and demand such that it changes significantly in a short time-span based on their desires, it's been well-documented.

"I was thinking more about how this work and these workers got so little respect in the first place."

Now I'm confused. I thought by saying: "Either that or the SYSTEMIC, culturally sanctioned efforts to restrict women to doing less-valuable work and having fewer valuable job opportunities then men get to have?" that you were implying women's housework was inherently less valuable than men's traditional work?

For one example, when a white-collar worker gets paid both money and "benefits" instead of currency alone, that sure looks like it includes barter to me. ;)....[Subsistence farming is] still a job in which the worker doesn't get paid only currency for her or his hard work.

Right, definitely. But what what I said was that there aren't any societies in the first world that function only on the barter system, and that no jobs in our society jobs compensate their workers with only unwaged remuneration.

"'I was thinking more about how this work and these workers got so little respect in the first place.'

"Now I'm confused. I thought by saying: 'Either that or the SYSTEMIC, culturally sanctioned efforts to restrict women to doing less-valuable work and having fewer valuable job opportunities then men get to have?' that you were implying women's housework was inherently less valuable than men's traditional work?"

Exactly.

Just how did stuff like household chores become "women's housework" and stuff like engineering become "men's traditional work" in male-dominated societies in the first place?

Or women who get home from work and start preparing dinner and picking up the clutter while their husband sits in front of the TV with a beer?

Heh. Slightly off topic, but I did this for two years straight before deciding that 1) without Mr. Hubby and his soda cans around I would have a lot less clutter to pick up, and 2) without Mr. Hubby spending 70% of my money, I would have a lot more to spend on myself.

I gave him one month to move out and then put his stuff out the door and changed the locks. Now I have a wonderful BF who makes dinner without being asked when I've had a long day at work and he's "just" (as he puts it) been at school.

Life is so good. :)

That is a very heartening thing to know, EJ! (I know you changed your handle, but...I still think of you as EJ!)

$138K is not realistic because they threw in jobs that SAHMS don't do.

Except they got these ten jobs from interviewing 40,000 mothers. So I think it's the most accurate set of jobs that American mothers do that you will find.

They took the median income for these jobs. About half of them are traditionally women's jobs. Only two are overwhelmingly held by men, janitor and CEO. Child care professionals are part-psychologist and they are probably paid the same or more than psychologists.

It is a touchy subject because we're going from unpaid to a salary reserved for the top 1% of society. I've brought it up before and this study is very threatening to husbands who aren't paying their wives anything for childcare and domestic labor.

this study is even more threatening when you think of the women who are struggling to get out of poverty, single moms who are a heartbeat away from being homeless.

Try telling them that it doesn't matter if their house is spotless, have them take your advice, and then have their home-visit worker from headstart or dhs start proceedings to remove the children.

This study should be used to upheave and rewrite current welfare policies- currently it varies from state to state, but I know to get any cash assistance (which is minimal) moms in poverty have to fill out 40 job applications a week... since they're not working, they can't get daycare aid to do so... So I think the really useful part of this study is the part where it says that mothers do perform valuable work, after all...not lay on the couch all day eating bon bons, watching their soaps...

Do you think it really doesn't matter if your house is clean or not? IF the house is a mess, and people come over, do you step in (Jared) and take responsibility for it, or do you just let people survey the mess with their eyebrows raised, blaming it on your SO?

Don't forget sex. If stay at home spouses are maids, computer operators, cooks, chauffeurs, and psychologists when they clean, pay a bill online, cook, drive the kids somewhere, and tell little Timmy to clean his plate before turning on the TV; then surely they are prostitutes if/when they screw their significant other.

Maid and chauffeur were not listed as jobs.

housekeeper, day-care center teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive officer and psychologist.

noname:

If men were typically doing a fair share of those jobs, I don't think anybody would be complaining.

Too many wives do have sex when they don't want to. Hopefully, it's not the majority.

Donna, my point is that *no*, they are *not* doing the jobs of a CEO or a psychologist, and if they say they are, it's because they misunderstand what those jobs entail.

I *have* been the CEO of a microbusiness that makes no money. Yeah, *that* is not too dissimilar to the job of a SAHM. However, it makes nothing. NO THING. You need to be making a profit for the CEO of a microbusiness to make a profit, and usually, the CEO takes a loss, because microbusinesses are rarely profitable -- that's why 80% of all small business lasts less than 5 years. Families are not profitable, therefore the CEO makes nothing. And an enterprise-class CEO has totally different job duties than the CEO of a microbusiness -- the microbusiness CEO is very heavily involved in day-to-day details. If these women had described themselves as Chief Operations Officer or VP of Operations, I might buy it, but they are not CEO's of enterprises, and it's fantasyland to say they are.

As for the psychologist, you don't get to a psychologist's pay grade by listening to people's problems and advising them. Unless you have a degree and have been licensed, you are a counselor, and they make much less money. Unless Mom is in fact a licensed psychologist, she is not functioning as a licensed psychologist would when she "treats" her family.

Let me give you a more concrete example. WHen my kids have medical symptoms, I use my layperson knowledge of medicine, which, given my bachelor's in psychobiology, is probably better than most people's layperson knowledge of medicine, to assess what sort of over-the-counter medication they need. I will look up in the Physician's Desk Reference if the drugs have any interactions I should worry about with other meds they are taking. I will advise them on what they need to do to minimize their symptoms and provide treatment for first-aid injuries. Does that make me a doctor? Or even a nurse? You go to college for four-seven years for those professions. It is insulting to assume that I am as competent as a doctor or nurse at caring for my kids' illnesses just because I'm an informed layperson (though I do know enough that I can fire a doctor who's incompetent.) At *best* my rank in the medical community would be the step under registered nurse (licensed practical nurse, I think?), who has less college and less stringent licensing requirements. And makes less money.

I don't deserve the pay of a registered nurse, a psychologist, or an enterprise CEO, and neither do you, and neither does any other SAHM except maybe one who *is* a registered nurse. On the other hand, I deserve a lot more pay than a computer operator, because I've met those guys and they don't know as much as I do. I deserve what a van driver makes because they don't get any training I don't have, unless we're talking about a handi-van driver, and most families don't need one of those (and those that do, usually have a driver or two with the training to operate it.) Housekeeper, Cook, Laundry Operator, and Janitor don't require specialized training. Day-Care Center Teacher does but it's training most SAHMs undertake to get on their own, from books and such.

As for sex, I feel deeply sorry for any woman who feels that she's having sex with her husband as part of her job, who is not being compensated in equal sexual pleasure. You'd probably get very few SAHMs, even those who are in such a situation, to agree that "prostitute" belongs in their job description.

AlaraJRogers,

I've encountered and heard stories about many bad psychologists, bad professors, etc. The fact that you need a degree is just sort of our country's arbitrary system (not saying I don't want my doctors to have a degree, but realistically you probably /don't/ have to have a degree to know how to do a lot of things excellently, and it used to be in this country doctors and lawyers etc. weren't required to have degrees, they just had to pass competency tests). Calling SAHMs by these professional titles is just a /model/ for understanding what they do, you know? Just a way of trying to estimate it... Because SAHMs have not been traditioinally paid, there is no SAHM by hour salary the researchers could use. I don't understand what the point of this argument is -I don't understand what you think you're trying to prove, unless it is that "SAHMs don't deserve as much respect and the same level of life quality as someone who went to graduate school."

If that's what you mean, then say it. It's debatable though, because it's just based on a /subjective value judgment/.

Just like the way people earn salaries in this country relative to each other does not morally make sense to all of us, whether you're looking at skill level, how hard people work, etc.

SAHMs don't deserve as much respect and the same level of life quality as someone who went to graduate school."

SAHMs don't even have to pass competency tests.

A psychologist, specifically, is a person with a Ph. D., thus really extensive training. The work done by a psychologist can be done by a person who is much less trained and certified. Those people, depending on your state, are therapists or counselors, and they make much less money than psychologists. I'm sorry, but the high cost of getting the training is built into the salary of many professions, and if you did not pay the cost of the training, you don't get the salary. If "psychologist" had been replaced with "therapist" at a commensurate pay discount, I'd buy it.

Look, I'm not going to say that SAHMs don't deserve to have their contribuition to the household monetized. Whether they actually get the money or not is irrelevant, because simply being able to put a dollar value on their work allows them to fight the "well, you don't really work" stereotype. My brother actually claimed that my mom was a parasite on my father and his money wasn't really "her" money. This is bullshit misogyny; my mom worked her ass off as a SAHM to keep our house, provide healthy home-cooked meals, act as our personal shopper and valet when it came to the clothes we wore, taught us, managed our finances, and organize the household. Having a dollar figure on SAHMitude helps in negotiations with working husbands or the IRS or asshole sons.

But is it $138K? No. Maybe it should be, because women's work has been systematically devalued. The training required to be a carpenter isn't greater than the training required to be a child care specialist, but carpenters make a lot more. But it should *not* be inflated by throwing bullshit occupations that no SAHM actually *does* into the mix, because it hurts our credibility. And no SAHM is an enterprise-class CEO (not while she's SAHMing, anyway), and very, very few are psychologists. It would make more sense to give women credit as therapists. Hell, it would make more sense to give women credit as (not registered) nurses, because I bet most women make medical decisions when figuring out what OTC meds to give a child or what size bandage to put on a boo-boo. But a *psychologist* is a profession that requires extensive study, study that costs money, which is why they make more money than people who studied less.

Shit, I don't see what's wrong with saying that a SAHM should make $68K for her work. That's what I figured out the work *I* do is worth, and it's more than I made at my last real job. But if you inflate the numbers to the point where people's disbelief-o-meter is tripped, then they start inspecting the survey, and the fact that SAHMs are not psychologists (though they may be therapists) or enterprise CEOs (though they may be micro-business CEOs, who make much, much less if the business is not profitable, sometimes making less than nothing) just jumps out and devalues everything the survey has to say. I don't believe in deliberately throwing bad data into a survey, it tends to invalidate the point of the survey. It's like framing a guilty man.

Look, it's going to require some research on my part and I have a fever right now, so I'm not going to start right away, but for my own curiosity I will put together a survey that I think has realistic jobs, come back and ask those of you who are SAHMs (or working moms) if you agree that they are realistic, and see what numbers *I* get from this. Because I have just as much an ax to grind about the monetary value of SAHMing, but I don't think it does *me* or my cause in getting what I do recognized as having monetary value to throw in bullshit data that inflates the numbers. Don't SAHMs work hard enough without having to assume that they work at professions which are generally understood to require extensive grad school, or involve transactions worth millions of dollars on a regular basis?

"SAHMs don't deserve as much respect and the same level of life quality as someone who went to graduate school."

SAHMs don't even have to pass competency tests."

I think spending 90 hours a week raising kids who turn out alright without killing them is a pretty good basic competency test.

"Shit, I don't see what's wrong with saying that a SAHM should make $68K for her work. That's what I figured out the work *I* do is worth, and it's more than I made at my last real job. But if you inflate the numbers to the point where people's disbelief-o-meter is tripped, then they start inspecting the survey, and the fact that SAHMs are not psychologists (though they may be therapists) or enterprise CEOs (though they may be micro-business CEOs, who make much, much less if the business is not profitable, sometimes making less than nothing) just jumps out and devalues everything the survey has to say."

I'm fine with the $68K figure too, personally. But I don't think there's any figure you can put out there that isn't going to get a lot of "logical" argument countering it from men (and women) who don't think SAHMs deserve to be paid. That is just the belief I've come to in my life, that most people's positions on issues aren't truly based primarily on objective logic, and that people can argue anything in the world using "logic" if they so desire. But I'd be fine with 68K, I'm just sure there are people who think that's too much. I'm sure there will be people who think any amount is too much.

Hold on, hold on ... why is it just moms? And why is it just housework? I shower every day, wash my own hair, brush my own teeth, perform my own "tasks of daily living". If I had to hire an attendant to do that for me, I'd have to pay through the nose - ask any quadriplegic. Doesn't that also qualify as "women's unpaid work"? If not, why not? I want to be paid for showering all by myself...

Also, even though I am not a SAHM and live alone, I still have to cook and clean and do other chores for myself. Is that also "unpaid labor"? Or is it only "unpaid labor" when done for your own children rather than your own self? It's the same work - cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping.

Yes, it seems "unfair" that people who choose to take care of their own households don't get paid for it, but that's the way it goes - you get paid when you perform work for other people's families, not for your own. Who's supposed to pay you for taking care of your own kids, anyway? The kids?

Alara, CEO and psychologist were last on the list meaning the fewest hours were attributed to these two jobs. A CEO or enterprise CEO oversees the whole company which is what moms do. SAHMs oversee the whole family. They should add an 11th job, Chief Operating Officer for overseeing the inner workings of the family too. As far as being professionally trained, I second Nina who said they are doing a competent or passing job and should be paid as such. If their family completely falls apart and they lose custody or whatever, they lose their "title" as CEO of the family. If they totally fuck up their kids and lose custody, they lose the family psychologist job too. I made a point in a different thread about this which is the fact SAHMs can do all these jobs at once is a mean feat in itself so they deserve the pay of all ten professional occupations.

meepster, you didn't read the rest of the thread which already addressed this. Would you adopt two kids and take on a spouse and do all this work for free?

My brother actually claimed that my mom was a parasite on my father and his money wasn't really "her" money. This is bullshit misogyny; my mom worked her ass off as a SAHM to keep our house, provide healthy home-cooked meals, act as our personal shopper and valet when it came to the clothes we wore, taught us, managed our finances, and organize the household. Having a dollar figure on SAHMitude helps in negotiations with working husbands or the IRS or asshole sons. --Alara

Yeah SAHMs should get half the salary of the husband. I say SAHM because 99% of stay at home parents are moms. My dad let my mom spend anything she wanted but she always had to ASK. It's kind of embararassing when you think about it. Like, "Do you need 20 dollars? Do you want 100 or 50?" when she goes shopping. She's very old-fashioned and doesn't mind. I asked my dad and he said if he did it over again, he'd just GIVE her half of his money. She actually deserves two-thirds because she worked twice as many hours.

I wonder what men should get paid for being the burger flipping, garbage hauling, low wage scapegoats of society, and particularly the scapegoats for white women innefficeint birthing habits.
Surely there must be a value placed on being talked about all the time.

What is the cost of one misandrist quasi factoid that predisposes more men to more violence in a woman centered world?

I recommend kicking the troll off this site.

http://www.10000birds.com/misogyny-in-the-blogosphere.htm

(He even tried to complain about this site somewhere else and got kicked off for it because he wouldn't stop.)

And he appears to have serious mommy issues, which I suggest he seeks help for:

http://culturekitchen.com/jj_ross/blog/favorite_daughter_peels_off_virgin_label

But he even calls women who aren't mothers by degrading terminology.

I have no problem with valuing the work that a sahm does.

But don't try to make me pay them.

Let their husbands and children pay (I suggest giving a bill to children when they reach the age of 18). They're the one who receive the benefits of the sahm's work.

As was mentioned earlier, why don't people make their kids do chores any longer? I had to do the dishes and fold and put away my own laundry (among other things) when I was a kid.

Why are chores toboo these days?

Ninapendaminishi:

your form of misandrist slander is among the most pervasive on the internet.

Your verbal assault of my mother, I think I will let it stand for what it is, a verbal assault of my mother, which is innapropriate, and cruel, and kind of, um, misogynist on your part--coward, attacking my deceased mother, or her parentinfg style--Yikes. You prove my point.

"He even tried to complain about this site somewhere else and got kicked off for it because he wouldn't stop"

Where? When? I think you are confusing your bloggers.
As for your charges: I am absolutely innocent.It is people like you that falsely accuse for the convenience of social and political advantage, leaving in your wake a hazy depiction of truth, or historical analysis,and their should be laws against you and your false allegations.

"He even tried to complain about this site somewhere else and got kicked off for it because he wouldn't stop"

Albeit I have alternative and necessary views, it is people like you, cowering and scared that the truth of female sexual abuse of children might become known. I feel so, um, Anna Freud at times around entities like you.

However, as for Culture Kitchens blog: that was a response to that persons comments as a homeschooler on another board,teaching a child to hate men, and applying a double standard about sex values and sex teaching. That blog maintained that men who teach their daughters abstinence and virginity were creepy, which I agrred is creepy, and I merely posited that teaching girls to be hyperfocused on their vaginas is actually as creepy if not more, and the variety of means and methods that female sexual abuse of daughters goes unchallenged is exactly what the discussion that sprang from other boards was about.

The post was a response to a story of a young girl analyzing men as "creeps', and the larger debate, which you were NOT a part of, and it sprang from many board posts about the possibilities of women and others who homeschool using that schooling as a shield to hide sexual and other abuse behind--as women are indeed very adept at hiding their sexual abuse of children behind the guise of normal 'nurturing'if you read the literature.It is a direct statemant to you and any other reader that the issue of child abuse remains a political and social smokescreen to eviscerate men, but shield women abusers; a kind of sad reminder that their are children today being thus abused, and no lobby of sympathizers to save them, only a lobby of label throwing, minimizing obfuscators, like you.

The 10000 birds post was a response to the Cathy Sierra hate crime, where I maintained, as I do now, that their were three men falsely accused, and no charges pressed, EVER, which leads me to believe that the whole thing was an orchestrated-- and lucritive,publicity garnering scandal. This is a legitimate response to a blogosphere that lit up over the idea of one woman being abused, while allowing tens of thousands of hateful acts of misandry to exist daily, and more subtle misogyny--like your subtle assault on the character of my mother--to go unnoticed EVERY DAY.

Ninapendaminishi:

your form of misandrist slander is among the most pervasive on the internet.

Your verbal assault of my mother, I think I will let it stand for what it is, a verbal assault of my mother, which is innapropriate, and cruel, and kind of, um, misogynist on your part--coward, attacking my deceased mother, or her parentinfg style--Yikes. You prove my point.

"He even tried to complain about this site somewhere else and got kicked off for it because he wouldn't stop"

Where? When? I think you are confusing your bloggers.
As for your charges: I am absolutely innocent.It is people like you that falsely accuse for the convenience of social and political advantage, leaving in your wake a hazy depiction of truth, or historical analysis,and their should be laws against you and your false allegations.

"He even tried to complain about this site somewhere else and got kicked off for it because he wouldn't stop"

Albeit I have alternative and necessary views, it is people like you, cowering and scared that the truth of female sexual abuse of children might become known. I feel so, um, Anna Freud at times around entities like you.

However, as for Culture Kitchens blog: that was a response to that persons comments as a homeschooler on another board,teaching a child to hate men, and applying a double standard about sex values and sex teaching. That blog maintained that men who teach their daughters abstinence and virginity were creepy, which I agrred is creepy, and I merely posited that teaching girls to be hyperfocused on their vaginas is actually as creepy if not more, and the variety of means and methods that female sexual abuse of daughters goes unchallenged is exactly what the discussion that sprang from other boards was about.

The post was a response to a story of a young girl analyzing men as "creeps', and the larger debate, which you were NOT a part of, and it sprang from many board posts about the possibilities of women and others who homeschool using that schooling as a shield to hide sexual and other abuse behind--as women are indeed very adept at hiding their sexual abuse of children behind the guise of normal 'nurturing'if you read the literature.It is a direct statemant to you and any other reader that the issue of child abuse remains a political and social smokescreen to eviscerate men, but shield women abusers; a kind of sad reminder that their are children today being thus abused, and no lobby of sympathizers to save them, only a lobby of label throwing, minimizing obfuscators, like you.

The 10000 birds post was a response to the Cathy Sierra hate crime, where I maintained, as I do now, that their were three men falsely accused, and no charges pressed, EVER, which leads me to believe that the whole thing was an orchestrated-- and lucritive,publicity garnering scandal. This is a legitimate response to a blogosphere that lit up over the idea of one woman being abused, while allowing tens of thousands of hateful acts of misandry to exist daily, and more subtle misogyny--like your subtle assault on the character of my mother--to go unnoticed EVERY DAY.

Hazmatix - forget crimes against men, what about crimes against syntax, spelling and literacy?! Have you no heart? What about the poor apostrophes?!
The confused theres/theirs?!
Oh, the cruelty of humanity against the written word!

Ninapendamaishi - He is a nutbar. I wouldn't bother responding in a serious way to someone who is obviously unhinged.

"But I think we can gauge the real-world value of [unwaged] compensation by looking at how many jobs compensate their workers with only unwaged remuneration. That would be none."

Or we could be honest and value it the same way we are valuing unwaged labour: at market value or replacement cost.

anorak: Bad syntax? Spelling errors??!!

Now there's a criticism I can face up to
;-)

But you fogot to mention double punctuation, as in "the poor apostrophes?!"

As for your dig at me as a dyslexic, well....don't be a meanie;-(

"Have you no heart?"

And: question>> why is an alternative view point so challenging, and inherently a point of mockery here? Is there no room to move forward and question old data, or collect new?
Oh, yeah, that's right: it is backlash gatekeeping against alternative thinking, and non mainstream facts.Or maybe this is what abuse survivors in general have to put up with by deniers, obfuscators, perpetrators, perpetuators, and deniers. Authoritarian societies love that sort of attitude.

el loco *eyeroll*

"Or maybe this is what abuse survivors in general have to put up with by deniers, obfuscators, perpetrators, perpetuators, and deniers. "

hazmatix, a number of women on this site /are/ survivors of various sexual abuse, and I assure you they have a much better idea of what it feels like than you do.

To continue dialogue, though, wouldn't you please provide your e-mail? Please? Based on the homophobic, anti-Pagan comments you made on the second website to which I provided a link, and the fact you called women comfortable with their own sexuality "liberated sluts" and stated your believe that all women comfortable with their own sexuality/who enjoy sex were assaulted by their own mothers, I'm sure there are some women on this site who would like to send you their responses more personally...

Nina: Well, well. Are you intentionally hammering at this, labelling me, personalizing, and obfuscating in order to ruin the thread focus? I apologize in advance for having to defend myself, should I be accused of 'trolling' or distorting the purpose of this thread, but since you brought it up....

I provided my e-mail,when I joined the site. I would love to hear all of those viewpoints indeed, so that I do not get too much spam at my regular e-mail (you know, there are robots that comb the internet for e-mail adresses), I will give you a new one:

www.thegal@yahoo.com

Feel free to flame me if that is your nature, tell me your personal stories, discuss the subject of female perpetrated sexual abuse of children, or just hate on me for bringing it up, and ruining the social gate keeping mechanism that hides this under reported and heinous activity from our dialogues. I welcome all discussion on the topic.

Nina, re: "Or maybe this is what abuse survivors in general have to put up with by deniers, obfuscators, perpetrators, perpetuators, and deniers. "

hazmatix, a number of women on this site /are/ survivors of various [forms of]sexual abuse, and I assure you they have a much better idea of what it feels like than you do.

Nina, why do you think I wrote it that way? And how can you possibly " assure [me]they have a much better idea of what it feels like than you do,"? I would love to know the answer to that gross presumption.Male victims are the most silenced of all.

I have empathy for any and all that are too traumatized by their reported abuse to deal with the primary abuse that set them up for that. But it is you who is assuming much here, in mammoth and priviledged portions, about me, them, and the issue at hand.

The reference to "liberated sluts" which I am all in favor of, comes from a poem by a dear friend of mine who is currently enjoying the full depths of her consensual adult sexuality--despite years of sexual voyeurism,inuendo,violationsof her privacy in the bedroom, the bathtub and other more heinous, and subtle and invasive motherhood at the hands of her 'medical mommy,'(which is hers to discuss, not mine)who is still walking free.

As to your indictment of any misinterpretation that you have laid on ex parte statements from other conversations, which you were not a part of, I suggest you re-read any and everything you attribute to me--but without the inflammatory sense of emotional violence that you are directing at whatever it is that you attribute to me, or statements you allege are me, or mine.

I might add, that all of my best friends, both male AND female, are indeed liberated sluts. Whatever baggage or political agenda that you, or others are carrying in regard to this phrase that you wrongly attributed to me is not mine to tote for you--at least not until the matriarchy comes, and all men are just warriors,worker bees or womb donors, by extension of the logic you are applying here in regard to your presumption that I am gendered male.

Finally, again, here is the e-mail where I will welcome any and all of your comments:

www.thegal@yahoo.com

this e-mail has been brought to you by the Men Are People Too Foundation, and under paid, much maligned organization dedicated to the equality of all humans regardless of institutional bias, faulty social presumption, gatekeeping of fact collection mechanisms, and/or the many labels that are inevitably laid at the feet of those who create new pathways for dialogue, and work for eradication of stereotypes, smokescreens, and other forms of social distortion
NOT
;-)

Or we could be honest and value it the same way we are valuing unwaged labour: at market value or replacement cost.

That doesn't seem honest to me. If you value health insurance that way, for instance, it makes it seem as though people are getting paid huge amounts, because of the huge replacement costs. But the fact is, nobody can live on health insurance alone, so its replacement/market value isn't actually representative of its value as compensation.

Hazmatix - At no point did I refer to you as dyslexic. If, in fact, you are dyslexic, I apologise for teasing you about your problems with grammar etc. If you are not dyslexic, shame on you!

anorak: This sort of obloquy is mystifying to me. I mean, now I should crawl into a hole of shame? Shame for what? Is there never enough of thet to go around? No thanks-- I did my time there already, I grew up in the world of that.
However, upon re-reading your post, I realize that you were merely chiding me--what stood out was the mean-ness in labeling me, personally. Of course, at that time, I understand it is likely you were merely objectifying me as a "passing male," or some kind of other negative archetype/stereotype from the ancient misandrist literature, rather than seeing that a real person was here on the keypad, struggling in my way to get thoughts onto cyberpaper, and suggesting my opinion about the compoundable possibility of the rhetoric of non compensation and what actually kind of sounds like malapropistic male bashing, sans males. Comedic only in thew sense that I don't see alot of male worldview in the discussion, where men here are relegated to objectified status as some entity that does not care if his shirts get ironed.

And in that light, I might add, I grew up in the generation where women 'brought home the bacon, fried it up in a pan'.....and I never ever gave a damn if they thought or remembered that I was or wasn't a man, but then I woke up to this nightmare replication of the 1950's, but this time the unions were busted, identity politics guaranteed a sterile and low wage workplace for all, and the brain drain from other countries landed here, talking about Americas dysfunctional families, dysfunctional school systems, etc.--and lower income males are victimized for perceived social slights, instead of these guys with the wifey doin' chores and complainin' about it.

I mean Melinda Gates probably isn't complaining, and likely neither are the rest of the upper crust, but those who are clawing to get to that level of wealth and eat that piece of the pie sure do make it hard for everyone else down here where the crumbs fall with rhetoric of this nature.

Which is why I asked about the cost to those low income and "othered" males of one misandrist factoid spread around the globe--for which I have been labeled twice, shamed once, and misquoted rabidly.

But that's ok. I am used to it here in the land of newspeak.

"Nina, why do you think I wrote it that way? And how can you possibly " assure [me]they have a much better idea of what it feels like than you do,"? I would love to know the answer to that gross presumption.Male victims are the most silenced of all."

If you are the victim of sexual abuse, hazmatix, I do encourage you to seek help. I know I told you this before, but male victims of sexual abuse are welcome at many centers across the country that try to assist all survivors of abuse.

If you give us your /real/ e-mail, and maybe some information about where you're located, I'm sure we could help direct you to a local survivors' advocate program.

Nina: re "If you give us your /real/ e-mail, and maybe some information about where you're located,"
How dare you question my credibility, considering that you have proven to be so very disrespectful,and disingenuous, with your labels and your name calling.
That is a real e-mail, that you purported people would love to give me a piece of their mind at,and it remains empty, as your further obfuscation is just a waste of time at this point.

Shut up or dish out whatever off the record stuff it was that you wanted to write to me:

I could just imagine you with people who actually need help. Wow. You're nothing, if not disingenuous, and misleading.

So now, why don't you give me your e-mail adress? And a credit card number while we're at it,right here on the internet, so I can get paid for the waste of time that your insults, name calling, and false flagging requests have cost me.

Oh, wait: more unpaid time, wasted with another female denier. Lets see: in the clinic, I get 250 per hour for an intake. Therapy sessions net me 150 per hour....these wasted letters to disingenuous Nina have cost me, um, an hour or so+ excess baggage from Nina based in deceptive requests for e-mail, and questions about my credibility(trust issues, Nina?) = more wasted time, or a suicide if in fact a survivor actually needed help from false flagging Nina.
Now, if you need help for your baiting,passive aggressive behavior send me a letter at

www.thegal@yahoo.com

and I will see to it that you get the help you need, because Nina, the world is a better place when people are genuine, and trustworthy, and do the things they say they will;-)
You can start by getting together that letter you were so interested in sending earlier--of course in the name of 'abuse survivors'. How ignoble.

Well hazmatix, the services of a Sexual Assault Support Center would cost you nothing. But if you refuse to look for a local one on your own, you have to let us know the general area in which you live before we can refer you.

Nina: re: "let us know the general area in which you live before we can refer you."

The county in which you live will have a mental health center that will be willing to have a look at you Nina--I mean the part of you that is a "we".

But you have to let me where you live, and what services you are seeking, before I can refer you.

However,if you need further help or advice for that latent borderline agression,or any other thing, let me know, at the e-mail provided. But you have to give me a credit card number so I can bill you for my personal time.
Or is this ignoring od=f the context of my response to your queries a BPD cry for help?

So are you saying that you have no personal experience with the abuse of which you speak, hazmatix? That you are /not/ in fact a survivor?

p.s. Nina: I am certain that Swarthmore, UChicago, AND Carleton colleges have excellent mental health resources for students and yourself, which are included in your student fees!
By the way, what did you decide on for your major? Because if you make it through poly sci, you can be a great lawyer, as your argumentative nature lends itself well to a courtroom.

Actually I am majoring in Environmental Studies and Anthropology, at a college that is not named above. I decided those fields are far more progressive and more in-line with the things I am passionate about in life.

Btw, what precisely do you want us to do here, hazmatix? What do you think would help your concern about child molestation (something an equal number of men and women perpetrate (though far from the majority in either case))? No one here is denying that child molestation happens, or that it is a problem, and some of us volunteer with services that help survivors of child abuse.

Nina: I don't know you, you don't know me, and I will not discuss my personal history with you, in light of your approach so far, which has been mean, hypocritical, and hypercritical, and very very sexist.
Again, I urge you to use the e-mail provided if you would like to discuss these things further,and hopefully, if indeed there is a genuine bone in those Ralph Laurens, you will decist in this sort of indirect and disingenuos manner of discussion--which does not belong on this thread.

Here, if you would like some resources for learning more about male sexual abuse(as feministing is not the place):

http://www.malesurvivor.org/index.htm

http://www.menweb.org/sexabupg.htm

It appears my last comment was eaten;-) Nice edit. But again, this does not belong here, but since you asked( quite off topic)
RE:
"what precisely do you want us to do here, hazmatix? What do you think would help your concern about child molestation (something an equal number of men and women perpetrate)"

Well that egalitarian acknowledgement was a nice start, although if you read back on my posts from the beginning, you will see that I was never asking or intending to address this topic.

Again, you have deflected and personalized. No one was asking about links to cyberspace, nor was I needing them, but I hope someone will, and I hope that you continue to provide them. However, I sadly question your assertion that womens sexual abuse of children does not belong on Feministing. If not here, then where? If not outrage here for undocumented, poorly defined abuse of kids, then where? No wonder it continues.

So as an anthropologist, here is a link for you for several dozen ethnographies in regards to American societies double standard and double definitional problem of what is and isn't sexual abuse of children, and why it is that so many kids who were molested by women acting in a prurient manner, and acting indidually are allowed to go undocumented and unprosecuted.

http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume13/j13_1_2.htm

The main thesis is that "The feminist curriculum has pioneered a moralist universalism," that equivocates male with "rape," and female with "nurturing," regardless of the bizare forms that "nurturing" takes here and around the world, which is often sexual abuse or practice in disguise of nurturing, or preparation for social functions in later life.

It is germane here because it is precicely that enculturation of 'genital reference' that is the problem for a multitude of things that are talked about here in other posts: rape, abuse, sex/gender wage gaps (and how and why we react to them the way we do, or are set up for them from an early age)and just about any other inequity one can name. Because, as you surely know, keeping silences of any form can hinder progress.

The abuse of males is not the focus here, because it is the focus on other sites. Why is not the abuse of women the focus on the sites I pointed you towards? Because that is our focus here. You've posted that study here before hazmatix, which means I've read it before. I know you think women cause all the problems in the world, since I've glanced at your posts on other sites. Reading your stuff is starting to make me feel like /I'm/ tripping though... so peace-out...

In conclusion:

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome fow he sought--
So he rested by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
And whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker - snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms by beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"So as an anthropologist, here is a link for you for several dozen ethnographies in regards to American societies double standard and double definitional problem of what is and isn't sexual abuse of children"

P.S. I can't find the word "American" anywhere in that study. Could you please find it and quote it for me?

Ninaobscura: verb>>to minimize,and obfuscate, minimize and obfuscate:

Honey,why do I get into this with the kids?
Honey: because you made them.
...your screwing up the thread.
But I must say, a wind of such violence.....

"There is a dignity to this; there is a formality-
The flowers vivid as bandages, and the man mending.
They bow and stand : they suffer such attacks!"

Yet:
"Empty, I echo to the least footfall,
Museum without statues, grand with pillars, porticoes, rotundas.
In my courtyard a fountain leaps and sinks back into itself,
Nun-hearted and blind to the world. Marble lilies
Exhale their pallor like scent.

I imagine myself with a great public,
Mother of a white Nike and several bald-eyed Apollos.
Insread, the dead injure me attentions, and nothing can happen.
Blank-faced and mum as a nurse."
And so:

"the octogenarian loves the little flocks.
He is quite blue; the terrible wind tries his breathing."
and then again, without my wanting it so:
"The narcissi look up like children, quickly and whitely."

despite the colors that ring their necks in motherly grasp: I was a fortunate son ndeed.

Camera Obscura: noun>> an indie pop band from Glasgow, Scotland, formed in 1996 by Tracyanne Campbell, John Henderson, and Gavin Dunbar.

Quite to the contrary, Ms. Mary Contrary, I think women are the solution to the problems of the world--and the word.You can draft your own set of inferences about the IPT piece, and I hope you enjoy that journal as a resource.

However, I must leave you wanting, for that study is one done in the Netherlands,and citing a world wide body of ethnographic evidence some of which is from sources which do not have the extreme authoritarian gatekeeping mechanisms in place to pre-screen the data that you do here in the US.

However, it is merely a primer. Read the other works cited, find your "America," if you are interested, and then we can talk.

You are indeed a presumptuous anthropologist indeed. That won't take you too far in that field. Assumptions and presumptions are two different things.

"I made a fire; being tired
Of the white fists of old
Letters and their death rattle
When I came too close to the wastebasket
What did they know that I didn't?"

hmm... Hazardous Materials, eh? hazmat@ix...

Did working with the Hazmat fry your mind? Or do you mean to imply you are hazardous?

Do you like "memorizing Romantic poetry"?

OK you big meanie:

Hazmatix: pen name used when weighing in on socially unpopular or difficult topics that generally draw knee jerk responses from zealots, ideologues, the religious right, or the authoritarian left; name used for topics that might get you flamed, maligned, or otherwise infected with peoples unchecked and venomous assaults of your intellect or personage.

And: more hazardous than your need for all of this atention online, rather than taking the conversation offline, or at least honoring the thread?

so now I ask: Ninapendamaishi: actual name, or name that a white person uses to sound more ethnic and cool than they really are? Zhen mafan de zaogao de xiao xianu....

"The history of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed myth of its conquerors."
and to honor the thread:

"Human history is work history. The heroes of the people are work heroes."
Meridel

It's not a name that I use to sound more ethnic than I really am. It's a name I took from a language which I studied, and which I very much enjoyed. It means something special in that language. What's in a name?

Do you like Long Beach, CA?

I largely dislike the romance poets, all of those famously grovelling leotards, and overly fumous clatters of flowers.

I have never been there. Damaishi in Xi'an?

Do you prefer Boulder, CO?

never been there.
why do you ask such specific cities?

why not?

da mai shi= "big place of buying matters", or, market, in mandarin

well ninapendamaishi is not mandarin, or Asian at all.

It's Swahili actually. You can have fun trying to translate it, if it matters to you.

hmmm.ok. No speak Swahili,or Kiswahili;-(
Cool online translator says no go.
http://www.yale.edu/swahili/

best guess:dama ishi:
command of the game, or or polite command of the earth.

nope.

Seeing as Swahili is not very popular in the US, it is hard to find truly excellent dictionaries, let alone online translators...

I got my translation from a native speaker

So what are all of the American cities you /have/ visited?

or maybe "silly pen name"
or "she[mother] who exists as a value less thing"
or about twenty other possibilities, added to

So do you borrow someone else's e-mail address?

Nope. but I have a bunch of them.Every thing I do, I try to do originally, without harm.
That e-mail is the one that identifies this conversation, and it is active.
And I generally only borrow books from people, and return them only if asked
;-).
But I am a procrastinator.I gotta go do some chores now, but IO have enjoyed this exchange.
Am I close with the name?

"Am I close with the name?"

no.

Ok. Well, enjoy the translator. All I can figure is that there are four phonetic root words with one tonal phoneme 'm', and it is a phrase which has feminine conotations of earth, games, motherhood, and generally, all definitions point to lower status on one side, or humble origins in a positive light,possibly inside oneself with overtones of existential origin.
But ok then. Nice talking.

it doesn't involve earth, games, or motherhood.

I give up then. If you ever want to tel someone what it means, well, I will listen. Names are important to those we choose to speak them.

Pendamaishi: To cheat with a pen in Japanese?

I don't know anything about Swahili, but I like the Japanese translation of your name, which is what I had thought it had been all along.

speaking of obscurity: Irving E. Cox; romantic poetry; Long Beach