In the film Cheaper by the Dozen an American football coach played by Steve Martin assures his wife that he will cope if she leaves home for two weeks to promote a book. How difficult can it be? After all, they have only 12 kids. Cue chaos and agencies hanging up when he needs to hire help – even after telling them he has "two kids. Plus 10."
Well, that’s Hollywood. The fact is you would be hard pushed to replace a stay-at-home parent who minds two children. All parents are irreplaceable in the affection of their families, but I mean you would have trouble getting someone else to do the work even if you could pay. There is too much of it, it is too boring and it is rarely noticed by the people who benefit: your children and society.
So I was not shocked when a survey of 1,000 Irish people found that most undervalued the work done by stay-at-home parents like me.
Most thought ¤20,000-¤30,000 a year would cover it. Two seconds of math would show how deluded that is, but since it is useful work traditionally done by women of course it is undervalued.
Some people think of stay-at-home parents as parasites, not workers. I once heard a retro (female) journalist dismiss us as lazy lumps who expect to be kept in exchange for sexual favours. Ridiculous thought. Anyone who has a child knows that the words “parent” and “sexual favours” never belong together.
Self-interest
She is not alone. Economists, for example, whose dreary profession can put a monetary value on such mystical institutions as marriage, cannot cope with stay-at-home parents. Perhaps it is because we defy their theory that people always act in their economic self-interest.
They get their own back by excluding us from calculations of gross domestic product (the total value of goods produced and services provided in a country during one year) or gross national product (same plus net income from foreign investments). Fine, if that is the way they want it.
But if a stay-at-home mum walks off the job without arranging cover she commits a crime. Whereas if all economists were to drift away from their desks none would be arrested. Their work is not that important.
No time off
That’s the combination that messes with people’s heads: stay-at-home parents have massive responsibility but no status, no pay and no time off.
No wonder the attempt to put a value on us defeats the capitalist mind.
So, time for that two seconds of maths I mentioned. The crucial fact is that stay-at-home parents are on duty 24/7. (If you think minding someone vulnerable who is asleep should not count, ring an agency and ask if they charge to mind an elderly person at night).
Assuming a minimum wage of €9.15 an hour, 24 hours a day, times 365 days a year, that comes to €80,154 for childcare. Knock off a bit for room and board. So €60,000 should cover it.
But it gets trickier because as their children grow, stay-at-home parents provide many services other than childcare, services you would normally pay for.
A taxi from my house to the nearest town costs €17. Most days I run a child in and out of the town at least once.
Laundry? My laundry basket currently holds 40 tops, 10 pairs of trousers and three hoodies waiting to be ironed – at the knockdown price of €1 each that’s €53 worth I’ll do for free.
I have heard a company now exists that will vacuum nits from a child’s hair for €100-plus. I once de-nitted two kids on Christmas Eve – try getting a company to do that at any price.
Then there are the super-parents like my friend who, when she was at home with her children, grew all the family’s fruit and veg, and raised chickens for poultry and eggs. Who would you get to do that? How much would you have to pay?
It is more difficult yet to put a price on the more nebulous contributions of stay-at-home parents. In the US many states and charities now run after-school programmes for teenagers because high-risk behaviour spikes between the time teens get off school and parents get home from work. Teenage girls who fall pregnant, for example, often do so during these hours.
Working spouses
We stay-at-home parents subsidise the work done by our working spouses. My husband works afternoons and evenings, plus has a long commute. If I was not around it would not be possible for him to combine that job with raising school-age children.
Sure, some couples manage. But all you need is a child who keeps coming down with colds and soon you are both out of sick leave and rowing about who can best afford to annoy the boss this time. If one parent stays at home the other’s productivity at work rises.
Of course the value of this subsidy is not acknowledged. But that’s okay. I know what I’m doing now is more useful than anything I ever did in return for a wage.
Just don’t tell me you’d do it for €20,000-€30,000.