You know, I used to get angry when I read stories like this, because I believe that being a housewife or homemaker - I hate that term Stay-At-Home-Mom because it so narrowly defines women as being only mothers - is a CHOICE, not a MUST, in 2006.
Women have opportunities to go out and get educated and work outside the home for an actual paycheck; no one is forcing them to not work for an actual paycheck. And women have the option to not have children at all so they will never be stuck at home with the kiddies and not earning an actual paycheck.
Now see stories like this, and feel amused rather than angry. These stories are just a pathetic way for women who are unsatisfied with being housewives and homemakers to justify their unhappy lives. By saying they deserve a "salary," they say that at least they're doing something valuable.
To that I say, Yeah, okay - keep convincing yourself that what you're doing is so valuable. I don't think that most of what you do is that valuable at all, since if there was a yearly evaluation for being a housewife/homemaker/SAHM/or whatever you choose to call it, many of you would be put on probation or fired.
I'm not against women who choose to take the role of housewife/homemaker. My own mother was a homemaker until I was in high school. She willingly left a good job as an executive secretary for an oil company to raise my sisters and me.
But she did a very good job of being a homemaker, and like most women of her generation who raised children in the '60s, '70s and early '80s, she didn't feel the need to justify her job by saying that all that she did was equal to $XXX of salary. She just quietly kept a clean, well-decorated house; cooked good meals - mostly from scratch; sewed many of our clothes; grew vegetables; and did many other things besides taking care of my sisters and me. In other words, she, like most women of her generation, were full homemakers, not just narrowly defined SAHMs. Their job wasn't to entertain children all day - their job was to create a nice home for the family.
I can compare what my mother did to what my sister does as a SAHM, and my sister would receive a low evaluation if there was one for her job.
Of the 10 jobs this story listed that SAHMs do - housekeeper, day care teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive and psychology - the only ones my sister does well are "day care teacher" and "van driver," because she spends most of her time playing with her children and supposedly "homeschooling" them (but they're still far behind other children in reading, writing and arithmetic) and chauffering them to playgroups and other activities in her van.
The other jobs? Failing grade - my sister's house is a mess; she hires "facilities managers" to mow her yard and do repairs instead of being a "facilities manager" herself; and her cooking usually involves heating up frozen food, making boxed meals or picking up take out.
Meanwhile, I'm not a mother, but I do most of the jobs on this list except for "day care teacher" (my cats don't need teaching) and "van driver" (you won't catch me behind the wheel of one of those things). And my DH also does most of the remaining jobs.
Housekeeper? We both do our share each day so the house never looks entirely dirty and messy.
Cook? We alternate cooking, and I mean actual cooking from scratch most of the time - not heating up something.
Laundry machine operator and computer operator? We both do laundry and work on the computer.
Janitor? We have cats who sometimes throw up, so cleaning after them counts, doesn't it? So does taking out the garbage, which we both do.
Facilities manager? We both mow and work in the flower beds and do repairs and home improvements ourselves if we can. We'll be doing some inside painting this weekend.
Chief executive? Not sure what this means.
Psychologist? Definitely - I listen to my DH when he has problems at work, and he listens to me, and we give each other advice.
I will add two more jobs I do to that list:
Accountant - because I pay bills and do other money management
Animal caretaker
I do all these jobs while holding down a full-time job for actual income. It shouldn't be only mothers who get credit for doing these jobs, particulary when some of them are doing these jobs poorly.