Can you really put a value on the work a mother does to raise her children and take care of her home? Well, a study was recently done to give an estimated value of how much a mother would be able to earn if she were paid for all that she accomplishes in a day. The total came up to somewhere around $95,000 a year. That is an astounding number that shows just how fiscally irresponsible I’m being for not demanding that salary for my efforts. At the very least, maybe it does bring some validity to my day in and day out life. Although, I’m just not so sure the the value of a mother can be measured in dollars.
Value in What You do as a Mom
It is so hard to find the value in what you do as a mother, or father for that matter. So much of what we accomplish from day to day as parents is not measurable. Each day, I do much of the same mundane tasks, and for what reason? For me to get up the next day and do it all over again. The monotony can drive any person insane, but we must find value in what we do each day.
Why Bother Each Day
When I ask my children to help me clean up or do things around the house, they always ask if someone is coming over to visit. That is a valid question because I when someone is coming to visit, I preface the cleaning up by telling them that someone is coming. That is to let them know that I expect a much more thorough kind of cleanup.
However, that is not the only time I clean the house, and my children don’t understand it. They just walk around and say, “Well, if no one is coming over, then why to bother cleaning up?”. I really can’t blame this for this line of thinking. There is a purpose in them cleaning up when people come to visit; they have a reward for their efforts. When no one is coming to play with them, there is no motivation to clean up. For me, I feel the same way in my day-to-day chores. I get discouraged when I spend all day trying to clean the house and still end up sitting on
the couch opposite a pile of laundry and a huge stack of dishes at the sink. I slump on the couch and ask myself, “What is the point in all of this?”. I’m not sure that if I was valuing my time based on dollars, that it would be worth it. If it wasn’t for a greater purpose, I can guarantee many of us would give up and find something else to do with our lives.
When is the Payday for Parents
My only hope is that one day I will get some kind of payday for all the hard work I have put in. I’m not sure what that day will look like. I think I’ve seen small glimpses of the payday when I have worked for months and months to help one of my children read, and they finally get it. Another moment is when you work with you children in teaching them a difficult task like riding a bike, and you finally see them learn how.
Those moments are joyous and brief, but they are amazing when they happen. Maybe there never will be a big payday in parenting, it could possibly be all of the small victories add up. So, when I plop down on the couch at the end of the day and wonder what the point of all of this work is, I remind myself that there are four guys in my life that I do it for.
The only hope that I really have in this whole mothering thing, is that hopefully one day I’ll see my children become successful. There is no monetary value that can be placed on loving and caring for others. There is no doubt there is a long journey ahead of me in this endeavor of raising kids, but I’m going to keep pushing forward, as I hope you will.
