Have you ever tried to calculate salary of housewife mom? I know, not many will care to quantify this job.
Job? Is it really a job? Yes it is. But mostly, it is taken for granted.
What will happen if government made a rule that all housewife moms should get a paycheck.
Yes husbands, what will happen to your pocket if you had to pay to your wife.
Children, do you know how much your MOM will cost you?
Perhaps, being a housewife mom deserves one of the best salaries in the world.
But we have stereotyped “housewife moms” as somebody who is “selfless”.
But what if this selfless person also need a decent “income”.
This income is not for others. It is her money. She will use it the way “she wants”.
Perhaps for the first time in her life. Without any dependency, no permissions required….
Our society can afford to include this expense in their personal finance management?
They must do it. This society will change for good.
The First Step…
How many housewives moms in this world has liberty to think like this?
Most of them would have to take a permission to spend even a penny.
Why this dependency? Because the man-of-the-house earns, and her income is zero.
Why her income is zero? Because she is a housewife mom.
Housewife mom works? 12/14 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Then why her income is zero? Because we have forced them to “pose as selfless”.
Though being selfless is a good thing, but it must not be imposed on them.
Let housewife moms be the way they are, selfless.
But from our side, lets start paying them a salary.
If the word “salary” is sounding materialistic, lets call it ‘pocket money”. Lets pay them their dues…
Contributions of Housewife Mom
The first step is to calculate salary of a housewife mom.
How to do it?
For this, we will have to break-down their contributions.
It is not possible to pen down all contribution of housewife Moms as “To-Dos”. Why?
Consider this example:
A Child is hungry, needs Milk. Mother needs to feed the child.
This act can be done in two ways:
- In a mechanical way.
- In a motherly way.
The impact of the same act on the child, done in these two styles, are very different.
In terms of To-Do’s, both of them are probably doing the same task.
But a motherly act has far reaching positive impact on child than a mechanical one.
So how to financially quantify motherly acts different from a normal act?
It is impossible.
This is why most people stop at this point itself.
But we will not stop. Lets proceed anyhow.
Main activities/contributions of household Moms are as follows:
| SL | Role | Task |
| 1 | Mother | Taking care of children |
| 2 | Tutor & Mentor | Teacher for children |
| 3 | Supervisor | Activities related to Cooking & Housekeeping |
| 4 | Cook | Specialised cooking for family (replacement of dinning-out) |
| 5 | Personal Care | For family members |
| 6 | Friend & Assistant | For all family members |
Quantify: Calculate Salary of Housewife Mom
Now we have a set of contributions which is attributable to household mom’s.
How to quantify them?
We will use a simple logic of “replacement cost” method.
Had the household mom not present, what cost will be encountered to get outside help.
So lets apply this logic:
| SL | Role | Task | Cost |
| 1 | Mother | Taking care of children (replacement of Daycare) | Rs.6,000 /month/Child |
| 2 | Tutor & Mentor | Assistance to do homework, exam preparations etc. (replacement of an external tutor) | Rs.5,000 /month/Child |
| 3 | Supervisor | Activities related to Cooking & Housekeeping | Rs.3,000 |
| 4 | Cook | Specialised cooking for family (replacement of dinning-out) | Rs.4,000 |
| 5 | Personal Care | For all family members (replacement of full day help) | Rs.5,000 |
| 6 | Friend & Assistant | For all family members | Rs.6,000 |
| Total | 29,000 |
Final words…
Assigning a cost of just Rs.29,000 to contributions of a household mother is not enough.
I am sure you all will agree.
But as we are not able to quantify the “motherly acts” behind all her activities, hence we kept it simple.
Consider this (specially husbands), from next month you will have to pay Rs.29,000 to the lady of the house.
How easy or hard it will be for you to implement this rule.
If it is difficult, try shelving-out at least a fraction of it.
Calculate Salary of Housewife Mom of your home.
I am sure the value of Rs.29,000 calculated here will vary.
Decide a payout and start paying her this pocket money (like a salary) from this month itself.
Over a period of time, I am sure you will praise yourself for taking this call.
Wow… never read something like this..
Well, only if there was a way to quantify love, numbers would be mind boggling…Most households are already a millionaire, just that they don’t realize it.
Excellent thought and the article.
Yes, we must afford to include this expense in our personal finance management and must bring this social change.
We had cook, maid and child taker when my wife was working. but when she quit the job. I converted those expenses into investments for her and made changes in my income-expense statement as follows.
1. Cook Expense—-> Investment for Goddess Annapurna
2. Maid Expense—–> Investment for Goddess Swachh Narayani
3. Child Care taker cum tutor expense —–> Investment for Goddess Saraswati
Hi Mani, I really loved this article. I personally agree it is very important to quantify the work done by the House-wife. It is their right.
Although there is no calculation for the mother or housewives love towards its family.
Very emotional article.