This Year When I Do My Taxes, I’m Going To Claim My Thousands Of Hours Of Unpaid Maternal Labor
Hi! If you like this post, please click that hand at the bottom of the story til it gets to 50 so that more people will see it and sign the petition to start a national discussion about getting moms a stipend for the countless hours of free child care they provide to build our American work force. Thank you for reading.
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I used to be a comedian and dirty folk rock musician, starting in 2001. My comedy and songs were about sex, sexuality, women’s rights, feminism and other aspects of women’s issues. For years, people heard my songs and didn’t know what to do with them, what to make of them. I had many fans, but I also had a lot of people who were bewildered by the themes. Today, there are thousands of comedians doing material on similar themes and the world has taken notice. (I’ve always been a little ahead of the curve :)) #MeToo and other incredible, current womens’ movements are the direct results of entertainment and feminism colliding.
Now that I’m a mom, I’m thinking about feminism in other areas of my life and my own present situation. And one thing I’ve noticed is that it’s weird that moms don’t get paid, even a little something, by the government to do the huge, colossal job of providing people to the population.
I know, this might seem like a pretty unorthodox idea, and I don’t expect it to catch on today, tomorrow, next week or even next year. But I promise you, in the same way feminism and womens issues have come to the forefront, eventually, the idea of moms getting paid to do the necessary work they must do to keep the country in motion can and will gain momentum. Let’s take a closer look at this concept.
There are 168 hours in a week and I’m on the clock for all of them. As a mostly stay-at-home mom, even when I’m sleeping, I am still on call. If the baby wakes up and needs assistance, I am snapped back into mommy mode in a hot, exhausted instant.
There are a few times when I’m not required to be available. Those times are:
- In the morning for about 1–2 hours per day, my gracious husband gets up with the baby and watches him from about 7–9 am, and lets me sleep in. This happens about 4 days per week.
- Three days per week for a total of 12 hours, we have a mother’s helper who comes by to watch the baby so I can prepare and freeze meals for the week, shower like some kind of child-free person, write and even get an occasional massage or hair cut. About half of those hours I’m untethered, and she cares for the baby without my presence or involvement.
- If I have an audition, taping, gig, show, dr appointment or other activity, I often try to schedule it into the hours the mother’s helper is here. If I can’t, dad or another friend or family member helps out. So let’s just overestimate that those full 12 hours per week are open for me to use as I wish, not caring for the baby.
- You may argue that the hours hat I sleep aren’t technically working hours but since I’m responsible for the baby during those hours, I’d be inclined to count them. However, I’ll break it down, for fairness sake — The baby goes to bed at 8 and often wakes once between 8 pm and midnight, and I help him back to sleep. He wakes again at midnight and at 4 am, and both times I help him back to sleep. This takes anywhere from 15 minutes to a full hour, or more if he is sick. It could be as little as 45–60 minutes per night, it could be as much as 3 hours or more per night. I’ll split the difference and call it 2 hours per night. The baby wakes around 7 am. After he goes to sleep at 8 pm, I usually work for an extra hour til about 9, doing things like putting away laundry, cleaning up the play area and washing dishes from his dinner. I usually go to bed around 10. So from about 9 pm — 4:30 am, or about 7.5 hours, I’m not exactly on the clock, because I’m sleeping or resting.
You may think, well what about meals? Don’t you have to eat? Use the bathroom? Do you consider that time working hours? Yes, I do. Often, I eat standing up, in between feeding the baby bites of his food. For many meals, my meal is whatever he didn’t eat of his meal. I rarely get to make myself a meal. When I go to the bathroom, many times the baby is with me in the bathroom. Yep. I have done many, many poops with a baby sitting on my lap.
You may think that when the baby naps I’m free — not so. When the baby naps, I am either napping too (should I consider that time hours I should be paid? Let’s say no, since most jobs don’t pay people to nap, although it’s paramount to my ability to function the other many hours I’m needed), or I’m prepping food for him, cleaning or feeding myself. He naps for about 2 hours per day. Let’s say I nap with him 2 days out of 7. That’s an additional 4 hours I’m “off the clock” per week.
Most jobs give a paid 15 minute break about every 4 hours. Some pay for lunch, some do not. I’d get 4 to 5 paid 15 minute breaks (which I don’t get), totaling about an hour and change. I’ll call it an hour per day.
So, on average, I am off the mom clock:
- 2 hours a morning, 4 days per week (8 hours)
- 4 hours an afternoon, 3 days per week (12 hours)
- 7.5 hours per night, 7 days per week (52.5 hours)
- 2 hours of naps, 2 days per week (4 hours)
- 1 hour paid break per day (+7 hours)
Considering all of the above, the total amount of time I do not work is 76.5 hours per week, and subtracting the 7 hours of “breaks” I don’t get, let’s call it 70 hours. I DON’T work 70 hours out of the 168 total hours in a week.
Yes. I work 98 hours per week. Some moms work much more than that. Some blessedly work less.
Estimating what I would earn if being a mom was a job, I’ll “pay myself” $20/ hour which is about what my mother’s helper and nannies in my neighborhood make. At 40 hours per week, that’s $800/week. The other 58 hours at $30/hr (time and a half for overtime) is $1740. If I were a paid employee, I’d make $2540/week at this job, or $10,160/month. That’s $121,920/year I’d make, annually.
And what about benefits? Many employed people are eligible for insurance, paid vacation, sick leave and more. My husband and I pay nearly $2000 per month for insurance for our family and I get zero paid sick or vacation days.
It’s enough to make me go bonkers thinking about, especially considering moms build, raise, teach and provide the country’s work force, one worker at a time.
And that’s why I am starting a petition to get stay-at-home moms paid. Maybe we won’t make the $121k per year we deserve, but how about insurance and a stipend to start, regardless of income? We can waive the stipend if we wish, if, for example your family is in the top 1% of earners, otherwise, let’s give moms a break, some independence and the support they deserve.
Don’t think moms deserve to get paid to be moms? Even a tax credit would be a nice gesture. Or let us write off child care. The EIC is a nice gesture, but our country can do better for it’s citizens, all of whom were made and raised by women. The way I see it, in the last year and a half of my son’s life, I gave the government and my country $182,880 of free labor.
Sure, I chose to have a baby, the government didn’t make me have one. But there’s a very good likelihood that the country will benefit by his existence. And whatever he chooses to do, he will get paid to do it. But I didn’t get paid to help him get there, which, considering the huge amount of time, work and effort it takes to raise a workforce one person at a time, seems like a misstep.
To pay mothers even a portion of the amout of money they would make if motherhood were a job would do huge things for the economy, the country and every community. It’d put millions of dollars directly back into the economy. It’d mean that moms wouldn’t have to choose between working and caring for their children. It’d mean that moms would get to maintain and even build morale while mothering. It’d help families from struggling, relieve suffering. It’d be humanizing to a huge population of women in our country.
It would literally change the world.
