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A WHOPPING 90% of adults nationwide underestimate the annual financial value of stay-at-home parents, which has been calculated to be in the region of €57,000. That probably comes as no surprise to the mums making up the bulk of the stay-at-home parents in Ireland, who according to the recent census data numbered 272,318 (90%).
More unsurprising still was that this recent data from Royal London Ireland noted that “almost three times as many women as men accurately estimated that the cost would exceed €50,000.” Shocker, right? Considering it’s the mums who are carrying the mental load of the family most of the time.
The survey researched the cost of employing someone to do the jobs, based on current wage data. They added the salaries of the following professions based on the number of hours per week they felt were required (hint, they woefully underestimated some of these); childcare provider (30 hours), cleaner (eight hours), general cook (15 hours), teaching assistant (five hours), handyman/woman (four hours), taxi driver (10 hours) and gardener (one hour).
All key jobs to be fair, but they forgot a host of other crucial occupations like; underqualified doctor that must diagnose a bump from a rash, the day and night nurse, chief Calpol administrator, HR manager, diary organiser, personal assistant, minister of fun, bad cop/good cop, playdate scheduler, birthday party organiser, swing pusher, bicycle instructor, parent-teacher meeting attendee and so on.
Plus, if the survey gods reckon that stay-at-home parents spend only 15 hours being a general cook, they’ve clearly never been around a toddler whose food expectations may include sandwiches with the crusts cut off, but also presented on the side as an extra snack, just for shits and giggles.
If all of the above sounds like a full-time, 24/7, 365-day job, with no annual leave, or statutory breaks and bosses who can be tyrannical at best – yes toddler who got the wrong colour sippy cup I’m looking at you — try doing all of that, as well as a job outside the home too. True, we all cook and clean and ferry ourselves around the place, but doing the lion’s share of that for your family, as well as a job outside the home and the other ‘invisible jobs,’ equates to a double shift.
I’m guessing the survey people might need to get the calculator out for those double-jobbing parents. Let’s hope they don’t forget to carry the one, although if stay-at-home parents’ worth is so undervalued, I shudder to think of the maths for the parents who also work outside the home.
The truth is that it’s impossible to accurately measure the monetary value of the work of a parent. Surveys can never quantify the important things like emotional support, love, care, and showing up for your children on every level. Those things are priceless, and parenting is at times one of the hardest jobs in the world, and simultaneously the best, most rewarding and most amazing thing many of us will ever do.
Surveys like these are designed to be shocking. Alas, we’ve seen so many of these come out year after year, the only shocking thing about them is that they don’t make any difference to how we truly value parents beyond financial yardsticks alone. What they are effective at, is highlighting how much we often undervalue a parent’s worth to society at large. For most, the village is gone, so support on a wider level is essential as well as an understanding that without parents doing all that they do, the world would simply grind to a halt, in more ways than one.
On the practical side, solving issues like access to affordable, good-quality childcare is key. Despite all the major government parties putting grand plans in their manifestos to cap childcare costs at €200 a month per child and €600 per month, per family of more than three children, we still don’t know if this will come to pass, and if it does, what about the fine print? What about the issues within the industry itself around rising costs, insurance issues, as well as the crucial matter of attracting and retaining staff to a sector many feel is broken?
Another tangible factor that has made a huge impact on working parents over the last couple of years is hybrid working. It’s been a game-changer and has allowed a tiny bit of breathing space for those who are gasping for air on the never-ending treadmill, trying to do it all. However, the mounting pressure from employers to get workers back into the office and a move away from the hybrid working models is concerning. A recent ruling from the WRC which did not uphold an appeal by a man who was seeking to have a hybrid working model so he could balance his childcare commitments, feels like a sucker punch to every working parent who is trying to muddle through.
Hybrid working models have transformed many working parents’ and their children’s lives for the better, and any move back to the culture of endless commuting and life being ruled by the rigid hours of the 9-5 clock is a regressive step. We need corporate cultures that value parents instead of penalising them.
Parenting is about much more than the equivalence of a salary, but in today’s world many of us are often left to make impossible choices, ones that can start to erode our wellbeing or that of our children. Women in particular bear the brunt of this, and many of us feel as though we must work like we don’t have kids, and parent as if we don’t have a job. As someone who feels like they are moonlighting at both, it’s exhausting.
Niamh O’Reilly is a freelance writer and wrangler of two small boys, who is winging her way through motherhood, her forties and her eyeliner.
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