A recent study by Welch’s surveyed 2,000 American stay at home moms of kids between the ages of five and 12 years old. What they found is that the average mom works 98 hours per week, which is the equivalent of two and a half full-time jobs!
It’s fair to note that there are only 168 hours in a week, so moms are literally working around the clock.
Another study revealed that moms would make nearly $150,000 a year if they were paid for their time.
WOW. When you run the numbers, there’s no doubt that the price tag on the often thankless job that is motherhood is a hefty one.
So why is it that so many stay-at-home moms feel guilty for spending their husband’s income, as though they aren’t equally contributing to their household’s worth and well-being?
Straight-shooting mama Laura Mazza has a few brutally honest thoughts on the matter, and her viral message is officially empowering women everywhere:
“I hear it a lot, a stay at home mom feels guilty for spending ‘her husbands’ money.
We go from being independent women, who make an income, buy ourselves what we want, travel, cars, we have an independent life, to women who have more holes in our underwear than pennies. And any small money we have goes to our children.
The problem isn’t that we can’t get a job, some of us were lawyers, doctors, social workers, chefs, teachers, administrative workers. And the problem isn’t that going back to work and trying to juggle school pick ups and baby’s and childcare fees that wipe out a whole weeks salary while coming home and doing it all is exhausting and hard. [I]t’s the fact that we aren’t recognized for the hard work we are already doing.
We don’t even recognize it ourselves. There’s been so many times where I’ve heard stay at home mothers ask to buy something, like they are 15 again. Asking for $10 to buy a bra.
It’s no longer ours, it’s his money. And if he wants to buy 400 shoes, well he can, because he worked.
