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Mother’s Day will be celebrated on Sunday 12 May and we encourage you to make it a big celebration. Motherhood and mothers need to be valued and appreciated a lot more than they do.

You know the line by now, “The greatest thing a father can do for his children is to love his children’s mother.”

Why is it that so many men just don’t get that? A key part of being a good father is being a good husband. Husbandry is a lost art these days, but when fathers value mothers for their incredible contribution to the family, and in particular the children, everyone wins.

Children need a mother and a father. Now that’s just common sense. However such common sense can get you arrested for hate speech in Canada – I kid you not!

Sadly a mother’s day celebration has been scrapped at a Sydney preschool out of mistaken respect for single parents. This is the lunacy we are facing in our nation at this time. That’s why we have to make our voice count in two weeks’ time for the sake of our families and our children and dare I say it, the Mums of Australia.

But the good news here in Australia is, for the most part, we still celebrate the importance of mothering and next week is Australia’s Mothers’ Day – a day for taking our mums out to lunch or buying a pavlova. So it’s time to appreciate and value the mothers of our children.

Why is that that men don’t get the importance of loving their children’s mother? It’s a question that has puzzled me a lot over the years. I guess the fact that I grew up in a broken home myself has inspired me to be one of those who work hard to ‘get it’.

Do I always get it? Well, frankly, “No!” I am quite a selfish individual and tend to get absorbed in my own projects, particularly when they involve my work. I am also absorbed in my own needs like food, sex, recreation and hobbies. Most men are. So what is the answer to my dilemma as a father, among many, who doesn’t quite get the need for appreciating, honouring, caring and valuing the mother of my children.

First of all we have to use logic. All men pride themselves on their logic.

Let’s look at the value of a mother’s work in terms of the logic behind cold hard cash.

In 2019 www.salary.com determined that the time mothers spend performing the 10 most popular “mum job functions” would equate to an annual cash compensation of $232,485 (Australian Dollars) for a Stay-at-Home Mum.

Mothers and their families can create their own “mum pay check” by visiting the Mom Salary Wizard®.

Meredith Hanrahan, when she was the senior vice president at Salary.com, said, “We value the job of mum based on her job description and calculate what an employer would have to pay in cash if they were to hire someone to do all that a mum does.”

Salary.com created the ‘Mum Job’ based on benchmarking principles that determine the value of a job. Following these employer-based principles, it is important to match jobs based on their job descriptions and not solely job titles. In Mum’s case, her role is an example of a hybrid job with 10 different jobs – each with different salaries – that comprise her job.

In the Mum Salary Survey, 12,150 mums quantified their hours worked in each role for a typical week. Salary.com’s compensation professionals weighted the different responsibilities of the job to determine mum’s overall total compensation.

The job titles that best matched a mum’s definition of her work are (in increasing order of the percentage of her total ‘Mum Job’ salary) were: Laundry Machine Operator, Janitor, Van Driver, Housekeeper, Computer Operator, Cook, Day Care Centre, Teacher, Facilities Manager, Psychologist, Chief Executive Officer.

“We found that not only are working mums outsourcing less and doing more themselves, but they’re also spending more time on the higher-paying jobs such as facilities manager, CEO, and psychologist — both factors that contributed to their increased salary figure. According to the Salary.com survey, the working mum puts in over a 92-hour work week once you combine her full-time job, mum hours, and mum overtime.

The primary driver of mum’s six-figure salary depends on the amount of overtime worked. This year the stay-at-home mum’s overtime averaged 56 hours in their 96-hour “work week” — over half her time spent on the job is overtime”.

Hopefully Salary.com’s analysis of dollar values of the work done by the mothers of our children will encourage us to pull the stops out for Mothers’ Day next Sunday.

Lovework

“The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world”, is an old saying that has relevance for us all if we have a mother? Abraham Lincoln put it well, “All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother”. I have some very specific Lovework for you this week. Write a letter (not just a card) of appreciation to your mother. Ask your children to do the same for their mother. If they are too young to write, write it on their behalf because this is the week for fathers to value mothers. If we don’t, who will?

Yours for valuing mothers

Warwick Marsh