So I read somewhere (can't remember, maybe I'll link it if I do) that a stay-at-home mom is 'worth' over $130K per year in the services she provides. Before I get into this, I want to point out that flower_goddess was a stay-at-home mom for most of our son's life, and I am damn A) glad that she wanted to do it, and B) grateful that we are in a position financially that we could afford for her to do it.
But these "economic impact of [thing/concept] is X dollars" stories bother me, and it's generally because I think they're mostly BS, in much the same way that the stories about American business losing godzillions of dollars of productivity due to water-cooler discussions and pool betting on the Super Bowl/NCAA Tournament/World Series/whatever are mostly BS.
Of course stay-at-home moms perform a lot of critical services around the home. That's their JOB. But if you want to start playing the economic value game, be careful - to be fair, you'll need to include the value of services provided by the father/husband:
- lawn care
- vehicle maintenance (yes, the first two items are a homage to Tim Allen)
- exterminator
- handyman
- moving-heavy-stuff-around guy
- garbageman
- home security service
No, it's not going to total $130K. Given that under this paradigm, the man is the breadwinner, it had better not!