Dad does the math: Stay-at-home moms should earn $74k/yr
Steven… delved into online research and even consulted some experts to figure out how much his wife’s work would actually earn her. The amounts were pretty staggering:
Cleaning Service: $50 to 100 per visit at least once a week.
Personal Shopper: $65 per hour at four hours a week.
Chef: $240 a week.
Laundry: $25 a week at the bare minimum.
PR Assistant when she accompanies him to work functions: $75 per hour.
With those and other estimates, Steven calculated that the total earnings for all of his wife’s work should $73,960 per year.
~ BuzzFeed, on research done by new dad Steven Nelms regarding the financial value of his wife Glory staying home to raise son Ezra (all pictured above), April 7

Hey, wait a minute…. How much does Steven make, in the first place?
Cleaning service, laundry – okay. But dude, you’re not going to be paying somebody $65 per hour to shop for you. It’s just not worth it. You’re gonna do it on your way home from work, or at lunch, or on the weekend (if your wife doesn’t have it done already).
You’re not going to pay a dang chef $240 per week. What percentage of households in the US are going to do that? C’mon, mang….
PR Assistant “when his wife accompanies him to work functions”? Oh please – I bet Steve-O ain’t making that kind of coin, to start with.
Doug, thats the point and hence why he wrote “I can’t afford my wife to be a stay at home mom” If he HAD to pay for all she does he could’t afford it!
This kind of makes me want to go into PR. A lot of doctors don’t make that an hour. RNs certainly don’t.
Sydney: Doug, thats the point and hence why he wrote “I can’t afford my wife to be a stay at home mom” If he HAD to pay for all she does he could’t afford it!
I have to disagree, Sydney. First, in no way am I saying that moms don’t do an absolute ton of good and worthy work, in general, and that, even if we disregard my monetary disagreements, they would not be due a surprising amount of money, were we able to accurately draw a balance in the case.
His wife *does* stay home. It’s not like she’s going to get paid the amounts he puts forth, were she to not be at home – that’s my argument.
Nicole: This kind of makes me want to go into PR. A lot of doctors don’t make that an hour. RNs certainly don’t.
Well, again – she’s not going to get that. Heck, he doesn’t even make that in the first place. It’s not like there are enough $75 per hour PR Assistant jobs going wanting to make any difference in the overall “mom” equation.
The truth is that his claims are silly. It’s also true that most moms work far in excess of his accounting of hours; were a balance to be drawn (even in my view), moms would work a lot more hours per week than what is detailed by Steven, while making a lot less money per hour – the total due them would still be substantial.
SAHM = Priceless
This is a pretty common life insurance analysis.
If a family needed a slug of cash, just to replace the material services that a mother provides for her family for the next several year, we typically calculate $50K to $75K per year…. plus her income, if she’s working.
I want to do the shopping, 4 x $65, and then do the rest of the day as PR Assistant, @ $75 per hour.
SAHM = Priceless
TruthSeeker, how about SAHDs?
I think we should at least be paid to gestate. Considering what the government gives away to people on crack, I think it should just be national policy to support pregnant women while they work–which is exactly what a pregnancy is=full time job.
It’s not like we’re making a car or something. We’re hosting the lifeblood of our nation, hello! Her children! You would think feminists would at least agree with this much, but no-feminism is all about crushing those in the way, not empowering women. However, pregnancy empowers women, like it or not feminists, and it gives them choices as to what to do next, because it puts us in a position of control.
We do not have control in the lives of others.
Aborting a child, is aborting that control, because we abort our place in the lives of others instead of position ourselves to do good things. We have nothing to offer, instead of everything to offer, when we abort instead of give life.
The government, as the rest of society, should be encouraging us to want that.