Let’s face it, being a parent is hard work and it is very stressful, for the most part. We may get a few homemade cards from our kids as a form of payment but no mother gets payment for the 24/7 work that she does all those years. That being said, salary.com has estimated that stay-at-home moms would be earning a considerable salary if they got paid for what they did.

The company listed all of the ‘hybrid roles’ that mothers took part in. It includes bookkeeper, housekeeper, and teacher. If the current salary information for those jobs was combined, it would add up to the annual ‘salary’ that a mother should receive.

This year, the figure of stay at home mom jobs came in at an annual salary of $162,581

In other words, mothers should be rich.

We understand that mothers will never actually get paid a salary but with a salary this high, it’s interesting to do a little experimentation. If you look at the numbers, it shows that moms do an extraordinary amount of work and they often do many jobs at one time.

“We would like to recognize both professional and stay-at-home Moms on their unwavering dedication to their families and responsibilities,” says Salary.com.

A stay-at-home mom will often work without stopping and they do a lot of different things on any given day. They are not only a housecleaner and bookkeeper, but they may also be a chauffeur, nanny and anything else that is needed.

The problem is, stay-at-home moms will not get paid for the work that they do. They are forced to work things out financially in other ways, often relying upon their spouses or stretching a dollar until it can’t be stretched anymore.

What if moms were getting paid an average wage for the jobs that they did?

Salary.com does the math every year.

“We selected a handful of jobs that reflect a day in the life of a Mom,” says the posting. They use a ‘salary Wizard’ to input the current salary information for the jobs that are done.

A ‘hybrid salary’ is used for some of the jobs, such as groundskeeper, academic advisor, CEO, staff nurse, daycare center teacher and laundry manager.

This resulted in an annual salary of $162,581

A stay-at-home mom works, on average, 96 hours per week.

The annual salary came in at $5000 higher than the calculations from 2017. It just keeps getting higher on a yearly basis.

Salary.com also wrote about this salary for mothers in general, including those that work outside the home. In theory, all mothers do the same combined jobs, regardless of when they have to do them.

People online had a lot of feelings about the subject.

Some people are 100% behind the figure. After all, motherhood can be an extreme job and people don’t often give it the credit it deserves.

Others say it is an insult to working mothers who also do parenting work during the day.

If the unthinkable happens and they start cutting checks, every mom deserves one.

There were also some men that were asking ‘What about dads’?

If they do the same work, they deserve the same salary.

There were others who thought it was wrong to put a number on the job of parenting. If you have kids, you should be happy to do the work for free.

“To say one deserves a salary for these things is absurd. Having a family is a decision to take on these responsibilities,” one working mom agreed.

“It is not a career. It is not employment.”

One mother also decided to add some humor to this situation that was getting somewhat tense.

She talked about finding a dime in the laundry.

It goes without saying that mothers are not going to receive a salary to deposit in their bank account for the parenting work they do. The point of these calculations is not to propose doing so, it’s just to remind people that moms do a lot of work.

Perhaps a thank you note is in order.