The Worth of a Full-Time Mother

Michelle was a reading a book and it said how much a full-time mother would earn in a year if that were a paid position. In other words, if you added up the hours per week that a mom works and then broke down everything she does into certain types of jobs, you could figure out what that work would be worth in today's market. The book she was reading only said what the salary would be, but I went online and found out a little bit more about how they figured the salary out. First off, the studies that have been performed show that a full-time mom works 92 hours a week. That is a little over 13 hours a day. I suppose that sounds correct. It could be more than that, but i guess a mom gets to sleep and do some of her own personal business while just taking the kids with her. That number could definitely be debated but that is what the studies show. So 92 hours a week is 40 hours at regular pay and 52 hours of over time at pay and a half (by today's work laws and standards). The studies also break down the work that a mom does into different categories. There is of course meal-preparer, school tutor, sports instructor, day care, counselor, laundry, nurse, drives the kids places, wakes up and comforts, and a whole list of other things. I can't remember what they called all the jobs that a mom does but they are all positions that deserve a lot of money. The grand total of what a mother's salary would be (if it were a paid position) is about $135,000. That is a lot of money. That is more than I will probably ever make. That figure is probably low too because I would imagine there are things you just can't put a dollar figure on like how much parents worry and stress and all that. Maybe there should be hazard pay too, i don't know. Let me do some quick math and see what the hourly rate would be...ok its like 22 dollars an hour for the first 40 hours a week and then 33 dollars an hour then next 52 hours per week (overtime). I guess that sounds about right. I thought this was really interesting; but obviously there is nobody you could pay any amount of money to that would be as good of a mother as you would be.

Craig's List is so cool!

Our apartment feels a bit emptier right now than it did 15 minutes ago. That is because we just sold our TV to someone by posting it for sale on Craig's List. Michelle and I are quite proud of the fact that we got $100 for the TV. I think we did well and the person who bought it did well because the TV, despite being a 5 year old tube tv (that means it is one of the huge ones and goes back far behind the screen) it was in perfect condition and I included a remote control, an antenna that i bought, and the digital converter box that i bought. As some of you may know, Michelle and I have set a lofty goal to be able to move from Syracuse to wherever it is we go without having to mail or ship anything. In other words, we need to sell or donate everything that we can't fit in my little car. We think we can achieve our goal by starting early. A few months ago I sold my computer desk through craig's list, we have thus far returned 2 of our 4 air filters to Wal-Mart (who is merciful enough to us poor college students to let us return them...they are expensive), and today we sold our TV. You may be wondering why we want to sell all our things. The answer is complicated. Basically, the stuff we have here is not really our nice things. We have a nice bed and some nice furniture that we left in Utah when we moved here. We did bring and send some things out here like the TV but most of our furniture and stuff that we have out here we have obtained out here. We got most of it for free or for pretty cheap from members of our ward. We decided that for the price it would cost to ship things somewhere, we would be better off just selling everything here and getting our stuff back from Utah and then buying/finding whatever we still need. But this brings me to my next point: we don't know where we are going to go. We want to be able to be mobile in case I get a job offer somewhere and we need to move out quick (and I don't think any employer is going to pay for us to move out anywhere). Also, we are considering just moving to one of our family's houses or moving back to Utah or something but that may not be permanent either. We are anxious to leave Syracuse and we might move somewhere where we would be closer to friends and family even if I don't have a job there. So if we did do that, I would obvisouly still be looking for a job and if i did find one we would need to move again. So you can see why we don't want to be paying to move all our stuff around all these times when we are so uncertain of where we might end up. And that's not even mentioning how huge of a hassle it is to box things up, ge them to a Fed Ex and pick them up wherever you sent them. I think that pretty much covers it. Oh yeah...if anyone out there is in the market for a nice sturdy table with 4 matching chairs, a nice sturdy entetainment center, a couch with a nice couch cover, a bed with frame and box springs, or any number of pieces of furniture, we have or will have that for sale...

That was hard to watch...

BYU just lost their first round match. It was hard to watch. BYU got destroyed out on the court. Right from the first few minutes of the game until the very end they were down by double digits for most of the entire game. Oh well. I still have the Syracuse Orange to root for. They will for sure get past a couple rounds at least. They are a three seed so they should have an easier time until the sweet 16.

March Madness begins tomorrow

March Madness starts tomorrow. This is one of the coolest sporting events/playoffs in the country. So many teams, so much to keep track of, filling out your bracket, and seeing how well you did compared to your friends. Its a lot of fun. I have UNC winning it all. I read this evening that Obama had UNC winning it too. I filled out mine before i read that though. I am going to get Michelle to fill one out too and we will post ours up here so everyone can see and compare. BYU plays at 12:30 and it will be televised on CBS. If they are not showing it on CBS because of other games that are more relevant to the region we live in, the BYU game can be wathced in its entirety on CBS.com. I picked BYU to win their first round...they are not getting to the sweet 16 though.

The West Wing

I decided I don't want to watch the addictive TV shows until they are done and all the seasons are out on DVD. One such show that I heard was really amazing and is done is The West Wing. Luckily Michelle and I have some friends that own the entire series and have been letting us borrow all of the seasons a couple at a time. Michelle and I watched the first few seasons together in their entirety but since I am on spring break right now I have had a lot more free time than her and have watched a lot without her. I have gotten pretty addicted to the show, it is really enterntaining. It is about the drama and tough choices that the president and his staff that work in the West Wing of the White House go through ona daily basis. It took me a while to get really into the show because it is more of an intellectual show than an action-packed show like 24 or a mystery like Lost. Its totally different than those shows. I have never worked in the White House so I really can't say for sure, but I feel like the show is realistic and based off of things that have and could happen. I know they have past White House assistants and even one of President Clinton's Press Secretaries working as consultants to help make the show realistic. A lot of stuff on the show goes over my head because I am not an expert on US foregin policy and there is a surprisingly large amount of US history stuff I don't know what they're talking about. Having sid that though I feel like I can understand a lot of what's going on because I have a bachelor's degree in Political Science and am on my way to a Master's Degree in Public Administration. One cool thing about the show is that they have mentioned the Maxwell School (the number one ranked MPA school in the country and where I happen to be attending) three times. Sometimes when somebody is visiting the White House to advise the President or something like that they introduce the person and they say he or she is a professor at or earned a degree from the Maxwell School. One of the characters on the show, Josh, is said to be based off of Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's Chief of Staff. Josh is a really nice guy though, and Emanuel I thought has a reputation of being more like a pitbull than a nice guy. So the whole time watching the show I haven't really known what they are basing that off of. In one episode everyone is talking about how before Josh worked at the White House he had sent some political rival a dead fish or something like that. I know that that is something that Emanuel did actually do in real life. That is the only thing I can think of that seems like a clear similarity. Maybe people just base the copmarison off of that and Josh wasn't actually based off of Emanuel.

Chad's Special Breakfast

Chad made me a yummy bacon, egg, and cheese mcmuffin before work one day. Now it is one of our favorite breakfasts - so much better than McDonalds.