When I was in the fifth grade, in Albany, Georgia, an article came out in the Sunday magazine section of the Albany Herald asking the question “How much would it cost to replace your wife?”  Since I was only about 11-years-old, I doubt seriously that I understood the implications of the question at the time, but BOY! have I come to understand the costs involved since then.

The question was probably posed by the insurance industry to try and raise the awareness of the “necessity” for death benefits for a housewife.  At that time, the cost of replacing a housewife, supposedly a relatively uneducated, unemployed-outside-the-home woman that did “nothing more” than stay home all day, would have cost about $17,000 a year.  The average family income was less than $10,000.  But the authors of the article figured that in order to replace one woman that “didn’t do anything more than” stay at home with a bunch of kids, clean house, chauffeur the offspring to their various activities, plus be on-call-on-demand-part-time basis to play nurse, tutor, secretary, accountant, psychiatrist, lover, and nail holder for the hammer wielder, a bereaved husband at her death would have to shell out a bundle in order to hire people to replace his “unemployed” wife. 

Now.  Let’s consider the same prospect of  “stay-at-home spouse replacement” from a different point of view – the year 2005.

I quit my $42,000 a year job over 15 years ago for the purpose of staying home with my, at that time, two-year-old son, Little Fella.  I was to become one of those “supposedly...  relatively uneducated, unemployed-outside-the-home woman that did ‘nothing more’ than stay home all day,” so that even with 10+ years of post-high-school education I was to become one of those “non-persons.”  Now, let’s see what it has cost us over the years for us to carry on the “normal American tradition” of wife-at-home-children-in-school-husband-at-work-charade.

For the first three years after I no longer went downtown daily to be a wheel in the daily traffic jams, I went back to college part-time to get a post-baccalaureate teaching certificate.  The other part-time was spent trying to earn a little spending money and a little more money to keep the credit card hounds off our backs.  Here’s a typical week’s expenditures of over eleven years ago.

 

ACTIVITY Better Half leaves for work       Mommy and Little Fella arise     Mommy takes Little Fella to pre-school   Mommy visits Dunkin Donuts         Mommy goes home and collects stuff to go to the office supply house where I get all my stuff ready to send to publishers; copy stuff, put in mail     Mommy hits Taco Bell on the way to       pick up Little Fella; home for lunch and nap (nap is free, but overhead [OH] on the house includes insurance, heat and air conditioning, new wood scraps for the holes the woodpeckers peck -- amounts to about $18/day, $19 with the wood)   While Little Fella naps, Mommy writes, cleans a (very) little, launders (very, very little)   Little Fella goes to Karate class   Mommy goes to school after drive through supper (yes --Taco Bell!); Dad deals with Little Fella at Bedtime!

TIME 6:45 a.m.       7:45 a.m.     8:50 a.m.     9:00 a.m.         9:15 a.m.               11:50 a.m.       12:00 p.m.                 12-3 p.m.      4:15-5 p.m.   5:30-10:30

EXPENDITURE $.30 (his vehicle is a ‘78 Honda Civic; drives on vapor)   breakfast-$.38 (Cheerios with bananas)   $.56 (even mini-vans take a some gas)   $1.45 (small coffee with 3 creams, 3 sugars, and 3 ice cubes so-I-can-drink-it-today and a lemon-filled donut)   $13.97 (in 1991, copying costs are up to $.04 per sheet, gas is still $1.11/gallon, postage is $.29 for the first ounce, $.23 for each additional ounce)   $2.83 (chicken soft taco with guacamole and sour cream, pintos and cheese, medium Pepsi)   $.46 (don’t forget, this doesn’t include the overhead [OH] on the car -- oil, insurance, a new CV joint every 1 ½ miles -- $4.11 a day)         Still using that $18 OH (overhead) on the house     $25/month ($.56 gas)     $1.39 gas ($675 per quarter to register, not including books)

 

That’s $22.73, $113.65 for a 5-day work week, not including all the overhead costs.  And all of that was just Monday.  Tuesday had pre-school in it, pick-up newspapers for paper route on Wednesday, ta da, ta da, ta da.  Now what was left out was the hourly wage for Mommy’s time.  Granted Mommy’s time can’t be figured at the dollar per hour rate because no one pays Mommy to go and do all this stuff.  However, there is an “opportunity cost” that can be thrown in there instead.  Because of staying home with Little Fella, we had to let go of the “opportunity” for me to make $22.86 per hour by working at that high-powered, high-pressure job in the big city.  So, knowing that I would have been making $22.86 per hour if I had been working at that high-powered, high-pressured job in the big city makes $22.86 per hour a legal substitute for that  “no pay” category.  At $22.86 per hour multiplied by 14.75 hours just on Monday equals $336.19, not including the $113.65 for expenses during the week, just a per hour charge for a body to perform all the tasks.  I’m certain that Better Half could find someone to do all that for cheaper than $22.86 per hour, but of course that’s just the out-of-bed hours.  That doesn’t include the “undercover” work.

By the end of Sunday night, I personally would have cost someone $2,353.33 for one 7-day week (and that’s at 1990 prices!!).  And all that doesn’t include the increased usage and overhead costs of the van, the overhead costs of the house that are greater because I’m home so much of the time, etc.

Or the other side trips.  Since fifteen years ago, my upkeep and maintenance have reached monumental proportions.  Now-a-days, the schedule has changed slightly but the price continues to do just as Little Fella does -- grow!

 

Current weekday schedule:

Get Little Fella ready for lessons (after the getting-him-up escapade, breakfast, “hurry-up-and-brush-your-teeth-we’re-gonna-be-late-getting- started, get-in-the-car-we’re-gonna-be-late-getting-to-resource, I’m-gonna-start-making-you-ride-your-bike-so-I-won’t-have-to-go-through-this-rush-rush-rush-crap-everyday” diatribe).  Stay at the resource center to work in a classroom, explaining how to write an essay. 

 

Hit Dunkin’ Donuts on the way home.

 

Wash 3 loads of laundry while vacuuming Great Room, Stairs, and Hallway.

 

Put supper in crockpot on HIGH.

 

Clean up puppy poop on clean hallway carpet.

 

Collate, stamp and label 6 packages to go to customers.

 

Fold 3 loads of laundry with both toy poodles in my folding space on the bed (I am so fortunate to have my own devoted fan club, precious little wads of silver and white rug yarn on four legs that won’t let me go potty without them; putting laundry away is for the other birds in the house).

 

Contact 2 magazines (27 minutes and 22 minutes each, long-g-g distance).

 

As Assistant Scoutmaster for my son’s Boy Scout Troop, contact 3 Patrol Advisors to be assured that plans for the weekend camp-out are in gear; can I help them in anyway?  God, I hope not!!  But I’ve taught them properly and they delegate well!!

 

Drop off packages to customers at Post Office then pick up dry cleaning.

 

Do Taco Bell (late lunch) on the way to...

 

Pick up Little Fella at resource center.

 

Fill up car with gas (Little Fella must have a snack while there; the automatic car wash provides some minimal entertainment).

 

Drive to Wal-Mart for necessities of life (a trip to Wal-Mart 2-3 times per week is required by law in the Bible somewhere, isn’t it?).

 

Drive home and start homework, a 3-hour battle for a 20 minute job.

 

Fix supper out of the crockpot (forgot to turn it down from “HIGH” where I started it; have to salvage the results into a “stew”).

 

Greet Better Half at the door and pull the puppies off him; toy poodles looooove anyone who comes into the house even for a minute or a third entrance in 2 hours.

 

Serve salvaged supper to unappreciative audience; Better Half would eat almost anything, except turnip greens; Little Fella doesn’t appreciate “Hotdog-less” meals.

 

Clean up falls to Daddy tonight, while Mom continues in the general’s role in the homework battle.

 

Lay out the dress-up clothes for Little Fella to wear tomorrow as he takes a field trip to visit the Governor’s Mansion (I can’t chaperone ‘cause I must deliver newspapers and BOY! am I jealous).

 

Little Fella wants a game of field hockey with his favorite playmate, Daddy, on the concrete driveway.

 

Nurse Mom cleans and pre-medicates the scraped knee and elbow.

Psychiatrist Mom must re-re-re-instill self confidence after the “I‘ll never play hockey again!  I’m just no good!  I can’t do anything right!” tirade.  

                             

Marshal the Bath Battle, then re-medicate the hockey wounds.

 

Listen to a bedtime story being read as part of the “read 20 minutes a day” assignment from the paid teacher at resource center.

 

Turn off  “Terminator 2” after Little Fella departs for the Land of Nod, during which Mommy catnapped (they don’t have any more shows on there that I haven’t seen, but on the other hand, there aren’t any prime-time network T.V. shows, regardless of quality, that I have seen in the last 10 years.  I get to watch Seinfeld, L.A. Law, E.R., JAG, NYPD, Cheers, etc. in my next life, if they are still in syndication).

 

Try to finish that article I started yesterday, while trying not to fall asleep.

 

Soothe Daddy’s hurt feelings about not owning his own business (corporate environment is “owning” him).

 

Set the clock for 5:30 A.M. arising.

  

Come to think of it, getting paid only $336.19 (we non-persons don’t get wage increases) for doing all that isn’t enough, let alone the overhead on the body (walking around the block and 20 minutes a day, three times a week on the Power Rider for exercise, cost of life insurance [to insure that I can be replaced if my warranty expires before my work is done], food, blue jeans [Thank God, no more heels and hose!!], trips to Taco Bell and Dunkin’ Donuts, etc.).  Maybe I can get someone to start paying me for doing all those trips for them, too, then my trips would be cost (or expense) free.