Mum, you could be paid only $23k a month

The front page of The Sunday Times featured a Mother's Day special with a prominent "$23,000 a month". In case you are wondering, it is the estimate given by a HR expert on the "amount a stay-at-home mother would be paid if you consider all the jobs she performs."

Wow! I say. Incredulous, I read on. The article (archived here) even gave a breakdown and the market rate for the job. I will not dispute the market rate for the job simply because I do not know. However, I have misgivings about the number of hours a mum spent on the said chores and I have even more issues with the number of chores carried out by the stay-at-home mum. I should know best (I think) because I am one of those lucky guy whose wife had decided to be a stay-at-home mum. But that is another issue.

I am not sure if the article was written in the spirit of Mother's Day or it is just another sign of the materialistic society we are living in. If everything should be gauged by dollars-and-cents, then even if nearly half of Singapore citizen will be millionaires by 2017, the society will be so much poorer.

While it is true that money is important, sometimes the happiest times are not bought with money, but the intangible things that we share with family and friends. Call me a romantic. Call me impractical. Call me idealistic and naive. But think of the time when we celebrate our birthdays, our weddings or even that simple dinner we have with our family and friends. Will we be happy when no one celebrate our birthdays? Will we be happy when no one attended our wedding dinner despite having sent in their 'mandatory' ang-pows, no matter how fat they are?
The money spent on the occasions are just a facilitation. If your friends grace the occasions because it is held in a very posh hotel or because they provide the highest grade shark fins, then you better look for new friends!

However, how much does it cost when somebody give you a pat on the back just to say thank you? What is the market rate for someone to help a hepless old lady to cross the road? Or to your neighbour who help jump start your car? Having conveniently omitted such intangibles, the report had been rendered inaccurate. For, a mother did all those mentioned in the article and more.

Looking through the breakdown, I prayed hard that no maid had seen the article. Housekeeping ($280 per 5 hours) and chef ($170 per 3 hours) are also the work done by our ever-present maids. For an eight-hour work per day, the quoted market rate is $450. Mind you $450 per day, just for these 2 chores. Better pray, your maid do not read the newspapers!! Otherwise, they may go on strike if you are lucky. Riot would be worse. So may be we are really underpaying our maids. If anything, maybe this is a very good reason for us to treat our maids better.

The other interesting thing about the article is the great discrepancy between the 2 estimates given. The excecutive director of Singapore Human Resource Institute gave an estimate of $23K a month while Aon Consulting human capital consultant gave a figure of just over $8K. Either of the two had to be wrong. However my feeling is that the job of the stay-at-home mum is so varied with so much intangibles, that former estimates must had taken these into account. I may be wrong, but it just shows how difficult it is to monetarise the work carried out by a stay-at-home mum.

I hope the stay-at-home mum (my wife included ;)) will not demand a 'pay rise' after reading this article. Especially to match the estimate of $23K a month. This is because the 'salary' for the work done by the stay-in-mum is much more than just $23K a month. You are always there when the kids needed you. You always have to face the school teachers for feedbacks. You always have to tolerate the 'abuses' by your kids. And all these without a word of thanks from your spouse (yours truly included) or your kids. And yet, you continue to do the 'job' to the best of your ability. Most of us guys (aka husbands) would have quit long ago!

So, to conclude my lengthy blog, the newspaper article is 'inaccurate' and 'misleading'. $23K a month for stay-at-home mum? Try again.......

Happy Mother's Day