Moms carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. We know about the mental load and the stress and the impossible-to-meet expectations, but then there’s the physical workload, too: The hours of cleaning done every year, countless loads of laundry, untold amounts of time shuttling kids back and forth to school and friends’ houses and practice, the dozens of quick trips to the store and hours spent meal planning and cooking. If you were going to pay a person to do all of that for you, there’s no telling what it might cost! Or is there?A new study from the folks at Insure.com has done the math and estimated that the average mother’s “salary”, a fair wage to compensate for all the hours worked — that normally go completely uncompensated! — would be $140,315. That's up from the same group's estimate of $116,022 in 2021. A separate study also done in 2021 put the number at around $184k.The number isn't pulled from thin air. It's based on the fair market value of real work. Photo by Wesley Mc Lachlan on Unsplash The team used the Bureau of Labor and Statistics to find out how much money, on average, a cook makes, and then multiplied that number by the hours moms spend cooking. Then you have the cost of a tutor times the hours mom spends helping with homework. And so on.To put it into perspective, that’s a sweet six figure salary, more than your average accountant or consultant makes, and not far off from the salary of a pediatrician! Sadly, not only do moms not get paid for their efforts, we actually often view the time spent parenting and running a household as worthless. Just ask any mom that’s tried to re-enter the working world after taking a few years off to stay at home how valuable that experience is.Worse still, a lot of moms pull off this ridiculous workload while holding down a full-time job that probably doesn't even pay as much!Of course, moms aren’t actually asking to be paid for all this labor (though they wouldn’t mind).Some groups have actually proposed regular stipends for moms, but generally, people don't get paid for taking care of their own lives. It'd be great if we all earned extra cash by doing our laundry or mowing our own lawn, or even taking care of our children.Instead of forking over $140k per year to every mother in America — we could ask the kids to pay, but I don’t think most of their piggy banks have enough scratch — we should be asking why it's so damn hard to be a mom in the first place, and if there are ways that we could ease up some of that workload. In fact, there are: Photo by Eye for Ebony on Unsplash Affordable childcare. Childcare workers are underpaid, too, and yet somehow daycare is completely unaffordable for many families. It’s not worth it for a lot of moms to pursue a career when they’re just going to hand over their entire paycheck, and then some, to daycare. The government could and should invest in subsidies or a universal childcare program to make this more accessible.Retirement and insurance options. Many other countries have figured out ways to account for some of the value of stay-home caregivers by making contributions to a pension or retirement. Most experts agree that stay-at-home moms need life insurance, but... who's paying for it? Remember, that $140k is only hypothetical. Attaching a number to the work moms do, especially stay-at-home moms, seems like an exercise just to prove a point – but it’s actually more practical than that. It illustrates the need for society to recognize how much it would actually cost to replace everything that a mom does if the unthinkable were to occur.Helping moms get back to work (if they want to). Ever heard of the motherhood penalty? It's the idea that the wage gap, which is already substantial, is even worse for moms. They earn about 71 cents for every dollar that a dad earns in the workplace. It's also harder for them to re-enter the workforce if they took time off to stay-at-home, and once there, they're more likely to get passed up for promotions. Some estimates say being a mom costs working women about $16,000 a year. (Yeesh, this is really adding up.) Photo by Edward Cisneros on Unsplash Fathers do a lot of unpaid labor at home too, but the proverbial deck is really stacked against mothers. There is still a large disparity in who’s doing more around the house and with the kids, and it’s much more common for moms to stay at home, work part time, or otherwise sacrifice their career and earning potential. When you add it all up, $140,000 sounds like a lot of money but it's really barely scratching the surface. There's no cook in the world that can replace mom's love-filled recipes, no driving-service that could replicate laughing and singing along with mom on the way to school. I think if you were to take that money and actually try to replace everything a mom does, you'd quickly discover about a million little things that could never, ever be accounted for.

Beyond the land of the living. The post “This is classic”: The song Mick Fleetwood said he would take to the grave first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

He is best known for his role on 'Lassie' as Forest Ranger Bob Erickson.

He is best known for his role on 'Lassie' as Forest Ranger Bob Erickson.

It was Rankin/Bass Productions' first superhero-like adventure series.

by Bretigne Shaffer, Lew Rockwell: The Dread Pirate Roberts is a free man. Like so many who have called for Ross Ulbricht’s freedom for the past eleven years, I never fully believed I would see this day. And, like many of us, I have heard all kinds of (ignorant) reasons why I should not be supporting him. […]

by John Perkins, Activist Post: A conversation with Thomas Payne Thus began an essay that inspired American farmers and fishermen to fight the world’s largest and best-trained army. Their goal was to gain independence from the British oligarchy (the king and the East India Company). Thomas Paine’s words were both fiery and rational. His Common Sense and The […]