--- title: The Truth About How Much a Mom Is Worth description: Estimates about how much a mom is worth from Insure.com and Salary.com, created for Mother's Day, are worlds apart. How come? authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Personal Finance - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2015-05-07T10:00:49.000Z' modified: '2024-04-16T05:48:00.000Z' section: Personal Finance tags: - Holidays - Mother's Day word_count: 422 canonical: https://money.com/what-mom-is-worth/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![mom doing chores around house, multiple exposure](https://img.money.com/2015/05/150507_em_momworth.jpg) Happy soon-to-be-Mother's Day! To honor moms everywhere, the all-purpose insurance site Insure.com creates a [Mother's Day Index](http://www.insure.com/life-insurance/the-mothers-day-index.html) around this time of year. Researchers round up all the different tasks handled regularly by moms, and then multiply the number of hours moms dedicate to each chore by the going rate per the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the corresponding occupation. For instance, Insure.com estimates that the average mom spends 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, taking care of her kids. The mean hourly wage for such a job—childcare worker—is $11.10, which adds up to $23,088 annually. Other mom tasks include serving as a chauffeur, cook, nurse, homework helper, accountant, and private detective (necessary to find out what the kids are up to, of course). When all the numbers are added up, the total comes to $65,283.81. Well, maybe that sounds about right for what *your mom* is worth. But *our moms* are worth far more—they're priceless, invaluable beyond measure, let alone some crass dollar amount. (Note to self: Forward this story to mom in lieu of a gift on Sunday.) Meanwhile, nearly 4 in 10 women surveyed for the Insure.com study say that the work of moms merits a salary of at least $75,000. Guys don't seem to think as highly of mom's value; only 28% said $75K+ is fair compensation for a mother's tasks, while 22% were of the opinion that mom's chores are worth less than $25,000 annually. Interestingly, a similar index, created by [Salary.com](http://www.salary.com/mom-paycheck/) last year, has it that the value of a stay-at-home mom is actually $118,905. How could there be such a difference compared with the Insure.com index? Mostly it's because the Salary.com folks think more highly of the duties handled by moms. According to Insure.com, mom's highest paid tasks are accounting and private investigating, jobs that each pay around $25 an hour. Over at Salary.com, moms are credited with the work—and wages—of CEO, psychologist, and facilities manager, which pay roughly $32, $39, and $54 per hour, respectively. Oh, and there's another reason why these estimated mom values aren't in the same ballpark: They are just silly, [fun, and totally un-scientific](http://business.time.com/2012/04/30/a-moms-work-is-worth-113k-annually-or-maybe-about-half-that/) studies that incorporate loads of guesswork and easily manipulated data. Besides, these indices aren't really produced with the goal of pinpointing the average mom's worth. What's the goal of creating them then? Naturally, it's to help Insure.com sell life insurance, and to help Salary.com get people to visit Salary.com. **Read next:** [6 Mother's Day Factoids to Show You're Not a Horrible Ungrateful Son or Daughter](https://time.com/93875/6-mothers-day-factoids-to-show-youre-not-a-horrible-ungrateful-son-or-daughter/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/what-mom-is-worth/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Personal Finance", "item": "https://money.com/personal-finance/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Making Money", "item": "https://money.com/making-money/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "The Truth About How Much a Mom Is Worth" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/what-mom-is-worth/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/what-mom-is-worth/", "name": "The Truth About How Much a Mom Is Worth", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2015-05-07T10:00:49.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/what-mom-is-worth/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/what-mom-is-worth/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-16T05:48:00.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "The Truth About How Much a Mom Is Worth", "articleSection": "Personal Finance", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2015/05/150507_em_momworth.jpg", "width": 2100, "height": 1400, "caption": "150507_EM_MomWorth" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Brad Tuttle", "url": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/#author", "description": "Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals.\r\n\r\n", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/01/Brad-Tuttle.png?w=226&h=247&crop=1", "alumniOf": "Columbia University School of Journalism, MS", "sameAs": [ "https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle", "https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2015-05-07T10:00:49.000Z", "description": "Estimates about how much a mom is worth from Insure.com and Salary.com, created for Mother's Day, are worlds apart. How come?", "abstract": "Estimates about how much a mom is worth from Insure.com and Salary.com, created for Mother's Day, are worlds apart. How come?", "@id": "https://money.com/what-mom-is-worth/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-04-16T05:48:00.000Z", "wordCount": 422, "keywords": [ "Holidays", "Mother's Day" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Personal finance", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_finance" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Income", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income" ] } ] } ] } ```