I don't know about that one. I know when I had my dog I use to like walking him and I didn't fill out a time card for that. I don't think being a real mother has any correlation to money or work related incentives. I'm not a mother, so I couldn't tell you for sure, but I think the equation that they measure themselves by would be the love of their children and the happiness of their family. The money becomes a distraction that sets one up for disappointments from what otherwise would've been happiness.

I vote to take the money argument out of mothers day lol.

I have seen this article each Mothers Day for the last two years and as a stay-at-home Mom, it always makes me smile. In a world where we are often measured by what we do and how much we make, it is nice to know that what I do in my day has value in society...outside of the value I have in my own family. Thank you for a wonderful Mothers Day article.

Absolutely. There are some things, many more than we often think about I'm sure, which can't ever be related to 'money'.

Sad to see a world developing where the stay-at-home Mom is fast becoming the exception rather than the rule. Where one income, and sometimes now even two, are just not enough to provide for the needs, let alone wants, of so many families.

It just goes to show you, I think, how divorced our entire system of "finance" is becoming from the physical "reality" it's supposed to accurately 'reflect'.

Are we really so short of actual goods and services in our modern, technologically advanced world that every able-bodied man and woman must be pressed into service to address this great deficiency? That we must build more subsidised day-care centres to ensure that every mother can be free of her children for at least eight hours of every workday so that she can fill her role in the productive system?

If this is truly the case, then how do we explain the fact that there are so many idled factories, yet our store shelves, car lots, lumberyards, etc., etc. still seem to be loaded with product?

Is it a sane system that demands we make 'more' before we can sell what we've already made? Regardless of whether that 'more' is really needed, or wanted, or not?

What are we really raising our sons and daughters, the future mothers and fathers, for?

Will we soon come again to the point where we are told we have to make a machine gun before we can sell a cabbage? And then use it. Surely ALL Mothers (and Fathers) deserve a better fate that this.

Elaine, Daisy thinks you are the best mother :)

And the husbands (boyfriends) come home and ask the mothers "Did you do anything today? I worked all day".

Thank you Ben and Elaine for this gem of a reminder.
The role of motherhood is so undervalued. This is why it's helpful to attach a financial component when acknowledging a mother's "job description". People start to get it when the responsibilities of motherhood are placed in this context.
I had to scold someone (a woman) not too long ago when she made reference to a stay-at home mom being "lazy" for not being out in the work force.
Are you kidding me?!!!!
I can't think of a more important "job" than raising healthy, happy and productive children...our future generation, our future leaders!
I am not a stay-at home mom but I honour them completely as well as working moms.
Indeed...Happy Mothers Day!

My point was that a stay at home mom is more valuable to society than a working mom IMO, but that you can't attach a price to it and equivocate the two merely with dollar values.

Nowadays you can't judge whether or not a mother is more valuable to society and/or to her family if she stays at home or is employed in the work force.
In today's reality, unlike when I was a child, single parents are the norm. I raised my younger siblings when my mother became a widow and had to work outside of the home. So I've had both and I can't say one was better than the other...just different. Of course I never begrudged looking after my brothers and sisters. And I think we all turned out great.
You're right Eagleone, noone can attach a price to motherhood. We also can't attach judgements to other people's lives either. Life is not perfect and neither are we.

Agreed... in an ideal world though.