What is your Worth?

 

I have been seeing things such as the picture below for quite some time. An insurance man even tried to use this to get me to buy more life insurance. What is a stay-at-home mom worth? 

 

 And to go with it, what is a working mom worth. Make sure you add your actual annual salary to the figure shown below.

 

If you visit their website you can see what YOU are worth as well. They have you enter in your information and they use their calculations to assign you a value. Although I was very skeptical, I decided for the sake of research to do it as honestly as I could.

 

First I entered in my three children aged 5 and under. Then I entered in my zipcode to give them an idea of how much the median income is for my area. Although I did not agree that the local low for annual income is $86,732.00, I decided to trudge on. (the local low is probably much lower)

 

Next they give you a form, and you fill in how many hours per week you spend on each activity such as housekeeper, cook, van driver, laundry machine operator etc. Some were a bit extreme like nurse staff- RN, CEO, and Interior Designer. I mean, really. Putting a Band-Aid on my child's boo boo, or deciding which curtains to hang in the living room, hardly qualifies me for such positions.

 

So for the sake of this blog, I skipped the ones that didn't pertain to me. I ended up with these results.

 

Housekeeper, 8 hours.

Laundry machine operator, 3 hours

Daycare educator, 5 hours

 

I only included hours spent on each activity as a direct result of having children. So doing my own laundy, cleaning my own messes, regular cleaning such as toilets, floors, etc, book keeping, and cooking I didn't count. Regardless if I had children or not, I would still do these tasks.

 

Well my result was nothing like the poster. I am worth $8,239.00. I had to laugh at that figure. Because it gave me such joy. I don't want their to be some big dollar amount slapped on me as to what I am worth. Because I am worth nothing. And I am worth everything. I am worth nothing, in that no amount of gold, dollars, magic wishes, would ever be able to replace me to my family. But I am worth everything, because I know that God loved me so much that he sent his one and only son to die on the cross, so that my sins would be forgiven, and I would be able to go to heaven some day.

 

You could give me a million dollars a year, or more, and I would never give up staying home with my children. I wouldn't even give up one day. There are some things in this life that you can't buy. One of them is time, and any moment could be your last. Live it to the fullest. (and I don't mean skydiving. I mean snuggles, kisses, and hugs.)