Blog about it and you could win a free family DVD!
By CWK Mom

I don’t generally go for “Hallmark Holidays,” but Mother’s Day is one that I love, if for nothing else than for its irony. There we were, three generations of capable, strong-willed women, crowded in the kitchen – cooking! Our husbands/partners/boyfriends were purportedly making us dinner (on the grill, of course) but that only takes care of the main dish. What about the salad, sides and dessert? It naturally fell to the women. How can this be? It’s Mother’s Day! Doesn’t that stand for “Mother’s Day Off?” It occurred to me that this would be the perfect time to ask for a raise, but who would we ask? I turned to www.salary.com, a polling bureau that calculates wages for all sorts of jobs, and discovered that they recently estimated the wages that a stay-at-home mom would earn today. Ready? $138,095 a year. They based this salary on 10 jobs that moms do each day, such as housekeeper, teacher, cook, laundress, van driver, psychologist, and so on. The company further calculated that moms who have a job outside of the home would earn an additional $86,000 a year (yes, that’s in addition to their existing salary, whatever it may be.)

Well, that’s certainly a great salary, and I know dozens of people who would gladly accept that compensation. But I have to be honest … I don’t think it’s nearly enough. My mom’s value to me growing up, as well as now that I’m a mom myself, is — to quote a popular ad campaign — priceless. I only wish more moms took their self-worth to heart. At Connect with Kids, we value moms simply for being moms – we know their enormous responsibilities, challenges and accomplishments, not to mention their intelligence and clout in the marketplace. It’s one of the reasons our Moms Network is so important to our company – it’s a way for us to grow through these moms’ skills, as well as a way for moms to reconnect to the workforce, to each other and to themselves. (Read more about our take on the value of moms at http://www.connectwithkids.com/blogs/stacey/?p=93#more-93).

This Mother’s Day, post a blog about your mom’s worth to you. Post it by 5/22/07 and if we pick your blog to highlight on our community front page, you’ll win one family DVD of your choice! (For a list of topics visit
http://www.connectwithkids.com/products/parentvideo.shtml).

We look forward to hearing about your Mom!