May 13 Valley Life column

May 13 Valley Life column in AG Weekly

Give Mom a big hug this Mother's Day

I have one of Hank Ketcham's "Dennis the Menace" comic strips posted on my bulletin board. In the strip, Dennis is asking Mr. Wilson what to get his mom for Mother's Day. Mr. Wilson’s reply is "Combat Pay."

Every time I see the comic, I smile. There's no doubt being a mom is probably one of the hardest jobs around. Once they bring their little bundles of joy home from the hospital, mothers are on the clock 24/7. There are mouths to feed, diapers to change, clothes to wash, and scratches and bruises to tend. Over the course of one day, a mother will not only be housekeeper, day-care teacher and head cook, she will also be laundress, computer guru, taxi cab driver and referee.

With long hours and no time off, even on vacations, if stay-at-home moms received a salary for their work, according to Salary.com, they would earn an estimated $134,121 per year. Based on the study, "working" moms would earn $85,876 annually for the "mom" portion of their work, in addition to their actual "work" salary.

For everything they do, moms rarely get a thanks, let alone a paycheck. But Salary.com has come up with a way to fix that. They have created a Mom Salary Wizard that calculates a mother's paycheck based on her personal location and hours worked in each of 10 different roles. Now you can create a hypothetical Mom Paycheck and Mom Pay Stub, which you can print and e-mail to your mom and it won't cost you a single penny.

So, if you are looking for something unique to give your mom this year for Mother's Day -- or for any other day for that matter -- zip over to Salary.com on your computer and complete the Mom Salary Wizard to determine your mother's current salary. Be sure to include enough compensation for the biggie -- Combat Pay.

Even if it's all in fun, you know your mom deserves it. Even when she tells you, and means it, that all she really wants is a hug.