How can we place a value on a mother’s work?

My company told me they didn’t have to pay me as much as the man who was doing the role before me because my prior experience wasn’t valued as highly in the market as his was.

What might happen if the women we rely on to do all the unpaid and unrecognized labor in society realized the actual, monetary value of their experience?

If you’re new here, I’m telling the stories leading up to when I got myself fired after accusing my company of gender discrimination.

I asked my audience:

• Who does it serve to keep perpetuating the notion that the value of a mother’s work can’t be calculated?

• What would it disrupt if we did calculate it?

Thank you for your responses and stories. I look forward to exploring them further. Now I have one of my own that may shed some light on these questions.

The Pay Gap Story, part 1.

My company informed me that despite the fact that I had consistently crushed targets and driven record-breaking sales for years at this very company, they didn’t legally have to pay me as much as the man who was doing the job before me. 

My achievements were unquestioned, but—the HR rep explained—the man in this position before me had been in sales or management his whole career . . . whereas I had spent over a decade raising my children. I asked,

“Why does that matter if I’ve clearly demonstrated I am just as qualified to do the job?

In fact, looking at the results, if anything, something about my experience as a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom may have prepared me better for this job.”

He acknowledged that and he didn’t have an answer. He told me to take it up with my manager, who was the Chief Revenue Officer. That was a dead-end though, since he was the one who had sent me to HR in the first place, when I asked what else I had to do to get compensated the same as the man who was doing this job before me.

The answer was unspoken, but clear:

Nothing. There was nothing I could do to make up for taking that “time off” to raise children. The pay gap would always be there.

As disheartened as I was to hear this, I sensed my HR rep was even more troubled, and what happened next validated this impression. We had a friendly relationship, and he asked if he could take off his HR hat, and even his company hat, to ask me a personal question:

“What do you think would happen if all the moms out there decided to quit doing their jobs?”

At first I didn’t understand what he was getting at, but after a bit of discussion, I started to see something, and I asked him:

“Are you afraid that’s what would happen if those women realized the actual, monetary value of their experience?”

His response:

“How could we put a number on the value of the role of a mother?”

He meant this rhetorically.

I suggested we might start by looking at the difference between what they were willing to pay me, and what they were willing to pay a man my same age, doing my same job. 

* * *

Women often manage the majority of childcare and domestic responsibilities, and we love to talk glowingly about the “countless hours” and “incalculable value” of all that “loving service.”

But when faced with the possibility of actually calculating it, it triggers fears I’m not sure we’re adequately prepared to deal with.

Have you reckoned with this fear? How would you have answered him?

Disclaimer: This is my experience, and how I remember it.