People have a tendency to ignore the work that moms do at home. It's like if it's not happening in a traditional workplace, it can't really be considered work.
One mom is trying to change that. After being laid off, a woman was tired of questions about what she does all day, so she decided to give everyone a glimpse into just how much unending work she was tasked with.
Paige Turner, a TikTok content creator, regularly shares empowering messages for women. Now, she is showing just how much work she does as a mom.
In a recent video, Turner explained that she was laid off from her job in corporate America about six weeks ago. Since then, she has found herself to be just as busy as she was before the layoff.
"Since I've been laid off, I have received the same question over and over again, and that question is, 'So, what do you do all day?'" she said.
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"Because there's this assumption that now that I don't have a full-time corporate job, I must just be lounging around day-to-day," she continued. "And I think this question often comes from people who truly have no idea how much invisible labor goes in behind the scenes to manage a home and to raise children."
Turner could be seen performing the everyday tasks needed to keep a family going in the video, like doing laundry, making meals, and shuttling her children between school, appointments, and other activities.
"Because if you're a mother, you probably received this question at multiple points in your life," Turner stated.
"Whether you're a stay-at-home mom or a work-from-home mom or you're on maternity leave, people are always questioning how women are spending their time."
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"And I believe a lot of this comes from the fact that women are starting to speak up about the mental load and the invisible labor that they're doing," she said, "because we are burnt out and exhausted."
"And let me tell you, I no longer have my corporate job, and I very much still work full-time as a content creator, but my days are just as busy as they were six weeks ago," she insisted.
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"I still find myself running around from appointment to appointment, taking work calls in between, answering emails at the doctor's office, running kids back and forth to speech therapy and whatever other appointment they have that day," Turner said.
She went on to say, "I'm still folding the laundry and making lunches. The days fly by, and there is no shortage of work to go around."
That was when Turner really reached the heart of her message.
"But this is a thing about invisible labor," she argued. "If you're not the one doing it, then you don't even believe it's happening, and you don't believe it has value."
Nasdaq calculated how much the work moms do is worth by using the Labor Department's American Time Use Survey (ATUS).
"According to the ATUS, married mothers who are not employed and are in a household with a child under age 18 spend an average of 6.4 hours daily on child care and household-related tasks," they said.
While this estimation may sound low to some, it's what the survey showed.
MART PRODUCTION | Pexels
Taking into account the different tasks these mothers perform, such as childcare, cooking, and cleaning, Nasdaq calculated that the average stay-at-home mom could make about $39,368.90 a year based on the market value of their skills.
They did acknowledge, however, that the true value of this work is "priceless."
Seeing as moms whose primary responsibility is to care for their children and household could make a decent salary by Nasdaq's estimation, it's undoubtedly time that society starts giving them credit for all of the work they do, even though they aren't paid for it or considered a "professional."
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