Housewife, Homemaker, Home Manager…How much is the salary?

Yes, how much is the salary for the home manager? This is not my original thought. Of the many fad empowering ideas about women since women empowerment is on the rise, this one also seems to be gaining momentum. A few days back reading a column, interestingly, women were called COOs that is chief operating officers and that too unpaid COOs!

This is not a bizarre thought. Oxfam, has published a report in 2018 that if all the women homemakers of the world are given fare wages, then their salary would be some $10 trillion, 43 times the turnover of Apple. So how much can be the salary of a home maker? What can be her CTC, that is, cost to company? And how much will be her variable pay depending on her performance? In short, can we corporatise the backbone of the fundamental unit of the society which is the family?

A woman handles multiple chores and is quite apt at multi-tasking or has become conditioned to this skill now. Interestingly, in modern age, or we can say in urban households, she even has helpers but at the same time the expectations have also increased. Apart from her basic KRAs that is, the Key result areas, which include planning and cooking healthy meals, taking care of cleanliness of the house, clothes, utensils and taking care of kids, their health, their studies, their co-curricular activities. And..and go out to prove herself with a career and a fancy pay packet too. To top it all, she must look good, have a great figure and her dressing sense should be immaculate!

Coming back to housewives or home managers, despite handling so many tasks and that too all very crucial ones, the sense of appreciation is least. A cousin, who forwards beautiful posts and videos in the dumb crowd of memes and forwards, sends another gem, which categorically depicts how a housewife’s work is not appreciated rather disrespected. But does the housewife herself give value to her accomplishments in the day? I don’t think so…the sense of accomplishment and achievement is a zilch. Why to wait for somebody to shower appreciation? Let’s first give respect to the multiple chores handled by us.  No salary can justify the outstanding feats of a home manager. Invaluable and outstanding are her roles…thats what we need to remind ourselves first!