Helping My Daughter Understand the Value of Women’s Work

Pay for It

Photo by Kostiantyn Li on Unsplash

We recently were vacationing when my husband decided he wanted to go to the casino.

It was smack in the middle of the afternoon and I didn’t want to give up my free time, so we had my 12-year old daughter babysit her 6-year old sister and an 8-year old friend (whose dad was accompanying my husband to said casino.)

The initial agreement was for two hours and I told my husband we should pay my daughter market rate for babysitting.

I pay market rate because I want my daughter to realize women’s work is important and valuable.

My kids don’t get an allowance and we don’t pay for chores like dinner prep, tidying a bedroom or doing laundry. But we do pay for babysitting, cleaning the bathrooms, and other things we’d typically hire for, to value what women typically do for free, and partly because I want my daughter to learn how to manage money.

Two hours in to the gambling stint, my husband texted and said he would be another 90 minutes. He didn’t ask for permission, so I told my daughter to charge overtime — double her hourly rate.

When my husband came back, he negotiated the overtime down to 1.5x (more realistic) but it was still a hefty sum because we are talking Bay Area rates.

My husband complained it was “highway robbery” but hey, he (hi, honey!) needs to realize when he goes out to have fun and leisure time, someone (usually a woman) is paying a price.

At least I found him a reliable, responsible babysitter.

When I asked my daughter afterwards what she wanted to do with the money, whether she wanted to buy a nice T-shirt or sweatshirt as a souvenir, she said…

“Nah. I’ll invest it.”

Society undervalues women’s work - we don’t value what we don’t pay for. I struggle with this a lot, undervaluing my unpaid contribution to the family. Do you value women’s work and if so, how did you come to be that way? Also, how are you teaching the next generation to value women’s work?

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This post is sponsored BrightStory, a boutique college admissions consulting company owned by Stanford graduate, professional journalist and “coach of admission coaches” Alice Chen, who also created Happy Asian Woman.

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