The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-12
What Is Value Of Housewife
 In Money?
ey MRS, cHR,sJiNE rnEpERIck

Quite a little ripple of excitement has been caused by the head of west ern agricultural institution, who comes out with the statement that the annual i, value of the services of the average farmers wife is something in the region of $4,000! She (for it is a woman) arrives at this conclusion by estimating the housewife's time as follows:
 Annually Planning and serving meals, $10
 "a week ...... @o%V Washing and ming two days a
 week at $25O per day ....... 260 Cleaning and general care of
 house, two days, at $2.50 day 260 Sewing and mendins for self and
 children, two days, at $3 a day 312 Care of sick and children, $25
 week .................. 1900 Assisting hired man, care of poul-
 try, etc, at $20 a week ... 1,O40 Miscellaneous duties, $6 week. SIP
 Total .$4,O GOA
 Now I, of all persons, would be most interested in seeing and saying that the housewife and her time has definite cash value. But at the same time cannot be so blind as to see the unfair ness and error in the above estimates, and the unfortunate inflated value it might give some women of their own abilities.
 Let's take a close look at these esti- mates: How can a woman expect s for full days pay sewing at the same time she is also expecting to receive $10 weekly for cooking and $25 weekly for taking care of the sick? If she is sewing full day, from to 5, on standard of hour basis, then she can rightly expect the full current wages of that work, let us say s. But sine sim ply can't expect to receive full days pay for one kind of work and also a full compensation for two other full time jobs! Some of the time in which she should be earning her money sew ing she will (according to this dream estimate) be cooking and also caring for the sick, not to mention the mys- terious other miscellaneous duties" for which she is to receive $8 weekly. .~
 According to this ridiculous calcula- ton the same Mrs. Smith worked two full days at $2.50 at laundry work, another full two days cleaning at $2.5O each, two more days at s each. mend- ing (six full days in all), and yet, in addition, drew down nice fat salary of $25 weekly nursing children for every week in the year! This is indeed to { laugh! It would be manifestly impos- sible, not to speak of its unfairness, for any one single woman receiving full pay for three separate jobs, and on top of that a weekly high salary at another Job such as nursing. Turned around earning $25 weekly caring for children who could find the time to spend six full days of the week in distinct work like washing, scrubbins and sewingr
 No one of us would pay any woman $20 weekly for caring for children and then expect her to fill three other jobs If she even tried to sew or cook or scrub, she'd be Ileglecting the children and not really earning the money from the main job; also we'd be paying her at the rate of high-grade specialized work for low-grade manual effort every time she neglected the children and mopped or mended.
 The laborer is worthy of his bire"-- even if she's engaged on a ninety nine year meal ticket arrangement to her husband as employer. But not on such naive and humorous terms. We'll never get anywhere with the value of Housekeeping work on an estimate like the above. What we must first do is to see how efficient is the woman herself? Can we be sure that every farmers wife can sew well enough to justify $3 per day charge if she had to 70 out of the home and do it on a business basis? Are we sure that every rural housewife is so we'll trained and SO com petent that she can secure a salary of $26 per week in the open market? As q ehild's nusre? Are we sure that as a laundress she is sufficiently expert to command $2.60 every day she works? l wonder! In other words, would the imaginary housewife on whom these fig. ures are based be able to go cut into the economic world, make an applica- tion to high-grade employment agency, and secure a position at- the above wages? And even if she did secure a position, would she be able to keep it, and day after day to fill it's trying du- ties? Again wonder!
 Perhaps am pessimistic on what the housewife's time is really worth when consider the many applicants I have ', had for housekeeping positions, who simply didn't know their jobs and Couldn't be trained to be more eff cient. Don't all of us bewail cooks who are wasteful, slovenly, unskilled; laundresses who tear and scorch, hordes of women who say they have "kept house twenty years," but who fall down on preparing a simple four-course din- ner; "housekeepers" whose sole idea of work is managing some other 'ser- wants" who will do all the real work.