After all, you're only at 607 points. Not nearly the wisdom of the 1,000 pointers. Oh, wait a minute... I guess my logic makes me only a third of the dad that you are. :-) (To reiterate what that little happy face implies: I am very much kidding you.)

Anyway, I understand what you mean. I have seen these "salaries" for years and, like familyguy, I too find them interesting. But I think you are right that there is no actual pricetag for us.

Part of the problem, and I don't know if you agree, is that much of our value in American terms is assessed by how much we monetarily contribute to our society. In my case, therefore, my contribution to society is zilch, since I don't "work."

And I know this is going to raise some hairs on the backs of some people, but I have never considered my life as a Stay-at-homer as a job. Moms and others have told me that "this is the toughest job they've ever had." Well, do you see what is happening? They are quietly trying to validate their lives on the playing field of people whose value is primarily on career/job/income/monetary/what-have-you. And that's fine. It gives SAHDs an amount of "value," I guess, with the supposed salaries that some Salary Fairy would give us if we actually had value in that part of the world.

Of course, you and I know deeper levels of the word "value" which they cannot understand at Salary.com.

I am not going to quibble with them or you or anyone about the semantics of jobs and value, though. Also, I am being general and all-encompassing here since I don't want to go on in detail on this soapbox tirade.

But when people sympathetically tell me that I have a tough job, I politely tell them: "This is not a job." I can drive home from a job. I can quit a job. I can leave a job behind for the weekend. What I have is a lifestyle.

Jumping off soapbox.... now.

By the way, has anyone seen my kids? I misplaced them somewhere around my 999th point.
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http://www.altparenting.com

Tragically it only reinforces what I already thought: I suck when it comes to dealing with numbers. Or reading them correctly. Or paying attention in general. Or... what were we talking about?