Mothers do it all
– from making breakfast to playing chauffeur
n by Kelly Savio Staff Writer
Put a price tag on your mother. Take into account all the things moms do: hold back your hair when you throw up, cheer you on when you play sports, cook dinner, pack lunches, help with homework, listen to what happened on a bad day. Then, put a price tag on it.
A recent study conducted by www.salary.com, a career resource Web site, attempted to calculate the worth of all the duties mothers fulfill and how many hours they spend on these tasks. The study then came up with an annual salary mothers would earn if they were actually paid for doing all the things they do. Stay-at-home mothers would be making more than $130,000 a year, and working mothers would make $85,000 or more. But, even though moms do their jobs for free, they wouldn’t have it any other way.
In honor of Mother’s Day, three South Valley women help remind us how special moms really are.
Michele Swensen,
Morgan Hill
It’s Wednesday afternoon, and Michele Swensen, mother of two, is on her way out the door … again.
She’s already gotten her kids up and off to school, been to her part-time job as a library assistant for the school district, met her kids after school, made sure their homework was done and they had an afternoon snack, and now it’s time for after-school sports.
Michele drops off her son, Eric, 8, at a friend’s house to play for a little while, then she picks up a friend of her daughter, Michaela, 11, to take them to soccer practice. The next item on the list is the grocery store to grab a few things for dinner.
“There are way cooler moms out there – like the moms that have six kids and do with them what I’m trying to do with just two,” says Michele as she pushes her cart through the produce section. A bottle of Purell hand sanitizer dangles from a holder attached to her purse, and her strides are long and brisk. “I think those are the amazing moms. Moms are moms. This is what we do. I think all moms take what they have and they make it work.”
Michele pauses to rifle through her coupons, which she stashes in the center console of her car, and selects some deli meats that are buy one, get one free. Then she’s through the checkout line, in the car and on her way to pick up Eric.
After helping her son with some cleat problems, they’re on the way to his soccer practice in Gilroy. They drive a few hundred feet when Michele glances at Eric.
“Seat belt on, buddy – whaddya, kiddin’ me?” she says as Eric quickly buckles up.
But Eric doesn’t seem to mind the gentle chastising.
“She loves me,” Eric confides matter-of-factly when asked what the best thing about his mom is. “That’s the best.”
Michele drops Eric off but hangs around to collect registration forms from other soccer parents, because she’s currently the team mom. She collects forms, checks, talks to parents about the end-of-season party she’s helping organize, and then she’s off again to pick Michaela up from practice.
“She’s funny and she’s supportive of our sports,” Michaela said. “If we don’t like a sport, she’ll help us get through the season, but she doesn’t make us do it again if we don’t want to. And she’ll let us try something new. Plus, she’s always there to love you when you’re sad or if you have a boo-boo, and if there’s something wrong, she’ll try and make it better.”
Michele takes Michaela home and starts preparing dinner. She gets things chopped and cleaned and ready to go, but she keeps an eye on the clock. Her husband, Frank, will be home from work soon, and she has to leave in a few minutes to pick up Eric.
It’s hectic, but Michele said she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I get to drop my kids off at school, I get to pick them up, I’m off for the holidays because I work for the schools, so I get to be there for them,” she said. “A friend of mine told me that the best things in life are free. It’s kind of like water: Pretty much anywhere you go, you can get water for free and everyone needs water. Moms are like that. You can figure out all the things we do and figure out how much we should get paid, but we do it for free. Because moms are the best.”
Robin Juarez, Hollister
Robin’s day starts a little after 6am. She gets up and gets ready for the day, often starting a load of laundry before waking up her three children. Though her 10-year-old daughter, Tyler, can get ready on her own, Robin’s twins, Jayda and Jordan, 8, still need help picking out their clothes.
“If I don’t help them pick out their clothes, they’ll go to school looking pretty ridiculous,” Robin said, laughing. “Both my girls have really long, curly hair, so I help do their hair, which can take a good 30 minutes. We do a final homework check to make sure they have everything and that all their work is done, and we’re out the door around 8am to get to school by 8:15.”
After dropping off her kids, Robin comes home to do housework before starting her at-home job as a loan officer for a local mortgage company.
“While I’m working, I’m still doing things around the house, whether it’s laundry or dusting or vacuuming, because once the kids are out of school, there’s no more working and it’s hard to do any other housework,” she said. “The twins are out of school at 2:30 and Tyler is out at 3:15, and the busiest part of my day starts. Tyler dances in competitions, so I take her to dancing, Jordan and Jayda both play soccer, so I take them to their leagues. Sometimes they end up doing homework in the car.”
After activities, homework, dinner and showers, Robin has quiet time with her kids.
“We have reading time for the kids, so they get in our bed and that’s our quiet time,” she said. “While they’re reading, I try and get back on my laptop and work some more, and then it’s time for the kids to go to bed. Then I try to finish up some of the housework before I have to go to bed myself. Sometimes it feels like nothing ever gets done. A job gets started, and it snowballs into something else, and even trying to get ahead in the evenings, it sometimes feels like there’s an endless list of things to do. I feel like I’m always running on adrenaline.”
Robin said she did all 10 jobs on the www.salary.com survey, and more, including nursing. And though she said being a working mom sometimes takes its toll on her, she doesn’t regret her decision to work part time from home in order to be more involved in her children’s lives.
“I really have a good appreciation for what my mom did, and growing up I really didn’t think she did anything special,” Robin said. “I don’t know why I thought that, but now that I’ve been a mom myself for 10 years, I know better. Within two months of having my first child, I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, thank you for everything, mom.’ I only hope I can be as good as she was.”
Mary Sanchez, Gilroy
Though everyday routines are hectic enough for moms, it’s all the extra stuff mothers do that isn’t part of the routine that makes them really special, said Mary Sanchez, a Gilroy resident and mother of four.
“There are all kinds of things mothers do that nobody ever notices, but need to get done,” she said. “They don’t notice that the huge chocolate stain on their white uniform is gone by the next time they wear it. They never notice that there are clean sheets on the beds every Sunday. They don’t notice that mom knows who has hot lunch on what days and who needs a packed lunch on the other days. They just know they always have a lunch.”
On top of daily routine things, Mary said she makes sure her children always have their prescription medications filled and reminds the kids to take their pills. She does the shopping, keeps track of her family’s medical and dental appointments, and has to make extensive lists if she’s going to be gone to make sure everything gets done.
“This weekend, three of my kids have birthday parties to go to, so I’ve been out buying presents and wrapping them up,” she said. “The kids don’t really think about that kind of stuff, they just know it gets done. They also don’t think about the fact that when the cat got stuck in the garage door and the dog ate the leftover steak, tinfoil and all, it’s me taking them to the vet. We’ve got a snake, a tarantula, lizards, a dog and a cat, so not only am I running the kids (to) places, I’m running the animals (to) places, too.”
Mary’s children are Albert, 14, Maria, 10, Anna, 8, and Emily, 5. Mary has just finished organizing Maria’s First Communion party, and is starting to plan Albert’s eighth-grade graduation party and Emily’s kindergarten graduation party.
“Being a mom is a ’round-the-clock job, but it’s what we do and it’s what we love to do,” Mary said. “Last night, one of my daughters had a bad dream. The second her feet hit the floor, I was up and I met her in the hall. I sat with her and talked to her about her bad dream, and got her back to sleep, but then I laid awake worrying and wondering what could have made her had such a horrible dream. But, that’s what moms do. And then my husband asks, ‘What did you do all day?'”
Mary laughed at the thought of such a silly question.
