Mothers: Start Rethinking Your Financial Planning

We Cannot Put a Price on Motherhood,
But We Can Put a Price on Its Cost

(PRNewswire)The following is a personal statement by Eleanor Blayney, Consumer Advocate for the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards (CFP Board): Mothers play a role in 95% of family financial decisions, comprise one of the largest occupations in the United States and are the chief supplier of our nation's productive capital.

Yet, there's one small problem with motherhood, this institution we are about to celebrate: it earns no appreciable revenues, and its 85 million workers have no salaries or wages. It provides no insurance, no paid days off, no retirement accounts and no Social Security benefits.

As we get ready to spend approximately $14 billion in flowers, candy, brunches, and cards this Mother's Day, trying to pay tribute to our mothers, we are reminded that we can't put a price on motherhood. We should, however, pay attention to its costs.

According to calculations provided by the USDA's website, the expenses to feed, clothe, and house a child up to the age of 17 can range anywhere from $160,000 to over $200,000. But these costs, which are ideally shared by fathers, are just the tip of the iceberg for our nation's mothers.

In a University of Pennsylvania study, it has been estimated that there is a 7% per child wage penalty for young mothers; other studies have found that the pay differential between men and women for the same work is a function not primarily of gender, but of motherhood.

Most mothers would give their lives for their children, but in fact what they're sacrificing is their financial security. Until our public policies change sufficiently such that the unpaid duties of motherhood enjoy the same social and market protections as paid labor, American women need to start rethinking their financial planning.

Since mothers live longer, have more intermittent workforce participation, and are more likely to spend a significant period of their lives single than their male counterparts, they need to be taking several steps to secure a more comfortable financial future. Women need to start saving for their retirement earlier and saving more. They need to get adequate insurance: most particularly disability and long-term care as these are the risks that are more prevalent for women.

In addition, they need to take more investment risk than they are prone to do, in order to make their capital grow sufficiently for their longer lives.

About CFP Board: The mission of Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. is to benefit the public by granting the CFP(R) certification and upholding it as the recognized standard of excellence for personal financial planning. CFP Board currently has more than 58,000 CFP(R) certificants in the United States.