Hourly wage for breastfeeding: mothers would be the real big earners
Are you currently a breastfeeding mother or have you already breastfed several children? Then you may have thought about how much time it took to feed your baby – which is wonderful, of course! A mom has now added up all the hours of her breastfeeding and realized just how incredibly expensive breastfeeding a baby actually is.
Lactation converted to lifetime
If you are currently breastfeeding your baby or have already breastfed several children, here is a little thought experiment for you: How many hours do you think you spent breastfeeding your baby? Haven’t you ever thought about that? But maybe you should, because one mother clocked up a whopping 4,866 hours of breastfeeding!
Hourly wage for 4,866 hours
Wow: 4,866 hours of breastfeeding really is an unbelievable number that at first glance might seem like an exaggeration. But assuming you breastfeed one or more children for a total of a few years in your lifetime, this result is anything but unrealistic! Unfortunately, we have not found any statistics that provide concrete figures on how many hours of life mothers spend breastfeeding, but we are sure that a good amount would accumulate even with one child.
But it gets even more interesting: Calculate the length of time you breastfeed with an hourly wage – that would certainly result in a nice sum of money. In concrete terms, this means that you could earn a lot of money while you are there for your baby and breastfeeding it. Statements like: “Breastfeeding is free!” are completely invalid and unthinking at the latest with such a projection!
Kera is celebrated on Twitter
Not only do we think it’s great that Kera spoke openly about the topic on Twitter, the Twitter community – especially many women – is also enthusiastic. Kera’s post has nearly 14,000 likes and has been reposted over 2,000 times by other users. For example, a user writes:
“I’ve spent over 52,000 hours breastfeeding my children… Every minute of the day counts as the woman’s body makes the milk – using intense energy to make every single drop – I switched jobs just to have my baby to feed. The costs are immeasurable. The woman’s body is priceless.”
Another mother comments:
“It’s just as free as chores around the house, mowing the lawn, putting up shelves. The currency here is time, not money. So yes, it’s free in the usual sense in which we use the word ‘free’, but not when you look at the cost more holistically.”
Breastfeeding is never free
Breastfeeding may seem like a “free” perk at first, but if you think about it further, you quickly realize the real value of raising a baby.
And that is probably what many women miss and suffer from: their motherhood and the time at home with their children are not appreciated enough. Much more is conveyed that it is not a real “work”. The job of a mother is one of the most important and influential for our society. Because mothers raise the following generations – and that is certainly not free.
So, dear mothers, feel encouraged and supported to feel like true big earners for your breastfeeding and raising children!