His wife dies and he has to hire staff to “replace” her.

If more evidence was needed to prove that being a stay-at-home mom is a real job, here it is.

His wife dies, he hires staff

On TikTok, Allison Roozen explains that her best friend, a mother just like her, is dead. They both seemed close, they had been pregnant at the same time, had their babies at the same time, but one day her friend died and her husband found himself alone.

The latter therefore had to hire staff to do what she did for free, such as a landscaper, a cleaning lady, but also two babysitters, while asking for help from neighbors and grandparents to take care of the children. For the more “emotional” part, Allison Roozen explains that this task falls to the widowed husband’s new girlfriend.

This is what is called “delegation”, in the broadest sense of the word, of course. Allison ends her video with a strong quote: “ Now they have a village, whereas before they had a mother who did all this “.

And that’s what’s shocking about this video. This deceased mother was doing all of this work, for free, as thousands of mothers do every day. It is deeply sad and unfair, but it is reality.

In the comments below the video, many women express themselves: the sad thing is that if it were the other way around, the mother wouldn’t hire any help and would just manage on her own », « my biggest fear is disappearing after a lifetime of work, and simply being replaced, when‘a fraction of that help would have helped me be a better version of myself” OR ” I don’t have kids, but dammit, I think being a mother is the most important and rewarding job there is. “.

Stay at home mom: a job that doesn’t pay

We obviously do not know the intimate context of their relationship. However, for her and for all the other mothers who give considerable work, sometimes in addition to what they are officially paid for, for all those who bring up their children with little or no help, for all those who struggle, for all those who take on a considerable mental, emotional and affective load, we can be indignant and ask for recognition.

Justice, in particular, had already been able to demonstrate that housewives deserved a salary, as happened in Spain, when a man, who entrusted all the household chores to his wife, had to pay her 200,000 euros in compensation.

But more generally, from a feminist point of view, the remuneration of mothers’ work is a complicated point. If we want women who raise children to be paid for the tasks they do, we ask for a salary for housework it would go against the evolution of mentalities on the role of women in society. Remuneration, in fact, would be a way to institutionalize the role of the mother, and therefore to keep mothers away from work. True “. As Nadia Daam said in an article posted on Slate :

“It is useful here to remember that being a mother is not a job. A profession is a paid activity, which requires training, and from which the means of subsistence are derived.

Nadia Dam

But where is the solution? As we said in an article which questioned, at the time of the Covid pandemic, the remuneration of mothers during childbirth, the idea is not to issue an injunction to women to work or stay at home, but to question the obstacles they may face to better support them. Increase the number of crèche places, review organization in the company to encourage men to invest in family life, extend paternity leave, etc.

All these actions, which need to be democratised, could help the social landscape better take into account the crucial role of women who are also mothers and whose responsibility for the children lies entirely with them. We recall that, according to INSEE, in 2011, among French women aged 20 to 59 who are not students, 2.1 million are “housewives”.