BagOfNothing.com

The work done each year by a typical stay-at-home dad is worth $128,755 in annual salary, according to a study by Salary.com.

That’s 2.7 percent higher than last year, but still more than $9,000 less than the services provided by stay-at-home mothers.

The survey of 6,500 fathers also found that fathers who work outside the house provide $72,000 worth of housework services.

Meredith Hanrahan, Salary.com’s chief marketing officer, said dads contribute a lot, though some could say they fall short.

“The findings do indicate that while dad’s worth is substantial, he is still playing catch-up to mom,” she said.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates there are 159,000 dads who made the choice to stay at home in 2006. Meanwhile, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates there were 5.6 million stay-at-home moms in 2006.

In the survey, the company determined the top 10 parts of a dad’s job description. Each was given a dollar value based on hours worked.

The top 10 jobs for stay-at-home dads, in order of time spent, were:

• Day care center teacher
• Computer operator
• Cook
• Van driver
• Facilities manager
• Psychologist
• Chief executive officer
• Groundskeeper
• Laundry machine operator

The stay-at-home dads reported spending 80.2 hours a week on his duties. Stay-at-home mothers reported taking 91.8 hours a week.

For working parents, the rate was 38.7 hours to 49 hours. In calculating value, Salary.com gave women overtime rates for those nine extra hours.

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When I went to meet the editorial policy/legal people at the BBC, the first thing I wanted to know, as you can well imagine, was this: which swear words am I allowed to use?

I was shown a ranked list of rudeness. It was every bit as entertaining as I had hoped, but to my disappointment, there was no possibility of removing this fabulous document from the room. I don’t like to paint too much of a melodramatic picture, but the offending piece of paper was physically removed from my hand (I think they had the idea that I would scan it, post it on my blog, and write an article about it).

Anyway, I mentioned this to someone else from the BBC at a party recently: she sent me a copy this morning, and as you can see, I have indeed scanned it and posted it on my blog.

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My colleague came to work waving around a new pair of Sony headphone’s he’d bought on the way over, still new in the blister plastic packaging. He was excited because he got such a good deal on them, and tried cutting through the package with a pair of heavy duty scissors. The plastic was unusually strong and was resisting even our most well made scissors (we work in a printing facility, and have lots of types of scissors, all high quality). He switched to the x-acto knife after the scissors were unable to pierce the thick bonded plastic.

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In short, this is what happened.

I wouldn’t bother reading the article, I highly recommend watching the video here.