America Has Great Mothers

     Are your smarter than a fifth grader?  What is your answer to the following multiple choice question:  Who is most deserving of a pay raise in 2008? 

     A. Oil company executives  

     B. President of the United States

     C. America’s mothers

I am sure that oil company executives relaxing in their yacht today voted for “A.” Oil company executives receive huge salaries and perks.  The Associated Press reported last month that “Exxon Mobil Corp, whose $40 billion profit last year again broke the record for a U.S. company, gave chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson an 18% raise to $21.7 million . . . The Texas native also received $429,792 in “other compensation: that included $229,331 for personal security, $41, 122 for personal use of company aircraft and $9,150 for financial planning.”          

     I am sure that the President Bush would vote for “B.”  When George Bush was elected president in 2000 he was aghast to learn that his salary would only pay $200, 000 a year. “That’s it”? Observed Bush, “A measly couple hundred grand a year. . . I guess I assumed that a job like that would have a much bigger salary.  In 2001 the annual salaryof the president was increased to $400,000 per year, including a $50,000 expense allowance.  

      I believe that the correct answer is “C.”  America’s mothers deserve a huge salaryincrease.  Salary.com developed a valuation of a “mom job” and determined the time that mothers spend for performing 10 typical job functions.   According to Salary.com the average mother works 92 hours a week.  The studied concluded, “The job titles that best matched a mom’s definition of her work are (in order of hours spent per week): housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, CEO, and psychologist.” 

     According to Salary.com the average salary of a stay-at-home mother should be $138,095.  In reflecting on mothers, Charles Dickens said:  “I think it must be somewhere written that the virtues of the mothers shall be visited upon the children, as well as the sins of the fathers.”  Great mothers are not the source of media attention these days.  America's mothers with great courage and  perseverance go about the business of raising our future leaders- scientists, teachers, writers, doctors, nurses, political leaders . These great mothers are courageous in the face of  tough economic times, figuring out a way to make ends meet while gas  and food prices skyrocket.

     Abraham Lincoln, one of our greatest president’s said this about mothers “all that I am or every hope to be I owe to my angel mother.”  The author Macaulay observed: “Children, look into those beautiful eyes, listen to that dear voice, feel the gentle touch bestowed upon you by that loving hand, and make as much of it as you can while yet you have that most precious of  all good gifts, a loving mother.”  Thomas Edison observed, “My mother was the making of me.  She was so true and so sure of me. I felt that I had someone to live for- someone I must not disappoint.  The memory of my mother will always be blessing to me.”

     In December of last year NASA astronaut Daniel Tani was orbiting the Earth when his 90 year old mother died in a train accident.  In commenting to reporters, Tani felt he had lost the person who had been his inspiration for most of his life. Mothers are superior to fathers in their ability to love, care for and train children to make something of their lives.

     The author, Sterling W. Sill wrote: “We admire the artist who presents mimic man upon the canvas. We applaud the sculptor who carves that same image in the enduring marble, but oh how insignificant are these achievement, though the highest and fairest in all the realms of art, as compared to the great vocation of the human mother.  She works not upon canvas that will fade or upon marble that will crumble into dust, but upon mind and spirit that will endure forever and bear throughout eternity the noble impress of a mother’s hand.”

     America is fortunate to have so many great mothers.  Our nation’s mothers are the most deserving of a pay raise.