“Wife Bonuses” are Totally Worth It [VIDEO]

I think that women, or either spouse that stays at home with the children, deserve "wife bonuses", if they earn them.

A story has come out about a trend with the wealthy elite where wives of highly paid powerful career men share whatever annual bonuses they have with their wife.

Polly Philips is a wife who earns just such a bonus, she wrote about it and the book that has brought this term to pop culture (Primates of Park Avenue, Wednesday Martin), in nypost.com. She traded her own lucrative career to raise a family while her husband earns the bread. A lot of bread.

Her article sounded a lot like "Hey, I could be making buku bucks on my own, but I'm doing you the favor of raising our family so I want some of that cheddar, too."

As a husband who would gladly give my wife a bonus, I see it a bit differently.

I ask myself the question, "What is the value in giving the stay at home spouse that bonus money?" to figure if it is worth the cost or not.

Having a three week old baby of my own, the value of the person who runs the household is high.

First, the demands of feeding a child eight times per day are strenuous. The lack of sleep adds up to create a general clumsiness and feeling of being out of it that I like to call 'parenthead'. I'm never surprised when I forget something, because my mind is constantly racing through the needs of my child. Having my wife at home while I'm at work is the only thing that allows me to really be at work. That is essential.

Plus, for any working spouse, having someone to manage the household beyond child care; to pay bills, balance finances, deal with appointments, do laundry, etc., allows them to recharge after the high stress workdays instead of doing constant maintenance.

If they arrive at a chaotic home every night, there is no relief for them. A good stay at home spouse helps with all that, and the working spouse can come home to smiles, good food, peace and calm (sometimes) and love.

It doesn't take much to allow a household to fly off the handle into unmanageability, and this is where I feel the value of the "wife bonus" comes. It's a validation that the stay at home spouse's job is to do their best to bring balance to the home, and that they are, like the working spouse earning the bonus, killing it.