Texas husband blogs that he can’t afford his stay-at-home wife

By Efrosini Costa

Texas husband blogs that he can’t afford his stay-at-home wife
A Texas man has calculated that he can't afford for his wife to be a stay-at-home mum to their 2 year-old son.

Steve Nelms came to this conclusion after calculating his wife’s worth down to the dollar.

But before you jump to conclusions, hear him out:

“Now, I don’t at all mean to offend anyone with this post. I just have to say that for me personally, I can’t afford it,” Nelms wrote in his March 20 post on his blog, We Are Glory.

“I’d like to explain exactly what I mean by that so that no one thinks I’m in any way devaluing Stay-At-Home Moms,” he continued.

Nelms then broke down in dollars, every job his wife performs, from child care = $36,66,  to cleaning = $5,200, to cooking = $12,480.

The total value of her work amounts to $73,690 per year, according to Nelms’ calculations.

“In short, I can’t afford for my wife to stay at home. And I’ve tragically failed to show my wife the appreciation that she deserves. She loves me, loves our son, and loves our family, so obviously she isn’t doing any of those things for a paycheck or even for recognition,” Nelms wrote.

“But it certainly doesn’t hurt to know that as a Stay-At-Home Mom her appraised salary is nearly double my actual income. So in a very weird way, this is my way of saying how much I value my wife as the mother of my child and the one who always has my back no matter what. You are more precious than rubies. And I can’t afford you.”

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Nelms says that before becoming a mum, his wife Glory  been employed since the age of 14, always earning a pay-check outside of the home.

The blog post has since gone viral and reporters and journalists from around the country and abroad have contacted the couple since.

“It was hard to stay at home for a reason. It wasn’t necessarily the workload,” Glory told one news reporter.

“It was everything that came with losing that pay-check, losing that job, losing the connection with other people in the world.”

Nelms told local media that his original intent for the post was to “show appreciation” for Glory.

“It was never intended to say one way of doing it was right or wrong. It was simply a reflection of how our family dynamic works,” he said. “It was meant to show my wife appreciation.”

Nelms’ post drew over 1,000 comments, ranging from support, to those who called out Nelms for calculating his wife’s contributions and who said staying at home is a “choice” for mothers.

“I’d love for my nagging husband to read this,” wrote one commenter. “All he does is gripe for me to get a job and expect me to somehow clean/feed/care for my children all at the same time.”

“It’s supposed to be a partnership with each contributing equally but obviously with their own unique skills, not a place of employment with one side of the accounting left blank,” argued another.

Would you like it if your partner calculated your worth? Do you sometimes feel undervalued for being a stay-at-home mum? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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