In our last issue, we identified all the roles a mom plays at home and valued it around $325,600. It will not be fair, if we did not do the same computation for Dad. So here it is - the competition begins. Using salary.com and U.S Bureau of Labor statistics data and assuming the following role for a dad, this is how it stacks up.

• Supplemental Child care: $13,000
• Median income as a head of household: $45,000
• Athletic/Sports coach: $41,780
• Facilities, Maintenance and Repair Manager: $41,000
• Handy man: $10,000
• Public Relations/Communication Consultant: $41,000
• Family financier: $44,000
• Investment manager: $39,000
• Family Event Manager: $46,900
• Lawn Mower/Gardener/Snow plower: $5,000

That comes to $326,680. May be he does a few role and he does not perform a few. May be he is paid more for certain roles and less for certain roles. However, there is a high probablility that he is underpaid too. So a dad is providing an equal value as a mom in a family. But at the end of the day, the value a mom and dad provide to a family are - PRICELESS!

How a son thinks about his father at different ages ...

At 4 Years : My daddy is great.
At 6 Years : My daddy knows everybody.
At 10 Years : My daddy is good but is short tempered
At 12 Years : My daddy was very nice to me when I was young.
At 14 Years : My daddy is getting fastidious.
At 16 Years : My daddy is not in line with the current times.
At 18 Years : My daddy is becoming increasingly cranky.
At 20 Years : Oh! Its becoming difficult to tolerate daddy. Wonder how Mother puts up with him.
At 25 Years : Daddy is objecting to everything.
At 30 Years : It's becoming difficult to manage my son. I was so scared of my father
When I was young.

At 40 Years : Daddy brought me up with so much discipline. Even I should do the same.
At 45 Years : I am baffled as to how my daddy brought us up.
At 50 Years : My daddy faced so many hardships to bring us up. I am unable to manage
a single son.
At 55 Years : My daddy was so far sighted and planned so many things for us. He is
one of his kind and unique.
At 60 Years : My daddy is great.

Thus, it took 60 years to complete a cycle of perception ("My daddy is great!") and realize the value of a dad.

Realize the true value of your parents before it’s too late.

Hmmm... How quick a father learns ?

"When I was a boy of fourteen,
my father was so ignorant
I could hardly stand to have the old man around.
But when I got to be twenty-one,
I was astonished
at how much he had learned in seven years."
-- Mark Twain,
"Old Times on the Mississippi"
Atlantic Monthly, 1874