When you’re looking for a job, one of the things you probably keep in mind is the salary. You want to make sure you’ll have enough to pay your bills and hopefully save while you’re at it.

However, there’s one very, very important job out there that many of us do and it doesn’t pay a cent. Yes, we’re talking about the role of being a parent.

Whether you work full time, stay home with your kids, or some sort of hybrid, you know that life is certainly busier with kids than without them. We find ourselves doing things like preparing meals, planning birthday parties, transporting our kids to their numerous activities, helping with homework, mending torn clothes, buying more clothes because they just had a growth-spurt (again), and the list goes on and on.

Can you relate?

If you work full time, perhaps you’re outsourcing some of these activities to others. Maybe you hire a party planner for your child’s birthday party or you have a maid who comes in to clean your house.

If you’re a full-time stay-at-home parent, chances are you take on most of these child-related responsibilities. While some people might think it’s luxurious to get to stay home with your kids, and it can be pretty awesome, it’s definitely a lot of work. Like, a whole lot of work.

While you can easily argue that the job of a parent is priceless, and their smiles, hugs, and the pride you feel when they accomplish something is more important than a paycheck, have you ever wondered what a reasonable salary for the job of a stay-at-home parent would actually be?

Over at Salary.com, they attempted to put a number on it. While they agree that the job is priceless, they picked multiple roles that a stay-at-home parent is typically responsible for and calculated an average annual salary.

Some of the job titles that fit within the stay-at-home parent role include Academic Advisor, Buyer, Day Care Center Teacher, Janitor, and Photographer. Yes, all those selfies we take of our kids and the pictures we take when they do something, anything cute, that’s a job too.

All these jobs we do for our kids day in and day out really add up in the fictional salary department. The average salary for a stay-at-home parent should be $162,581.

For more information about how this total was calculated and more job types that were included in the calculation, watch the video below.

Are you surprised by how big the salary should be for a stay-at-home parent? Are you a stay-at-home parent?