The Wall Street Journal recently took a look at several different methods one might use to quantify the value of a stay-at-home mother. Considering what it would cost to pay someone from outside the family to take on all the responsibilities a mother fulfills, the estimates ranged up to over $130,000 per year.

It's nice to see people making an honest effort to show the great value stay-at-home mothers contribute to their families and society. Still, we all know that no dollar amount can be placed on what it is worth to a child to have devoted, caring parents who are actually there for them.

The proof is in what happens when a child does *not* have parents like that.

Every day we are bombarded by statistics showing that today's generation of teens is the most poorly educated, most promiscuous, most heavily drug and alcohol using group of the past century. And what is the single most frequently cited characteristic correlated with teens in these categories? It isn't poverty, if that is what you were thinking. It is a lack of parental involvement in their lives, especially among children who have either only one parent (in which case that parent must spend the majority of their time supporting the family financially), or have two parents working outside the home.

For many families, this is an unavoidable reality. In today's America, wages and salaries have not even remotely kept up with the rise in housing prices and overall cost of living over the past 25 years.

But for many more families, this is a conscious choice. The values of our society now dictate that any mother (or father) who chooses to devote their work day to their children is a drag upon the economy and a waste of talent. Especially where my family recently lived for seven years, in Silicon Valley, it is common for a single household to have two incomes, each in the $75,000-$150,000 range. Is there any financial need for two such incomes? Not unless having a mansion and a Hummer fit your criteria for needs.

Children growing up in such a family are not truly raised by their parents, as they only spend a handful of hours with them each day. They are raised first by a nanny or daycare, then by their peers and teachers at school, and most importantly, by the television. Is it any wonder then when the children hit their teenage years and their parents feel like they hardly know them sometimes?

Interestingly, one effect of this situation, not only in America but throughout the Western World, has been the de-valuation of children as a group. If careers and material goods come first, then children can be a serious hindrance. So instead of parents viewing their children as blessings, they end up viewing them as sacrifices they are only willing to make one or two times.

The result is a massive decline in population in these countries. America itself recently fell below the 2.1 children per family that a nation needs to sustain its population. In Europe, the number of children per family now ranges from 1.82 in Ireland to a paltry 1.25 in Poland.

To understand what that means, consider this. Spain, with a birth rate of 1.28 children per family, is on track to lose 25 percent of their population by 2050. Those that remain will be disproportionately retired and elderly, thereby destroying any possibility for Social Security-style support programs or a properly functioning economy. Similar futures are in store for every other nation in Europe, and eventually America as well.

So what is a stay-at-home mother worth? It cannot be measured in dollars. The very existence of a healthy, thriving society depends upon adults making the decision that the next generation, their children, is more important to them than monetary gain, professional prestige, or the convenience of "not having to drag the kids around."

If parents do not exert their talents and energies on their #1 responsibility, the raising of their children, then their children will realistically be raised by the society around them. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't trust the society of Desperate Housewives and Sex and the City with raising my pet dog, much less my child.

So to you hard-working, dedicated parents, who either stay at home or have to work but do your darndest to make raising your children your first priority, I thank you. I thank you because the world of my children's future and the world of your children's future are one and the same. And the more people we have living in that world that were raised by their parents instead of their television, the better that world will be.

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Copyright, Paul Martin, Noss Galen Baby LLC 2006