How do you feel about being paid for your work?

i feel great about getting paid for what i do---the bits i actually get paid for, that is. which means yoga classes at the gym, and private lessons for clients at my house. occasionally, i sell a piece of my art, and that feels great too. but my annual income from these bits and bobs totals maybe $1000 right now. yes, you read that correctly. essentially, i can pay for my beer and some of my car repairs. everything else has to come out of my child support. i wish to hell that the clueless government would pay mothers some kind of livable subsidy while their kids are still living at home, so we could stay home and be the parents that we want to be, and so that those of us who are single/ divorced/ abandoned/ married-to-jerks moms wouldn't be dependent on what we can earn in the school-day hours or what trickles in from the estranged men in our lives. wow...that was a long sentence, full of angst and resentment, yes? and completely true, so i won't edit it or apologize. caregiving is completely under-recognized and under-compensated in our economy, and yet without this largely unpaid labor, the economy as it's currently structured would collapse. apparently in our society, care-giving is only counted as "work" and paid for when the person is caring for someone who is not personally related. when your kid is being cared for by a daycare worker, that person is paid for childcare services provided. when you care for your kid, you aren't. if grandma is in a nursing home, the people who attend to her are paid; if you attend to her at home, you aren't. and then the is the whole arbitrary thing about what makes something a legal service...if you are a prostitute, and you provide sexual services to gentlemen in exchange for money, you are liable to be arrested. but if you are married to a man, and you provide the same services to your spouse (plus, frequently, housekeeping etc), in exchange (official or not, recognized or not) for his financial support, then that is quite legal. oh yes, you see, if something is done "with love", it can't count as work!  and even the so-called caring professions, like nursing and teaching, pay less well than the other professions. don't be under any illusions that the state doesn't view marital services as work---even though the state doesn't pay for any of them. if you divorce, these things are supposed to be considered in drawing up settlements. if you have been a stay-at-home mom for some years, supposedly you could be partially compensated for the earning potential of those years through the alimony agreement. in reality, that doesn't seem to happen, but there is legal agreement that it should enter into the calculations. so when choosing careers, remember the following:
daycare = work, parenting = not work.
non-medical nursing = work, eldercare at home = not work.
prostitution = work (albeit illegal), marriage = not work (but legal).
if it's something a woman traditionally does for free, either it's not work or it's low-paying work when done for others.
and most of all, get it through your head that our society doesn't believe in paying for any service provided with a loving heart. i think this poisonous idea is behind the debate in some yoga circles and other healing arts about whether it is desirable or right to charge for these services. i myself often throw in free lessons or treatments, or massively undercharge for them, because i don't want to feel that i am exploiting people. sometimes these are people who, believe me, will not miss the paltry sum i would charge. but because they are fellow moms, or friends, or friends-of-friends, i feel that i shouldn't charge them much or at all. there is this sense that accepting money for our services somehow compromises the loving-kindness of them. i think that is crap. i think that reveals the disconnect in our society between the loving services we do for our near and dear and the work-for-money economy. we are doing things that come from connection and love and community-mindedness, and in our secret hearts we believe that these things shouldn't need (monetary) payment. but we do secretly believe that in exchange we should be confident that our needs will be met (for "free"), and somehow, that is not the case! so i say, as we have a money-for-goods economy to contend with, it's time to recognize in our own hearts and in public policy that the work done daily by caring people is truly work, and worthy of a living wage and healthcare. i'm pretty sure that if the government offered me a "mom stipend" and some basic healthcare, i wouldn't lose any sleep over accepting it. in fact, i'd sleep a lot better knowing i could pay the bills...i know that the work of parenting well benefits my society as a whole. every healthy, smart, confident, well-adjusted kid is a plus to society---they cost the system less in heatlhcare, they don't need to pop pills (legal or otherwise) to feel ok and function, they are less likely to end up in jail...likewise, when i teach yoga and ayurveda or do healing touch treatments, i help people to feel better and give them tools to improve their own health. so yeah, pay me for what i do, by all means!