QUOTE : Is it not ironical that the commercial market economy has a financially valued analogy for every item of housework a homemaker does on a daily basis without payment? Restaurant meals provide the parallel for preparing, cooking and serving food. Laundering services provide the analogy for washing and ironing. Housecleaning can be done professionally by professional housekeepers and domestic maids. Crèches, play-houses and baby sitters can take care of small children. These services need to be paid for and thus they are computed while measuring the GNP. But a homemaker provides all these services for free, so her services are kept out of evaluation and measurement of GNP.