Motherhood Strategist Tells Stay-At-Home Moms To Make Their Husbands Sign Labor Contracts To Get The Money They Deserve
It's possible that true equity starts with a family contract.
natashacoulis / TikTok Natasha Coulis identifies herself in her TikTok bio as a “queer, autistic, ex-Mormon [and] mom of four.” She’s also a writer and motherhood strategist, using her social media platform to discuss the complex issues surrounding equity, parenthood, and family structures.
She offered her interpretation of a TikTok post made by Alyssa Fyfe, based on a tweet declaring, “Men don’t ‘support’ their wives who stay at home to raise their children. Women support men’s careers by providing unpaid childcare, housework, meals, and overall family life management services.”
In her role as a motherhood strategist, Coulis advises stay-at-home moms to make their husbands sign labor contracts that compensate them for parental labor.
“If you’re considering being a stay-at-home-mom, you need to listen to this video and learn from my mistakes, and the mistakes of millions of other women,” Coulis stated at the start of her TikTok post. She clarified her initial statement by noting, “Of course, there are so many reasons that they’re not our mistakes and that these are problems of patriarchy.”
She explained a strategy designed to protect and financially support the primary parent within a family. Coulis spoke directly to moms in that role, proclaiming, “You need to sit down with your husband and figure out what your stay-at-home-mom labor is worth. You need to come to an agreement and you need to put it in a contract that if you get a divorce, that’s what he’s going to be paying you each year that you were a stay-at-home mom.”
Coulis reframed the role that a stay-at-home-mom holds, stating, “You and your needs and your happiness needs to be at the front of his mind, just as it would if you were a nanny who was working for the family, that he had to make sure was happy so that she didn’t wanna quit her job.”
Photo: Elina Fairytale / Pexels
She advised stay-at-home moms to have a written contract with their husbands that pays them for parenting, making sure that the amount of money they’re offered increases as their husbands’ income increases. She added overlaid text to that part of the recording, which stated, “Any career advancements are made in part from your labor for him and the family.”
Coulis contended that caregiving deserves compensation and assessed the role of stay-at-home-mom within a business framework.
According to her perspective, “He should never feel like he is getting a screaming deal by hiring you for this business that is called ‘The Family,’ over hiring multiple other people. And just like when you’re running a business, there is a cost to having to replace employees, and having to find new people, and having to train new people, all of that is work that he gets to avoid by just having you.”
Coulis insisted that a stay-at-home-parent is “always worth way more in that role than anybody he could hire because you come with so much institutional knowledge,” defining institutional knowledge as “a term that is used to describe the amount of information and understanding and context and history that a long-term employee builds up when they stay at a place of employment for a long time.”
She emphasized the inherent value of stay-at-home moms, claiming, “Nobody’s ever gonna have the same institutional knowledge for your family, for him, as you do.”
Photo: Ketut Subiyanto / Pexels
Coulis explained the importance of maintaining this kind of contract as a protective measure within a marriage, warning, “If you don’t do this, he is going to take you for granted and know that you are trapped. You are at risk of being abused. You are at risk of being neglected. And knowing how trapped you are is going to affect your mental health which is going to affect your children.”
She ended her post by reaffirming her original statement, saying, “Do not become a stay-at-home mom without a labor contract first.”
While her ideas might seem radical, Coulis is essentially advocating for those holding a role that’s been historically set along societal margins, with no protections in place.
Stay-at-home moms provide the essential labor of raising children while maintaining a household. Their impact deserves to be recognized and rewarded in a tangible way — and it’s possible that true equity starts with a family contract.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers parenting issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.