Motherhood strategist says stay-at-home moms should get 'labor contract' to get paid for their work

Writer and motherhood strategist @natashacoulis is utilizing her TikTok page to address a complex issue that affects almost every family with a stay-home mom. The self-proclaimed queer, autistic and ex-Mormon Coulis is also a mother to four kids and her points on family structures and parenthood have resonated with countless users on her page. Coulis posted her viral video in relation to another TikTok creator @lyssafyfe's clip which was about a tweet declaring how "men don't support their wives who stay at home to raise their children."

"I focus on women and men because this issue of labor devaluation (labor being repackaged as love) and one person’s career advancing and benefiting from the other person’s labor is a gendered and patriarchal issue," Coulis wrote in the caption of her video. In her video which has amassed over 470,000 views so far, Coulis talks about how women support men’s careers by providing unpaid childcare, housework, meals, and overall family life management services.

"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," she advises. "Of course, there are so many reasons that they’re not our mistakes and that these are problems of patriarchy." She further explained her point by stating that a stay-at-home mom needs to sort this out with her husband before taking on the role. "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," she addressed.

"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," Coulis adds. The motherhood strategist also advised these moms to have a written contract with their husbands to ensure that the moms managing the household get paid and their income increases along with their husbands'.

"Any career advancements are made in part from your labor for him and the family," she added and firmly expressed her opinion on how "caregiving deserves compensation and includes the role of a stay-at-home-mom within a business framework." According to her words "a husband should never feel like he is getting a great deal by hiring a woman for his business called family over hiring multiple people." "There is a cost to having to replace employees, 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," she reminds fellow moms of their worth and says in her video.

Following her sound advice, it is important to maintain this protective measure in marriages so a stay-at-home mom can get the value she deserves. "Do not become a stay-at-home mom without a labor contract first," she reaffirms in the end. Even though her ideas might seem a little bit radical, a lot of fellow TikTok users agreed with her. @jesswright2 wrote: "Please do this and negotiate a retirement plan in your name please. Superannuation is a thing you miss out on when you stop working." @cjb0603 added: "Yep, got a postnup before stepping back from my career. We both want a family so the cons to stay-at-home are shared and not my individual responsibility." @irlmrsmaisle was one of the few people who disagreed with Coulis and wrote: "This sounds like an unenforceable fantasy."