Hundreds of Utah mothers are expected to gather at Salt Lake Community College's Miller Campus in Sandy on October 10 for a convention built around a simple but unusual premise: motherhood is a job, and the job deserves its own economy. The Mothering Convention will pack 30 workshops, 20 speakers, a vendor fair, and an art gallery into the day, alongside a currency system that lets attendees trade childcare or meal-prep skills for credit toward their registration fee.
The event is organized by Momivate, a Utah nonprofit that treats motherhood as a profession requiring structured financial, educational, and time resources, as reported by FOX 13 News Utah. Mothers attending can earn what the organization calls MomUnits through its MomEconomy app by offering services such as babysitting or participating in peer-support gatherings, according to Momivate. Those MomUnits can then be transferred to cover the convention's registration fee, per the same source.
Who's Behind the Barter System
Momivate was founded by West Valley City resident Regan Barnes, a mother of eight who built the organization after blogging about the struggles of early parenting and developing peer-support programs for other moms, according to Voyage Utah Magazine. The nonprofit's guiding idea, as the station's report notes, is that caregiving labor deserves recognized, tradeable value rather than going unpaid and unseen.
That philosophy extends year-round through the MomEconomy app, which the nonprofit describes as a bartering ecosystem letting mothers connect and share skills with one another. Beyond the October convention, Momivate also runs a network of volunteer-hosted Revolving Closets across the Salt Lake Valley, where families donate outgrown children's clothing and swap items for larger sizes at no cost, per JustServe, with locations including West Valley City, Springville, and Bluffdale.
Keynote Speaker and Awards
Headlining the convention will be Dr. Elayna Fernandez, founder of the Positive Mom movement, a national speaker and author whose work centers on maternal empowerment and trauma survival, according to Momivate's event materials. The day will also include a Revolving Closet pop-up for trading outgrown children's items, and Momivate plans to hand out its annual SMILE awards, with SMILE standing for support, music, inspiration, laughter and empowerment, per FOX 13 News Utah.
Workshop topics are organized around what Momivate calls its RAISE UP framework, a six-part curriculum covering Relationships, Atmosphere, Income and Outgo, Schedules and Systems, Energy, and Unique Circumstances. The nonprofit says the framework was built to address practical domestic management alongside personal growth for mothers, according to its own program description.
Why the Timing Matters
The convention lands at the Miller Free Enterprise Center, a venue at SLCC's Miller Campus that includes a 300-seat auditorium, a trade show vendor hall, and more than 20,000 square feet of conference space, according to Visit Salt Lake. The campus was built on land and facility donations from the Larry H. and Gail Miller family to support small business and vocational training.
The gathering also arrives amid a notable shift in Utah's demographics. CDC data published this year found Utah's general fertility rate fell to 59.9 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 in 2024, down from the nation-leading levels the state once held. A September analysis by Utah Business found the state's total fertility rate has dropped to 1.8 births per woman, below the replacement level of 2.1, with Gardner Policy Institute demographers projecting the state will increasingly rely on net migration rather than births to sustain its workforce.
Separately, research cited by the Huntsman Mental Health Institute in 2023 found that one in five U.S. mothers experiences perinatal mood disorders, and that 75% of Utah's pregnancy-related deaths between 2015 and 2016 were linked to mental health conditions — underscoring the stakes behind peer-support efforts like Momivate's gatherings.
It remains unclear how many attendees will actually use MomUnits to offset their registration costs, or how the nonprofit's barter-based model for valuing maternal labor might eventually intersect with the state's broader workforce planning. For now, the October 10 convention offers a tangible, one-day version of Momivate's larger bet: that the unpaid work of raising children can be measured, traded, and supported like any other profession.
