On paper I might look like a trad wife
So I'm writing about how the trad wife discussion can reveal the things that many of us longing for from life and shed light on areas of our society that should be better.
For years I’ve been pondering and trying to understand what it means to be a mother who does not do paid work, who stays home (and homeschools her kids), who considers herself a feminist, but isn’t living up the feminist expectation of being a strong successful woman and setting that example for her kids. I am married to a man whose income supports our family and in this relationship we have (mostly unintentionally) divided a lot of our labor along stereotypical gender roles. On top of all of this, I enjoy and spend a lot of time doing creative work centered around my home: cooking and baking, sewing and knitting, growing and preserving food.
On paper I might look like a trad wife.
One the past few years, the trad wife movement has become a topic of interest in articles, substack newsletters, and podcasts. Conservative, evangelical Christians have long been living in accordance with the so-called traditional believe that God wants men to be the leaders and protectors while women are supposed to be the supporters and homemakers, there to meeting their husband’s needs and raise their children with the same ideology. Trad wife lifestyles are being showcased and idealized on social media by women who share many of these evangelical Christian beliefs while seeming to live perfect lives caring for their homes and farms, making food from scratch, raising their children, and wearing beautiful dresses.
To be honest, I have mostly avoided looking at trad wife accounts on social media. I don’t really know where to begin and I’m always wary of algorithms feeding me too many of these posts if I check out just a few. But I have been reading many articles and listening to some podcasts on the topic because I am so intrigued. It is a huge topic with many layers and I will only scratch the surface as I explore these ideas. Trying to understand more about trad wives offers me an opportunity to consider the ideas and cultural implications of this movement and how it relates to my life as well as society at large. The discussion around trad wives as spectacle, as aspiration, or as something that seems terribly wrong can reveal many of the things that we are longing for in life and shed light on areas of our society that need fixing.
Trad wife is short for traditional wife but there is nothing traditional about women submitting to men or being expected to run the whole household. Caroline J. Sumlin wrote a great piece on this topic, but I want to briefly point out that single family units cared for solely by mothers has been an extreme rarity in human history. Humans have most often lived in community and with generations caring for and supporting each other.
The idea that the women runs the home and the man goes out into the world is not something that humans evolved to do or that has always been in existence. These roles were arranged during a time when upper class white women were expected to stay home to run the household, raise the children, and maintain standards of piety and purity. Black and working class women were excluded from this idea of “true womanhood” as it was called at the time, except as hired help. Idealizing white heterosexual married women who submit to their husband’s authority as the pinnacle of womanhood reinforces the power of white supremacy and patriarchy, excludes all other kinds of families, and perpetuates a very narrow view of acceptable ways to live.
Trad wives mesmerize their millions of followers, showing their happy children in cute beige clothes and the soothing process of making food from scratch. At a time when the U.S. surgeon general has warned that the parental stress we all feel is detrimental to our health, the opportunity to live a little more slowly (or even just watch someone else take the time to make cereal from scratch) is very enticing. It is a privilege to have time to engage in fulfilling and satisfying work. I am grateful for that I have time in my weeks to prepare and share food, spend days with my kids, and harvest and preserve food from my garden.
I wonder what it would be like if we all had more time to pursue things that we love to do and live a less harried life. The world is a scary and overwhelming place and as we are trying to do all the daily tasks, pay attention to our kids, pay the bills, worry about world events, and sometimes exercise, it can be appealing to hide away, focus only on our immediate family, and let someone else make the big decisions. The capitalist model of working to buy everything you need leaves us with little energy to care for much beyond our immediate families. A society based on work and achievement is not healthy and supportive to most of us. It can be tempting to imagine that baking bread and growing tomatoes might make things feel better. But we need big societal changes like more financial and logistical support for families and better ways to find and support community.
Trad wives offer the possibility of stepping away from this unsustainable way of living. Caring for their husbands and families is, for them, the meaningful work of building the world they believe in. I can relate to the desire to focus on the small, immediate life right in front of me when the world feels overwhelming and I often don’t know how to make a difference beyond living my values. But I don’t want to live in a way that ignores the struggles of others, to give up my voice to obey men, or believe that my way of living is superior to what anyone else chooses.
The vision of handmade, homemade slow living that trad wife influencers depict glorifies the idea of a woman doing it all herself, joyfully serving the people she loves. But social media doesn’t show the exhaustion that comes from feeding, educating, and caring for several young children. It also glosses over and hides the messes and chaos that happen with any kitchen project and any number of kids. It makes trad wives look like perfect homemakers who can do it all, never showing the helpers or employees who might be just outside the picture. It upholds an impossible standard that is not accessible to most single family households and leaves out the possibility of growing communities and connections that would give us all greater support.
It can be so easy to show the good, beautiful, joyful, fulfilling parts of your life and to sweep away the rest. To say, look if you just do this like I do, you will have this amazing life just like me. The internet always wants us to believe that if we try this one weird trick it really will solve all our problems and make our lives perfect. Trad wives on social media may offer us a break from our own messes and chaos, letting us scroll through impossibly beautiful images, but they never reveal the exhaustion, oppression, or abuse that is happening.
I never had what it took to be a girl boss and leaning in always felt like it left out important things in life that weren’t related to work or power. Second wave feminism opened many doors for women but adopting masculine ideals to advance women’s opportunities and rights has not created a more balanced society. The conversation around trad wives often mentions that this movement may be a reaction to the messages that women could have it all just by working harder and doing more.
The care work that is most often done by women has no value in our country. Parents (and mothers especially), nurses, teachers, janitors, even food service workers are paid low wages to do difficult jobs that are often considered unskilled labor. As much lip service as unborn children and families get from right wing politicians, the United States does not have care infrastructure or strong social safety nets. Many people don’t want to see or hear children or include their perspectives in society.
Trad wives on social media make a lot of this care work seem beautiful, meaningful, and appealing, at least to watch. While they believe they are just moms, homemakers, and subservient wives, their social media content gives them access to followers and social capital, sponsorships, and sometimes income from their posts. They create value from care work while also turning it into a performance and a commodity that has to be obtained in the right way.
The average parent is also feeding and caring for their children in a meaningful but less aesthetically pleasing way. Making care work look beautiful, appealing and valuable comes with impossible standards and, in the case of trad wives, with ideas that exclude, discriminate, and marginalize people. These are not standards that most of us want to live up to, but it is easy to to feel that if you are not caring for your children, husband, and home perfectly and in a way that brings you followers or income, your care work still has no value.
Behind the perfect outfits and picturesque homeschool spaces, trad wives glorify and uphold values that oppress women and children, reinforce unhealthy and unsafe masculinity, and perpetuate white supremacy. Some trad wives actively promote hateful rhetoric and beliefs but the very idea of trad wives is based on the premise that women should be at home, that men should be the providers and the heads of households, and that is the way it must be. There is no room for other kinds of families or gender roles or living in other ways.
I recently read Boy Mom by Ruth Whippman which describes her experience and research as a feminist learning about how to support her three boys in a world full of toxic masculinity. The boys she interviews crave opportunities to be emotional, caring and sensitive. She points out that, in our society, girls can and should be brave and strong and embrace traits that might have once been thought of as masculine but it is rarely safe or acceptable for boys and men to feel and act in ways that are typically more feminine. Yet escaping the limited confines of how men are allowed to be essential for their well being and necessary to create a healthy society where all people can safely be themselves.
While I disagree with the way that trad wife ideology upholds and glorifies harmful ideas, I am really more interested in the conversation about what this means for our society and how we can move towards more expansive and supportive ideas. I love the way that Fran Liberatore points out, in her well-researched piece on trad wives, that those of us who might accidentally get lumped in with trad wives can and should do more to vocalize and show that we homeschool, stay home, and take care of other people not simply because that is what mothers or women are supposed to do. We should speak or act on the reasons that we value autonomy, self-direction, connection, or community and be aware of how we might, also, inadvertently perpetuate harmful ideas.
I’m an idealist and a hopefulist and I also want to know if we can to envision and try to build a world where care work is valued as much as money earning work. Where traditionally feminine characteristics are not limited to one gender, where we want to support and be supported rather than submitting to authority. Where we can give and get care from community. Not only that, but a world where we can enjoy time to slow down, pursue creative and leisure interests without having to do it perfectly, monetize it, or prove that what we are doing is worthwhile.
Warmly,
Anna
A few resources and further reading and listening:
Am I a trad wife if I look like one?
What’s missing from the trad wife trend convo?
I really resonate with actually never wanting to lean in and be successful in the mainstream sense. I really never wanted to girl-boss my way to career success. Perhaps part of this is privilege, but I don’t think that’s all it is. We def need a more complex conception of what it means to be a feminist, what it means to seek equality and justice and seek a life that feels nourishing rather than exhausting.
I’ve been so interested in this as well. I enjoyed reading your thoughts peeling back the layers on this cultural obsession, why it is harmful, and what we really should be focusing on.