The #tradwife movement

[Yel]

I think people just need to get off other’s backs. Live your life how you want to live it. I stay at home raising my children and my husband works to support us. I do most of the house work because I’m here more than him. When my children are both at school I’ll return to work but probably not full time. I know I’m very fortunate to be in this situation and I don’t take it for granted. I don’t really understand what it has to do with anyone else how you choose to live your life.

While I agree it's no one else business what each individual does.

As a society, I think there's a huge knock on affect if both parents are working and the myth keeps getting perpetuated that you can have it all. A friend was saying the cancer rate in women is increasing while they try to have it all and still do the lions share of the traditional housewife while also working full time. There's a conversation to be had, it seems two steps forward one step back.

 

[Sln2404]

I think people just need to get off other’s backs. Live your life how you want to live it. I stay at home raising my children and my husband works to support us. I do most of the house work because I’m here more than him. When my children are both at school I’ll return to work but probably not full time. I know I’m very fortunate to be in this situation and I don’t take it for granted. I don’t really understand what it has to do with anyone else how you choose to live your life.

 

[caitlinbullen]

I decided to be SAHM/traditional wife last September. My kids are 8, 10, 12 and I turned 40 kind of thinking ‘Is this it?’. Hubby and I both worked full-time and we usually managed a foreign holiday a year and never particularly worried about money; not loaded but certainly not struggling. BUT...I felt like my job took all my mental energy, my enthusiasm, I just felt like by the end of each day/week I didn’t have anything left for the kids, my husband, and me!

A close Mum friend died suddenly in September and I think something in me kind of broke...but in a good way in that whilst I was devastated, it made me realise that I would never be on my death-bed wishing I’d worked more. So I quit. We’ve downsized so our mortgage has reduced from 190k to 80k (I love our new home tho...it’s perfect for us), so that we can get by with only hubby working. We bought a dog so I enjoy walking her, I watch box-sets, go to the gym, read good books, take my time planning our meals and feel like for the first time since my kids were born like I’m not chasing my bloody tail with jobs/deadlines/life admin.....sorry if I sound smug but I am so happy with the decision, and believe me I’ve made some shockers in my time lol.

We can no longer afford foreign travel, and need to be careful for money (it’s made me realise that being time-poor in the past led to us being quite wasteful tbh), but I have TIME and PEACE in my life, and I feel content for the first time in years. For the foreseeable, my family and my own happiness are my priority and I’ll be damned if I waste any more of my life working like a dog to pay for a life that wasn’t making me happy.

P.S gotta clean my own home though now (we always had a cleaner) and man that sucks ass!!!!

 

[Brightstar72]

I think there’s something horribly sinister about the trad wife movement. I’m not talking about being a stay at home mum or homemaker. True feminism is about having the benefit of choice for either sex, equally. It’s the female submissive part that makes me shudder

 

[Notworthy]

OT but weirdly just recently I've been driving through a local village and I can almost see people form 100 years ago scurrying around. A lot of the houses are converted from shops and still have the shop fronts. It's made me think is life really better now, with us all working just to buy more shite. I imagine an awful lot of 2nd incomes go on levelling up to compensate for not being at home so much. 2 cars instead of 1 because both have to get to work, childcare, guilt purchases, electronic games to keep the kids entertained while we catch up with all the stuff that previously would have been done while the kids were at School. I was lucky enough to be a SAHM for 5 years then went back to work part time but I really feel for families now. It's a shit time to be both a parent and a child.

 

[Funsizes]

I would say I think theres a big difference between "tradwife" and a traditional wife. The tradwife thing as a movement seems alt right and antifeminist in origin and quite sinister. Whereas theres nothing wrong with being a stay at home mum, or liking the aesthetics of the 50s for example. I think theres a difference though and I'd be cautious of aligning myself with the term tradwife unless of course thats really what you mean!

 

[Yel]

I'm not sure if it really is about submitting to the husband or more just people having the role of a house-partner.

Choice is great, but most families don't have a choice and both parents have to go to work. I think it's all a bit of a lie that you can have it all - job and children without your health suffering. I've seen it in family members pushed to go back to work when they needed longer.

 

[Tove_drew]

From the tradwives I’ve seen on Instagram the “movement” is mostly American in roots, crunchy, anti pharma, homeschooling, homestead, barefoot in the kitchen. Used to be crunchy was for hippies but now it’s a pipeline to far right politics and values.

That’s just the depiction I’ve seen. Most stay at home mums wouldn’t be considered part of it

 

[Grenouille]

I think people just need to get off other’s backs. Live your life how you want to live it. I stay at home raising my children and my husband works to support us. I do most of the house work because I’m here more than him. When my children are both at school I’ll return to work but probably not full time. I know I’m very fortunate to be in this situation and I don’t take it for granted. I don’t really understand what it has to do with anyone else how you choose to live your life.

Oh I am a SAHM too and my kids are in school so I will let you imagine the comments I get, from sponging off my husband to being a bad example to my children
Funnily enough, what stood out to me in the article is the submitting part

 

[Petulant_vlogger]

I'm a trad wife! Before my baby was born I used to work 60 hour weeks and I would be at work daydreaming about coming home to do laundry and cook a nice home cooked meal.
I dont "submit" to my husband tbh. It's more that I like being a home maker. As soon as I went on maternity I knew I couldn't go back to work. Being at home is much more natural to me.

 

[Satisfying Click]

I'm late to the party, having just seen a piece about Alena Pettit on the beeb. She seems to have a very rose-tinted interpretation of 1940s/1950s Britain vs the reality of it. Yes, making courgette loaf and donning an apron with God Save The Queen on it makes for nice content, but life was really hard for previous generations in the post-war era.

I don't begrudge her choice to devote herself to her household and family, but the idea of women staying at home as being traditional, is actually fairly recent (I think Lucy Worsley did a good piece on how families changed as the Industrial Revolution took off).

 

[thegirlscout]

Ok this is an old thread but I didn’t want to start a new one for my random comment haha.
So I follow Alena on Facebook and a few of her friends because I like how nostalgic and idealised their posts are. It’s a bit of escapism (apart from the OTT-ness when they talk about the Royals).
I noticed for a long time Alena would say she was a wife and mother, that’s how she would introduce herself and she took great pride in being a homemaker. Now I’m seeing more recently she’s been saying she’s an author instead. I found it a curious change in language for someone who wholeheartedly held onto their identity and job as being a mother and wife but it seems maybe this isn’t the case anymore. She’s published two books and works on her blog, I’m not sure if she would do anything outside of that sphere but it got me wondering if, as her son is now going to secondary school soon and she finds she’s not as hands on a mum, that she’s not finding enough from that lifestyle?
It could just be me looking into it too much but I’m wondering if other ‘trad wives’ are going to feel that this way of life isn’t going to sustain them in the long term.

 

[BorisBear]

I'd love to be a trad wife if money were no object so I could spend days in spas, doing diy projects etc, and doing the school run/walking dog when i wanted. But as it is we both work me 40hrs, hubby 60 plus we are like ships in the night never see each other, but house is always clean as we only really sleep there, daughter goes to lots of clubs & dog either comes to work with me or is with a dog sitter. I feel like we are on a crazy hamster wheel sometimes.

 

[Tublet83]

I think there’s something horribly sinister about the trad wife movement. I’m not talking about being a stay at home mum or homemaker. True feminism is about having the benefit of choice for either sex, equally. It’s the female submissive part that makes me shudder

100% agree. I don’t think it’s got anything to do with staying at home or working. Everyone does what best for their family.

The submissive part I have real issue with and it’s not what I would want my daughters brought up thinking that was their role in life.

 

[su zu me]

@thegirlscout Looks like you've been called out on her FB

 

[zoominmoom]

Ok this is an old thread but I didn’t want to start a new one for my random comment haha.
So I follow Alena on Facebook and a few of her friends because I like how nostalgic and idealised their posts are. It’s a bit of escapism (apart from the OTT-ness when they talk about the Royals).
I noticed for a long time Alena would say she was a wife and mother, that’s how she would introduce herself and she took great pride in being a homemaker. Now I’m seeing more recently she’s been saying she’s an author instead. I found it a curious change in language for someone who wholeheartedly held onto their identity and job as being a mother and wife but it seems maybe this isn’t the case anymore. She’s published two books and works on her blog, I’m not sure if she would do anything outside of that sphere but it got me wondering if, as her son is now going to secondary school soon and she finds she’s not as hands on a mum, that she’s not finding enough from that lifestyle?
It could just be me looking into it too much but I’m wondering if other ‘trad wives’ are going to feel that this way of life isn’t going to sustain them in the long term.

I don't follow her closely at all, but like you I follow some of her friends because their posts are very wholesome and comforting. Some of their lives couldn't be further from mine, but it's a nice bit of escapism, as you say. Alena recently left Instagram and she didn't say she was trying to move in a new direction, but it could have something to do with it. Maybe it's a different phase in her life?

On a different note, some of them are absolute grifters. You can tell them a mile off because they dress unnecessarily sexily for cleaning/cooking/whatever it is they're doing, and their content is obviously geared towards men.

 

[thegirlscout]

Re her husband, their styles do look a bit mismatched, but in a way it's nice as it's obvious they're not together for a matching 'aesthetic'.

That’s very true! I just wish he’d wear a shirt once in awhile to special events. When Alena had instagram it seemed like every post I saw him in, he had a black t shirt on! It’s not like he’s not making enough money to buys a few!

Whilst I don’t know if I could ever be a full time housewife, I do think housewives and stay at home mums are demonised in our society today. It’s hard work running a house and taking on the bulk of the childcare, even if it’s your choice. It’s funny, we fought for women to have a choice with work but yet we can recoil when one says she’s a stay at home mum or homemaker. Being a homemaker and a SAHM is just as valuable as being a mum who works.

I feel like Alena and her friends aren’t really trad wives because, whilst some of Alena’s views are a bit uncommon in this day and age, I really just associate the movement with women who are very right wing in their opinion: they think feminism is cancer, they hate the government (unless it’s Republican), they are very religious to the point of evangelicalism, the men and sons are king, the man is the head of the house no matter what, etc. Tradwives seem like they have no freedom - if the poor woman had flu or was heavily pregnant their husbands would still expect the house to be spotless and their dinner on the table. This extreme-ness also seems to be an American trait.
---

OT but weirdly just recently I've been driving through a local village and I can almost see people form 100 years ago scurrying around. A lot of the houses are converted from shops and still have the shop fronts. It's made me think is life really better now, with us all working just to buy more shite. I imagine an awful lot of 2nd incomes go on levelling up to compensate for not being at home so much. 2 cars instead of 1 because both have to get to work, childcare, guilt purchases, electronic games to keep the kids entertained while we catch up with all the stuff that previously would have been done while the kids were at School. I was lucky enough to be a SAHM for 5 years then went back to work part time but I really feel for families now. It's a shit time to be both a parent and a child.

I think there are so many positives about living in this era (improved healthcare, reduction in racism and sexism, rights for gay and lesbian people, etc) but I do feel we have lost some great things from the past. We don’t really have a sense of community anymore. People don’t really have long term friendships with their neighbours, local transport is terrible so we rely on cars, children easily spend excess time on electronics, etc.

 

[EllenDeGenerate]

Just a little opinion on Tradwives. They are all over YouTube in particular, flaunting their selflessness, and throwing themselves bouquets for their life of service they have chosen, for the benefit of their husbands and children. The thing is though, that they are huge YouTubers;!!! Thats not very.... Trad, is it? Nor the fact that many of said husbands seem to not do very much except float around in the background of the videos
They are cunning business people, more like. IMHO.

 

[Fenella]

I decided to be SAHM/traditional wife last September. My kids are 8, 10, 12 and I turned 40 kind of thinking ‘Is this it?’. Hubby and I both worked full-time and we usually managed a foreign holiday a year and never particularly worried about money; not loaded but certainly not struggling. BUT...I felt like my job took all my mental energy, my enthusiasm, I just felt like by the end of each day/week I didn’t have anything left for the kids, my husband, and me!

A close Mum friend died suddenly in September and I think something in me kind of broke...but in a good way in that whilst I was devastated, it made me realise that I would never be on my death-bed wishing I’d worked more. So I quit. We’ve downsized so our mortgage has reduced from 190k to 80k (I love our new home tho...it’s perfect for us), so that we can get by with only hubby working. We bought a dog so I enjoy walking her, I watch box-sets, go to the gym, read good books, take my time planning our meals and feel like for the first time since my kids were born like I’m not chasing my bloody tail with jobs/deadlines/life admin.....sorry if I sound smug but I am so happy with the decision, and believe me I’ve made some shockers in my time lol.

We can no longer afford foreign travel, and need to be careful for money (it’s made me realise that being time-poor in the past led to us being quite wasteful tbh), but I have TIME and PEACE in my life, and I feel content for the first time in years. For the foreseeable, my family and my own happiness are my priority and I’ll be damned if I waste any more of my life working like a dog to pay for a life that wasn’t making me happy.

P.S gotta clean my own home though now (we always had a cleaner) and man that sucks ass!!!!

does your husband really enjoy his job? Do you worry if he will become resentful that you are doing nice things? I’m not being an arse, I was a sahm for 7 years and have not long gone back to work very part time but I do worry about the imbalance of my free time vs my husbands even though he has never made me feel bad or anything. I just worry that he might have the same thoughts that he wishes he’d worked less when he gets old but couldn’t have the opportunity if that makes sense.

 

[rainbowlemon]

An aside : I know a couple of Tradwives. What puzzles me is that they enthusiastically extol the virtues of the role.....yet they are pushing their daughters hard to achieve academical,y.

As long as their not like the US Duggar and Bates families who only see marriage and being mothers, I don't see the harm in it personally.

Pushing the daughters is giving them the ability to choose later and have options in the future.