The #tradwife movement

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I read an article today on the DM about this new movement if married women submitting to their husbands and striving to live like in the 50s and 60s. Anyone in here lives or knows someone who lives like this? I am usually pretty open minded about alternate lifestyles but I just couldn’t see myself submitting to my husband for the sake of it.

 
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.
 
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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.
Completely agree.
 
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.
 
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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.
 
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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 😅
 
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Alena must have a good pr person, as she’s been on radio 2 today. I think all the callers were positive, surprisingly.

I’ve fallen into a trad wife role, as I was made redundant whilst pregnant. (I was very unwell after the birth and couldn’t have gone back to work for a few years anyway.)

Little one is now in primary school and I’m trying to busy myself with PTA but I’m bored to tears, and don’t feel I have the skills to go back into the workforce. I did have a sort of career beforehand, I still run my small side business (a proper one you need qualifications for not MLM 😅)
I have really enjoyed my “time off” and watching little one grow, but feel the years are passing me by with very little to show for it. My little business barely brings in a crust, thankfully husband earns well.


I don’t know where I’m going with this rant but potential tradwives be warned. 😂
 
Oh but you have 😊 I bet your little one has been very happy to have a parent at home 😊
It’ll mean sweet fa if my husband leaves me/dies and I can’t put a roof over our heads though. 😂
(I have to laugh otherwise I’ll cry)
 
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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).
 
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I’m from a working class family. My nana worked, her mum worked. They had scores of kids and couldn’t afford not too. My nana would go do a cleaning shift in the hotels when my grandad was home from work.
I’m a SAHM. My daughter is in P7. If we need the money I’ll go back part time. Maybe nights somewhere. But it won’t be a career.
I get lonely, don’t get taken seriously because I don’t work. BUT my daughter is happy. She is thriving as a child. There is no way we could keep up with her clubs and extra time with homework (she is dyslexic and has dyscalculia) if we were both at work. I think when you’re doing it all there are loads of compromises. I compromised it’s my career but it’s worth it for me.
I don’t think of myself as a trad wife. But if that makes her happy more power too her.
We’re all just trying to do the best by our kids.
 
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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.
 
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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.
i Don’t submit either. Though having researched into it, it’s more in religious circles that “submission” is expected, mainly in the US. I like taking care of my family but being at home all the time, I’m the one managing everything if I’m honest!
 
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i Don’t submit either. Though having researched into it, it’s more in religious circles that “submission” is expected, mainly in the US. I like taking care of my family but being at home all the time, I’m the one managing everything if I’m honest!
I completely agree! I organise everyone's schedules, what they're going to wear, a lot of budgeting stuff. I'd definitely say that I'm the boss at home! Sounds like you're the same 😂❤
 
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I completely agree! I organise everyone's schedules, what they're going to wear, a lot of budgeting stuff. I'd definitely say that I'm the boss at home! Sounds like you're the same 😂❤
My husband calls me the oracle. We have a shared family iCal that I update with everything so we know where each other is. He is a nightmare for double booking us. I think it’s partly my fault for doing it that he can be so bad. But I’d rather have it done.
I have spreadsheets for everything.
 
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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).
Yes and perpetuated by massive ad campaigns in the 1950s to sell fridges - a bit like how Coca Cola invented/influenced the modern (read ‘traditional’) concept of Santa. It’s all to sell us stuff, but has seeped so deep into the collective psyche and through generations that we’ve forgotten.
 
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It's an interesting discussion point and somewhat relative to me right now as I feel at a bit of a crossroads. Like others here, I'm a stay at home mum, but I wouldn't say I'm a "tradwife". We're fortunate that my husband earns well enough to support the family without me having to work (that said, we have no free family childcare, so any wage would simply pay nurseries). I've been at home for nearly 4.5 years, two children, and feeling that I'd love to be able to go to work to have adult conversation, stimulation and something of a life outside the house. But I'm wrestling with the fact that my children will be at nursery the whole time, my eldest starting school this year, and perhaps I should continue to stay at home to help him settle in school. I feel there are many benefits to being at home for my children as lipsticktaser says and I'm in a position to be able to do that. But the trade off is the lack of career, I want my children to see a positive work ethic at home to inspire them. I feel like I've given my children everything these last few years and its time to get something back for me. But I am struggling with leaving them in childcare as often.

I believe you can do anything - but not everything, and I think that goes for men and women, there has to be a trade off whatever you choose to do.
 
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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.
 
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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!!!!
 
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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!!!!
Sounds amazing happy for you! I’d love all that too I guess if we downsized we might be able to once the kids are bigger. I often think we’ve lost our way a bit and the balance isn’t there anymore
 
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