Why The TradWife Movement Will Fail | Mary Harrington 

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Trad wife is not a trend. We’ve always been around. The trend is the fact that people are talking about it again. But since the vocation goes against the feminist narrative, it isn’t often depicted in modern television or movies. And when it is, it tends to be shown in a negative light. Something like 30% of wives are homemakers even today. Most of us are just busy, holding up tradition, caring for our families and minding our own business. But I think it’s great that there are women who are proud of what they do, and are outgoing enough to show it on camera. And for what it’s worth out of all the women I know, the homemakers tend to be the happiest. And more importantly have the most stable families.

"... everything you do, you do it for the team." THIS, right there is the underlying code that is missing in way too many modern relationships.

Agreed, it will fail. When men say they want a wife with traditional values, we are not saying to dress up in a 1950's dress, listen to Buddy Holly, and bring the paper and slippers when we get off work. That is all meaningless window dressing. What we want is a woman with integrity, a set of morals, and who is willing to work as hard to fulfill her role as wife and mother as the man is willing to fulfill his role as husband and father.

I don't know how it became the trend that when a man say's he wants a tradwife, women get the idea in their head that they should dress and act like a woman from the 50-60's era or live some colonial lifestyle. I think most men simply want a woman who prioritizes family over career and is a helpmate rather than a parasite in the relationship. If women expect the men to earn and provide, all we ask is that you do the daily chores, i.e.. cook, clean, do laundry, organize the household & affection; which may seem like menial tasks but have great importance in maintaining a functioning household. Again we're not asking for slaves but we don't want leeches either.

It's not a movement. It's a few blondes who figured out a different algorithm niche to get attention. Real trads don't have tiktok

The trend will fail as a trend because it's just another thirst trap. Being a loving wife with traditional values isn't something you record for clout

What's actually happening right now (and that the media seem reluctant to even discuss) is that a large portion of men are intentionally avoiding long-term relationships and marriage with women who lack traditional qualities. The popular narrative surrounding the "dating crisis" seems to be that women are rejecting a large percentage of men who do not meet women's high standards for attractiveness. This is indeed the case. However, the other side of the coin is that men are also turned off by modern women who are aggressive, contentious, disrespectful, egotistical and promiscuous, and men are now concluding that many women no longer qualify as wife material. It's reaching a point where men and women are no longer aligned in the relationship market.

Im in my early twenties. I grew up in a community of what would be considered ”trad-wives.” All of my mom’s friends and my friends moms were SAHMs. All of them seemed happily married to middle class husbands and had multiple kids. To this day I have not seen any divorces among them. I just have to say that for those couples who are not performing, the traditional gender rolls work very well in my observations. This wasn’t a cult or a small town. I lived in a city and everyone largely went to different churches. These were just the families my family associated with. All traditional, happy families. That’s what I want to surround myself with kids with.

"What works best for them" We'd been told for decades that non-parental childcare was ok, but now we understand it to be deeply deleterious. It's also insanely dishonest to try and take the tradwife argument and dial it back to its most extreme - aggrarian poverty. Some progress is good. Not all progress is good.

I think that a home with two parents, and nearby extended family, that is able to keep a stable home for the children, where each parent is actively engaged with the children is the optimal structure for raising children. This does include relatives being involved too, as this was the structure going back millenia. We should, as a society, create incentives to benefit people who live this way, as the next generation will be less violent, have less mental illness, and have a stronger connection to community We are lucky that today we have so much for so little labor and we need to appreciate this. My grandparents were pulled from school in the 3rd grade to work the farm, or the whole family may starve in the harsh Canadian winter. It was not too long ago that children needed to work or were put out. We need to appreciate the advantage todays society is capable of providing.

You don't have to 'legislate' for trad wives - you just have to make sure the option is available for those who want it. One mans pay should be enough for a house, car, wife, and kids.

"What do you mean by 'women need to develop a strategy that isnt having it all'?" To normal people thats called "maturing".

Young people can’t afford to rent let alone buy family housing. We have fundamentally failed as a society.

Stereotyping the tradwife as a woman who weaves and knits and sits awaiting her husband with a pipe and a hot meal is an obsfucation of what it means to be trad in this day and age. Its not a predefined set of activities but a mindset and a predisposition to live a moral and virtuous life, for both women and men.

Actually I think more women would prefer to stay at home with their children and be a traditional wife if they could afford to and they would feel more comfortable saying this publicly if they felt they wouldn’t be ridiculed by feminists!

This discussion segment, with others like it, are missing details for men needing to step. I'm a grandfather, married 40yrs, that remember our mom being home each day to prepare lunch, maybe through gr.7 or .8. But even before our parents divorced, our father was pretty much only an occasional presence. My conclusion growing up regarding feminism was that it was largely a failure of men not stepping up to lead the household. The reasoning, in part, was other wives who had basically enough money, had reasonable autonomy of the home, had choices for health/exercise opportunities, and occasional social activities, where not looking for another job -- because they already had one which was recognized and mostly fulfilling. It appeared to me that men abusing women, or abusing children, or abusing their authority, were too often the problem -- maybe because they were just selfish, or maybe because they were not trained to lead, or maybe because they became uncoachable -- so much of this is men just not putting in the little extra effort to lead their families.

I think many of the trad-wife influencers take up such a 50s aesthetic is because that's the only substantive reference they have for a tradwife. Most SAHMs who grew up with more traditional mothers are not social media influencers. I suspect most of the social media influencer trad-wives did not grow up with traditional mothers, realized the modern narrative wasn't working for them, and want a more traditional role. But the only reference point they have is popular culture, and the last time that was portrayed widely and positively was the 1950s. It is, in a sense, a larp, but for many I think it's a larp that wants to be more but is unclear as to how.

Very true. Many women have never held a baby until their first child including my wife. A big problem in our country is the removal of home ed where they used to baby sit, and shop where kids created things.

I grew up in the late fifties and early sixties. It was a very middle class , catholic upbringing. Very few women worked, only women solicitors, doctors and teachers went to work. The men went out to work and women did everything else. Most of the women couldn't even drive (that did change gradually). A few of the women were happy, most were not. Most of the men either had affairs, beat their wives or did both. The women stayed because they had large families and could not cope without support from their husbands. The men knew they could do exactly what they wanted to and that their wives were completely powerless to stop them.

Why are we pretending that being a traditional wife, even in modern times, is some kind of confusing term that's very dynamic between couples? It's very simple actually. Housework, vs breadwinner. Who's staying at home, minding the household and everything within? Who is going off to their job to handle finances? Sure, you can feign ignorance and pretend that those roles are interchangeable, or that both spouses can do either or, but then we aren't being traditional are we? You'd actually be considered very abnormal to the general populace with a male homebody and a female breadwinner. Most males wouldn't want to associate with a man like that, and most women wouldn't be able to maintain this relationship happily for long. As far as whether or not the "movement" will fail, well, I tend to look at history and actual data. As it turns out the traditional nuclear dynamic of male breadwinner, female homebody is a tale as old as time itself. Biologically wired to be this way even in caveman days for obvious biological reasons and thus why it's been the dynamic regardless of country, culture or creed. It's an unfortunate time we live in where modern women think they are so much better than all the prior women of history, and the declining marriage rates, and exploding divorce rates are proof enough that it's not working.

This would make sense if time wasn't limited. Avoiding "guidelines" so women can "figure out" that they want family and children and a traditional male provider when they're already 35 years old is going to be nothing but misery and disappointment for them. Nobody "figures out" everything on their own. You don't wait for your kids to "figure out" on their own that studying is important, that they should avoid drugs, that they should show respect to elders and authority figures for their own best interest. Society, parents, etc all give "guidelines" on how to behave to give individuals a HEAD START on "figuring it out" so they can have happier lives. OR AT LEAST WE USED TO. Now we basically do the opposite and society is crumbling.

I am glad that Mary marks the turning pointing at the Industrial Revolution. People went from being families to being individual economic units.

This "trad" thing is cyclical. Every 80 years people tire of the "anything goes" culture and desire a firm foundation.

Infants grow quickly. It’s a limited time job for a mom until they are old enough to be independent and not in need of so much attention. Women’s lives have a variety of chapters and phases. Seems the intellectualism and overthinking really gets in the way of living at times. Generalizing just doesn’t work as each household is unique. We are humans not robots to be neatly plunked into boxes and assigned a predictable task.

Do what makes you happy. My wife and I agreed to live smaller so she could raise our son full time. You're not a bad wife/mom if you choose to work. It's totally fine. Just don't judge others who live differently.

She is on point. One income families, has always been, the rare exception. With farm, or rural life, everyone is working, at what they are best at. It’s city life, that has made it confusing. When the work is external, to the home. When one income, isn’t quite enough. Both parties need to be adaptable, and dedicated.

I'm in a relationship where 80% to 90% of the time i pay for evrrything and my girl comes over to my place 5 nights a week and 4 out of those nights I cook the meals too and do the dishes, she will help out with those things too but then if she does it more than once or twice a week she starts complaining she feels like my maid. I dont think its sexism that if Im expected to pay the majority of expenses (90%) then i shouldnt be expected to also do the majority of the cooking cleaning etc. Am I crazy to think this? Ive had many convos about how i need more support but never outright said i think our dynamic isnt fair. Do I need to just man up and say it?

My grandmother was widowed when she was 30 in the 50's. She had 3 children to raise and worked the rest of her adult life. My mother worked most of her adult life. My sisters, the same. People do what they've got to do.

I think even during the 1950's that traditional wives worked part time after the children reached a certain age. It isn't about keeping wives at home during the entire marriage. It's about caring for the children from the most critical years - from birth to early teens.

I don't think that the tradwife movement will fail. None of the marriage minded men that I've known over the years have wanted to wife up a boss babe. Women who espouse the tradwife lifestyle in the manner of Estee Williams will very likely have more successful marriages and an increasing number of boss babes will be on TikTok lamenting their lonely middle age.

This is NOT a trend. I have 2 EXECUTIVE highly successful careers & a traditional life. I PREFER traditional. I’ve given up nothing.

Trad wife, as in 1950s stay stay at home mom with a single income husband, won't work today because it's simply not an economically viable option for the vast majority of families. The 1950s model is not coming back anytime soon. However, I think we may see a return to a more communal or extended family based model. The kind of multi-generational housing you see in many other cultures will likely see a return if housing and inflation continue to rise. And in many ways, this is much more traditional than the single income nuclear family.

“Trad wife” is a lifestyle in balance with nature, not a trend. I have a masters degree but always was upfront about my trad views. Married at 25, 2 kids, successful husband, stay at home mom, but I’m doing part time work on the side to fund my designer bag & shoe hobby 😂 meanwhile my feminist friends in their late 30s are in debt, freezing eggs, can’t find a decent man without kids, or just a man who has values & financial stability, they are all low key alcoholics and depressing AF. Used to make fun of me for my choices and now…

I was curious to see how Mary would respond given her history as a feminist. Her visceral reaction was expected, immediately talking about legislation and drawing to a iron age analogue lmao.

Who said that it is a "movement"? Its just women and men choosing how they want to live their lives.

“People can figure out for themselves what works.” The thing that gets me about this statement is we don’t do it for most other really important things, like health. We don’t just tell people to eat whatever they like and act like there won’t be bad outcomes for bad decisions, and we don’t raise children like this. We don’t tell people this for their education, to just read whatever you want and see what happens on the other side. Modern man has an obsession with this idea of individualism at all costs and that all things are relative to the subjective understanding of each individual, and it’s driving people insane. It’s ruining families and destroying the culture. You are a physical part of the universe and your consciousness in no way makes you immune to the laws of physics. Your ego makes you think you do, but it is arrogance and folly that pushes mankind to this conclusion. As assuredly as gravity attracts planets, there are ways to be and ways not to be, iterative behaviors to take and behaviors to avoid. Yes there is variance, yes there is freedom. But the idea that standards don’t exist and we shouldn’t try to have any boundaries on what people are doing is leading to a lot of unnecessary suffering. When I want to learn a new skill, I go to someone to teach me how to do it so I don’t have to reinvent it from scratch. What a massive waste of time that would be, nor am I likely brilliant enough to reinvent it with any level of quality compared to the masters. How much more complicated are romantic relationship, child bearing, child rearing, and family dynamics than something like carpentry? So why in the world would you assume that you can just “figure it out” and not have serious issues?

Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything. Traditional people are promoting a lifestyle that we believe is the best and healthiest way to lead one's life. In other words, promoting a lifestyle that we believe leads authentic and lasting happiness in life. People are free to either take it or leave it.

my wife and I are in a "traditional" marriage in the way that she can stay at home with my income, but she is far from "trad," and I am one of maybe 4 people I know in my industry that has a wife that stays at home. We see the value of the sacrifice for the kids. we don't want more material things over their well being, but I guess I have to agree with her. We do what is best for our own as a team. She certainly can work if she wants to, but she happens to agree that the kids are more important, and they do way better with mom at home. it is a luxury that is very, very rare these days. Thank god I make enough to do that. She is also a wizard with the finances.

She wants it to end.

It should be natural traditional not forced, we can be modern yet traditional in values. Anything not sincere and extreme is never good.

Alot of stay at home mom's become "wine moms" once the kids are old enough to go to school. With cell phones and social media these stay at home moms are bombarded with advertisements for a lifestyle that becomes unaffordable for a single income earner, without going into extreme debt

“And in a modern context where most of us work in the world of bits and bytes anyway…”. Tell me you have no experience with the real world without telling me you ‘have no experience with the real world’. This woman thinks the cars she drives built themselves and drive on roads that fix themselves. Manual laborers are invisible to her.

Wendell Berry has written extensively on this topic. His concept of the "home economy" covers many of the issues and concepts discussed here.

I can't help notice that none of these "trad wives" have kids. I don't think they understand what a traditional wife is.

This is not a "movement" lol it's a residual of what used to always be that for some reason isn't the norm anymore. It absolutely succeeds, it's not something that will fail overall, it's just one of the many options of how to run a household these days.

No feminist have not said you can't have it all. There is basically no one in the main stream stating women should be mothers. It's more acceptable to say you dislike children or know you don't want kids.

How is traduire going to die when women by large are regretting their modern lifestyle choices as they get older.

I didn't hear even one answer to the questions listed in the description. I think it makes sense to take the time to write a description that actually matches the content of your excerpt.

Listen, I am just here to say I approve of the picture in the thumbnail. That's all. Have a great day.

Traditional roles are there for a reason. Cultures that did not adapt them did not survive and thrive as much.

when I had my son I was a traditional wife for 3 years, I wanted to be part-time at work but it was not possible, and working full-time was not good for my son or for the family union, I do not see anything wrong with that, I will not impose it to anyone if they do not want but I did it and I was happy, now I work 24-30 hours weekly and I take care of the house, shopping, my son stuff, and I am very happy. and my husband works between 38 -45, we work as a team. It was the way also my parents did it and my grandparents did it.

You can have it all, you just have to really know yourself and narrow down what matters to you above all else.

i think the social media trad wife aspect is sleazy, and narcissistic because they are doing this for views and money essentially.

The problem with tradwifes themselves is not a gender dynamics issue but rather an economic one. Simply put, probably about 90% of the newer generations can not afford to have one partner stay at home and simultaneously pay the cost of children while wholy funded by a single income. This is a dual income world now. The children will be given ipads and youtube kids and be told to wait 8 hours while the parents go to work.

We should seek ways to apply in todays time what is outlined in Proverbs chapter 31 verses 10 to 31 titled Wife of Noble Character.

Such a passive aggressive approach from her, which begs the question, why the hell does she care?

It isn’t about the June Cleaver-esque dress and necklace of pearls. It’s about priorities and values. Will the woman prioritize supporting her husband and taking care of children? Does she prioritize her family over her career accolades? Will she prioritize the family over petty materialist wants?

Modern Feminism has been teaching through the schools since 1970 what the roles are.

Puts the idea out there because she wants it to fail. She needs to learn to leave others alone with their choices.

I enjoyed her book. She made good points about the change of women's roles in society after industrialization. The goal should be to make it easier for women to contribute financially to the family from home with work that can be paused whenever needed to look after kids.

Being a trad wife is only made possible with a husband and wife who have the unique and distinct skills to be a trad household. Most men cannot afford this lifestyle and many women were raised by their fathers to hold three full time jobs (mom, homemaker, employee).

Corporations have dumped too much money into feminism for it to fail. Why pay some dude 20 dollars an hour when you can pay a dude and his wife 10 dollars an hour each for double the work?

As fertility continues to decline, our culture's long term future will be dictated simply by who has more kids. Will that entail a return to traditional roles, in some ways? Maybe so. Those couples who prioritize kids/family above careers will probably have larger families.

When one working person in a marriage can get you a house, a car, and anything reasonable that you want, you can be whatever kinda of couple you want. But as of now, both people could be working full time and they would be struggling to pay their rent, not enough money for maintenance of their broken down car, and virtually no discretionary funds to spend on hobbies or other life fulfilling activities. Start from the base. People simply cannot live with the money that they are earning, they are just surviving.

Trust me, if men show interest, a subset of women will do this and if other women see it and think it works, they will try the same thing.

Everyone could do with a little more self-awareness and a little less following what they think everyone else wants them to do.

If people could figure out what works best for them, there would never have been a self-help book. Women should be taught what a "traditional wife" is with its advantages and disadvantages. And, they should be taught what a "modern independent woman" is with its advantages and disadvantages. Then women can make decisions that will help them achieve their goals in life.

People “Figuring out what works best for them” HAS NOT BEEN WORKING!!!! Look at the state of our relationships for God’s sake!!!! 🤦‍♂️

How did feminism become so dominant that it's the default normal now?

The problem with a lot of modern women is they think by having a career they must jettison any remaining femininity which men clearly don't want. So perhaps it's not a trad wife that's the best solution, perhaps it's enabling women to be ok with being feminine while also have their career path.

I prefer the left one.

Just let people live their lives as they choose as long as they're not harming anyone else. Period.

“Trad wife” is an online larp. So yeah THAT will fail. But the desire to return to traditional two parent homes with SAHM is not a trend and won’t be going anywhere.

I think that a tradwife is the only basis for a strong family, town, city, state/province/region, country. What works better?

Perhaps this newly generated tradwife movement was born out of the 1950's golden age of media--films, television and magazines along with all of the advertisements showing happy housewives with perfectly coiffed hair.

“ You can’t outsource that …” Obviously has never heard of a “ wet nurse .”

As people who live traditional lives. The secret to happiness is gender roles. We left corporate America and bought a farm. When it came time to do logging. No women were into 14 hour days in the snow with terrible risk. All the women stayed warm inside and loved it. all of the women in our extended family have jobs.. remote work has replaced weaving.

Came here for the left part of the thumbnail 😟

The idea that women go through some kind of highly conscious, entirely informed decision making process about how they organize their family for optimal functioning is laughable. 99% of us are on autopilot. We reflect back on our lives as if they were the result of a lot of conscious decision making, but in reality we are making most decisions completely unconsiously.

Does this lady know what she is talking about?

She says that she allows for a traditional model...but she seems intent to promote "alternatives"...which is often harmful to family. Using weaving as an example, is no big deal...who does it.

It won't fail because it literally never has since the dawn of time.

SAHM wives have always worked, but they predominately are at home/field and see that is their primary responsibility taking care of the home and kiddos. My husband and I are a team. It’s hard to make this commitment with leaving the back door open for divorce, like so many women advocate for. I don’t care about the TRAD wife movement aside the fact that it’s showing that it’s a lifestyle that still makes sense when you’re both committed to the team.

As soon as a person is solely dependent on one other person, resentment and abuse are... much more likely. And then we'd get another feminism wave. We've been here before. If women could find side hustles, hobbies, crafts, jobs, careers that can pay the bills and more, that would be great. Add to family fortune and don't be fully dependent on another being.

I don't care if its a movement that will fail or if its all fake in tiktok , as long as it counters the hypersexual and OF culture young women are exposed to, IM ALL FOR IT.

1:42 "...you do for the team" That has been my problem for decades now. None of the women I have been in relationships with have that mentality. They all want to be taken care of, and asking them to put in any real effort is viewed as oppression and sexist.

I don’t think this title is a good one. This video is more about the complexities of “women’s work”, which I found to be most interesting. It’s true that you can’t do it all. Someone who studies to be a plumber may find it hard to then pursue the presidency. Someone who becomes a lawyer has used up time and resources, and may not be able to become a pharmacist. Someone who wants to stay at home with their children give up career progression that is hard to get back. It is valuable and important work. Just as a pharmacist wants to do their best job and invests time into learning and performing their work, so a mother can invest time and learning into giving her children their best start, and takes that time and learning away from other things. I was a musician and soldier during my younger life, and then I quit this work to be a full time mother. Wanting to contribute to the home in other ways, I have also learned textiles, and so I found the discussion on weaving especially interesting. We no longer have many domestic textile factories, and I was interested in home production, as it is (like you say) easy to pick up and put down while watching children. I think that producing more items at home or locally will be better for the environment than shipping cheaply made clothing in oil guzzling ships. I’m concerned with the amount of acrylic in textiles that can contribute to plastic pollution, but cotton production is also terribly polluting. Homemakers have a chance to influence their family’s impact on the planet by making careful choices and sourcing their products locally.

Absolutely all of white collar work fits this pattern. Kinda interesting seeing a feminist just thinking in blue collar categories while her only big win in the modern work world was implementing hr

So what this weaver analogy makes me think is basically that remote gig-economy-type jobs are perfect for women with kids or who plan on having kids. Surprised neither of the speakers said that. Personally, as a guy, it's insanely depressing to just be home all day and never go anywhere except for chores and errands, and I think it's just the hunter DNA telling me to K myself if there's no adventure out in the world to go on. I guess a job with travel (but you don't have to completely uproot and fly around the world/country or anything like that) is probably more ideal for the male brain.

I didn’t hear this lady make one point- cool clip!

She’s absolutely right though. As someone who knows a lot of non traditional women(close friends and family, neighbors, etc) those who have been made/pressured into conforming into the SAH box are miserable and those who have been given the plenty of social support to pursue their education and career and have a family(or not) are much happier. I know so many smart, hardworking, talented young and old women that would be unhappy and unfulfilled longterm in the “tradwife” role. Women who break this mold are treated as second class women by conservatives because still in this age a woman’s value will always be reduced to how she can serve men(physically or through bearing the bulk of childcare and household duties). We’re people too(we have passions, goals, talents). I don’t think I could ever marry a conservative man who didn’t let his woman truly shine by taking on his fairshare of duties at home and encouraging his wife in her endeavors(these men exist but they are rare).

There is an inherent entitlement to TradWives. You have to be well off enough to have a one income household to be a housewife, and for most of us, those days are long gone. I believe that is also why the role of househusband never took off to a larger degree, because again you have to be fortunate enough to be a one income family to do it.

I feel like this was more affirming toward the TradWife movement (or couples who find a way for the wife to be the primary homemaker). Those woman recognize they can't "have everything" (in the sense of a career), and if they choose to be an influencer, blogger, etsy store operator, or part-time gig worker they have that sort of work like weaving (as described in the video). I understand that the TradWife movement looks like young women cosplaying as 1950s housewives, but for some couples it's exactly what Mary described: using social media or the gig economy so the wife can stay home with the kids.

With the rapid inflation both partners will have to work 40+ just to be able to eat

Marriage and having children is a financial nightmare for men. Once women are not FINANCIALLY incentivized by child support and divorce then we can have a table discussion as adults.

I disagree with this lady. A traditional wife is the only kind of wife that lives up to what being a wife is meant to be by the Creator Who created her. A woman finds true joy in her role as wife and with her husband lives out Holy Matrimony for the good of their children, for their own flourishing and that of their community. The feminist wife brings disorder and discontent to herself and her husband.

Cooking and cleaning is just not enough intellectual content for me in life 🤷 I tried, and I started literally building stuff and starting businesses.

Wow. The first time she held a baby was her own in her 30s. That is to me just about unbelievable. And probably why she doesn't get it either. Most are not looking for the traditional wife in what they do but their beliefs. We don't need a wife that cooks everything from scratch, makes the kids clothes and is always made up. We just need a wife that loves us, supports us, looks after the family, has integrity, respects. These are personal things that can be done if the wife is working or not.

Real traditional wives are not posting about themselves online. My wife, cooks, cleans and stays at home with our kids. She doesn’t post about it online she just does it because it’s life. It be like if I constantly posted about going into my corporate job.