The trend ’s popularity is partially down to her generation , she says .
If you’re unfamiliar with “trad wives,” the term refers to women who are “traditional” stay-at-home wives and mothers and perform a lot of housework and childcare. On the internet, the termwas originally associatedwith women who make content about that lifestyle, often encouraging others to adapt their way of living and even suggesting women take a submissive role to their husbands.
Arguably , creators like Nara Smithhave been inappropriatelylabelled " trad wives " because their subject matter inwardness on involved domesticated project like from - excoriation cooking . But as Cécile Simmons , a investigator at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue , told Euronews:“The trad wife move is an international movement of womenwho advocatea riposte to traditional gender norm through submitting to their husbands andpromotingdomesticity . ” True trad wives essay to convince fair sex their life style is aspirational , and even the best option , for women .
Trad wife content, and discourse surrounding it, has taken over the Internet over the last couple of years.Some suggestthe trend is due to a rise in alt-right beliefs across the world; others think it’s becausework has made us all so weary. But TikToker, author, and podcasterMeredyth Willitshas a different reason as to why the topicis trending.
In a videothat’s amassed over 280k views as of the time of writing, the creator Stitched a video that asked, “Why is trad wife content suddenly blowing up?” Meredyth’s answer began, “because people my age, that were traditional wives, are getting divorced and realised that they threw 20 years of optional available, could-have-been energy into the workforce.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade staying home with my children for anything,“the creator added.“However, I would have insisted on some sort of investment intomyfuture — either by way of a 401k, an IRA, a home in my name, or I would have had to have some sort of side gig where I could have put that on a resume.”
Shewent on to saythat “People who are my age — women in their 40s and 50s — that have raised their children, who have been traditional wives, are coming forward and speaking about the realities of that.” She pointed out that generations of women before her, like her grandmother, were often so financially beholden to their husbands that they couldn’t leave.
“And so I, being 51, I am like one of the first or second generations of women being ‘traditional’ stay-at-home-wives who are coming out and saying ‘don’t do this to yourself.'”
“The trad wife is glamorising staying home and being a homemaker… there’s nothing wrong with that,“she says.“So long as you talk about the fact that if your husband dies, you’re screwed — like triple-double screwed.”
She adds that"it’s great and all” to say, ‘just marry a great man,’ but “what if you’re sick of this ‘really great man’? What if he dies? What if he becomes incapable of going to work?” So, she argues, the reason trad wives are so viral right now isn’t because everyone aspires to that life — “what’s happening is we are the second generation of women coming forward to say, ‘quit being so Godd*mn stupid and protect yourself.'”
“This content isn’t becoming popular because we’re mean,” she ends her video. “This content is becoming popular because you’re glamorising a lifestyle that… you know nothing about.You’re a baby trad wife… and that’s okay.”
People had thoughts about her take. TikTok user@lifetaketwoStitched Meredyth’s video, saying that after dropping out of college and quitting her job for a husband in her 20s, she’s now a “party pooper” for newlyweds. Now aged 50,she talks abouthow her ex-husband left her for broke six years ago, and warns other married women to financially plan for the worst.
“The real tea is that she thinks she’s too beautiful to be left or cheated on. Classic internalized sexism & misogyny. She thinks she’s better than other women thus it can’t happen to her. She’ll learn,“another TikToker saidof trad wives.
“I mean … all they have to do is speak to women who’ve done the trad wife thing for 10-20 years and they’ll get the full picture 🙄"another commented.
What are your thoughts?
