The TRUTH About TRADWIVES.
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Summary
In this episode, Abby talks about the rise and fall of the "trad wife" and how the term has been misused to describe a subset of women who reject the feminist narrative that says women need to find fulfillment through work and that being a mother is hard.
Transcript
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Hi and welcome to my channel. If you are new here, my name is Abby and here we talk about
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common sense commentary. I'm really excited to have you guys here to chat about things that
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should be obvious in today's culture but are for some reason made controversial and I am really
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excited to start with tradwives. So this is actually kind of a complicated topic but since
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I have often been lumped in to this category I think it's important to talk about. So let's just
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hop right in. I was recently interviewed for an article in the New Yorker called the rise and fall
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of the trad wife. Now this article was actually not about me really at all. It was really focused
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on one person and one person alone who is a part of the trad wife movement and her story and they
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kind of brought in other women in this area of the internet as examples. Whenever you're interviewed
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for anything you know for the trad wife movement it's going to be a hit piece. The internet hates
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trad wives okay? Let's just get that right out there. The fact that there is a subset of women
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who are rejecting the feminist narrative that says that women have to be girl bosses and need to find
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fulfillment through work and that being mothers is too hard. You can imagine that people really
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hate that. It makes a lot of people angry. So when the author of this article reached out and asked me
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to answer some questions I knew that this wasn't going to be coming from a friendly perspective
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but I also know what I think and what I believe and I knew that if I sent her my answers in the
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body of the email if she decided to take some of my words out of context I could easily share my
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answers with the internet and say hey this is what I actually wrote. So today I actually want to use
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the answers I gave her for that article as the basis of this video. But I think the first thing to
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start off with is the term trad wife in and of itself. Now trad wife is a term that is a classic
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case of semantic overload. What does semantic overload mean? It means a word that has been
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imbued with a ton of different meanings to a ton of different people. So one person may use the term
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in one way and another person may use the term in a totally different way and when they're talking
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to each other they're trying to have a conversation about something that they understand completely
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differently. Trad wife is a really good example of that. For some people trad wife means a
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traditional wife meaning someone who accepts the differences between men and women, different gender
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roles, and for another person trad wife might mean being completely submissive to your husband, women
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should never work, the idea that a woman would work is actually undermining her femininity, etc etc.
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Now you can see how those are very different understandings of the term and having a conversation
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when both people understand it differently would be kind of fruitless. And that's why I have never
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called myself a trad wife. I have completely removed myself from that conversation. I use the term
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classic. That's why I'm classically Abby. I believe that there are differing gender roles and that women
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have a really special role in the home. But I don't believe that women are so submissive to their husbands
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and I know that this term can be used differently based on your religious perspective. But from the
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perspective of a woman can't come to her husband and say you need to improve in certain areas because
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she is subjugated to his will, I will never agree with that. I think that women can work if they need
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to work. Meaning if you need to get food on the table, then you need to work. Like that is more
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important than your presence at home in any given situation. If you need to get food on the table, if you
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need to pay for a roof over kids heads, like making sure everyone is provided for is the absolute
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number one priority. But I think for many women who choose to work nowadays, that isn't the case.
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They choose to work because it's their own self-fulfillment they're looking for and it
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doesn't matter if it hurts the kids. I think it's much more important for a mother to be home with
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her children, especially in the first three years, than it is for her to kind of get what's hers,
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as they would say. So what are the good ways we can view the term trad wife? How can we view it in a
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positive way? And what are the less positive ways that it's, that it can be understood? So the
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positive ways are traditional gender roles. Women are really wonderful mothers, right? We are meant
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to be there for our children, raise our children. There's a reason that women can breastfeed and men
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can't. Nurturing is a fundamental part of femininity and that is what makes women amazing mothers and why
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they are so necessary at home. I think men are providers. Now what does provider mean? Back in
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the day, it didn't mean only financially that they had to go out to work. It just meant that they were
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the ones in the field. They were the ones working to make sure that the family was fed. And women
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could contribute to that as well. Many women worked in the field alongside their husbands and it was a
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familial task to provide for the family. But husbands need to protect and provide. And I think the
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feminist movement has really undermined the importance of women's role in the home. And in
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an attempt to get women out there working, getting what's theirs as men do, right? There's this concept
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that men had it all and women were put in a comfortable concentration camp as Betty Friedan wrote
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in her book, The Feminine Mystique. Women have given up this incredible, beautiful role that we do have at
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home where we get to make the home better and warmer for everyone in it. We get to be the CEO
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of our own household rather than working for someone else. And that is an amazingly beautiful thing. Now
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from the negative side, I think that the term trad wife can also connote women being subjugated. Women
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being second class citizens to their husbands where they can't offer criticisms or advice or have a role
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in improving their husband because they are secondary. I can't get on board with that. I think
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that every marriage is a partnership, that both partners are trying to improve the other so that
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you each are growing over time. And when you have this idea that women are secondary, then you aren't
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giving women credit for what they can bring to the table in their marriage, in their household.
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When it comes to the term trad wife, I don't think the idea that women have a unique and beautiful
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role as mothers is the only thing that trad wife means, right? That's what I was kind of talking
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about is that the semantic overload of that term makes it so that it doesn't mean what it should
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mean, which is just having the traditional values that come alongside being a mother and a wife.
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Women are absolutely necessary to their children thriving. And I think that's what's been lost over
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time is that we've gotten so invested in expressive individualism. The idea that like you have to
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be yourself and fulfill your dreams and whoever comes at the cost of that, it doesn't matter.
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Your children can't come at the cost of your dreams. The truth is that once you have children,
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your dreams are often fulfilled by becoming a mother. Like your child is your dream. That is an
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amazing thing. You see your child grow and it's amazing. But outside of you, you kind of don't matter
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anymore once you have kids because you now owe your time to your children. They deserve your
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attention and they need it. It's an incredibly important and deeply honorable role women have
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as homemakers. And when I say that, I mean making a home for their children, for their husband, for
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themselves. And this role has been tragically undermined and denigrated by our society because
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we think that we can pretty much outsource all of it. We could outsource the cleaning and the
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cooking and the time that we spend with our kids because we'll put them in daycare while mommy goes
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out and finds herself. It's actually really depressing when you think about how these roles that offer
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women so much fulfillment and joy have also been completely undermined. And it's been said that these
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roles are a waste of your time. They're a waste of your potential when there's no more important place
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that a mother can be than with her children. Unfortunately, that isn't how we view things
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anymore. She should be out showing off how smart she is, showing off that she can, you know, get a
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promotion rather than teaching her child to be an incredible member of society. The question is always
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how can your family be best served? And if that means that a mother has to work to provide for her
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family, then that makes sense. That doesn't undermine her femininity or her traditional values. She's doing what
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she can to make sure her family is provided for. But if it's about her and her self-fulfillment,
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then that isn't a traditional value. That is a selfish pursuit of yourself, of your dreams, rather
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than putting your family first. And that's not to say that a woman can't work in the time when her
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children are busy, right? Like my son is napping right now. My other son is kind of playing while my
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mother watches him. And I am taking this time right now to film a video. That makes sense for my family
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because I'm not taking away from them. And to be completely honest, at this point in my life,
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I work about five hours a week. I record and I edit in the evenings after my children go to sleep.
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I don't take away from my children so that I can fulfill my potential. I want to do something that
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brings me joy. This brings me joy. And I think that it can help my family in certain ways because it
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helps us just pay for groceries, essentially. But it doesn't come at the cost of my children's
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health, happiness, or thriving. But I think one of the more controversial takes that I personally have
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about trad wife content is that I believe that homemaking really starts once you have children.
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A stay-at-home wife, I don't think is as valuable as a stay-at-home mom. Because I don't know what
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you're doing all day as a stay-at-home wife that is putting your family first, if that makes sense.
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Meaning the cooking and the cleaning and the homemaking aspect of things I think is very
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important even just as a wife before you have children. But there's a lot of hours in the day
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and I don't think that that's going to take nearly as much time. So I don't know what you would be
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doing otherwise with your time. That is not helping the family financially. Because I think once you
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have children, if you're planning on being a stay-at-home mom, maybe before your children come
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along you do have a job that means you can save and help provide for your children so that once you
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do have children you can stop working and give them your full attention. That may be more of a
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controversial idea. Leave your thoughts down below on that. But I was never a completely stay-at-home
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wife. I worked very very hard on Classically Abby before I had my children. I was working
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many more hours a week to establish myself and then once I had kids this became something I could
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do much more on this side. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that in the comments so drop your
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thoughts down below. Okay so I realized as I was editing this video that there were a few things I
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wanted to talk about that I didn't mention. Things may look a little different because it's evening
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but we're gonna chat about them real quick. So some of the things I want to talk about as regards
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trad wife stuff is the aesthetics of trad wives. I think that there's a lot of confusion that the
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aesthetics of being a trad wife are the values of being a trad wife and with this I heartily
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disagree. One of the big things about being a trad wife is like sourdough and wearing beautiful
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dresses while cooking in the kitchen. I don't think that those things are values that are important to
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being a traditional woman. I think that cooking is a really nice thing and cooking well is really
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nice. I think that looking nice for your husband and embracing feminine clothing is beautiful but if
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you're not spending all day in the kitchen because you prefer to be out and about with your kids I
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think that that is a perfectly valid way to be a traditional wife and a traditional mother. I think if
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you prefer to wear jeans and a t-shirt because it's more comfortable when you're out with your toddler
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than wearing a gorgeous dress that you're gonna have to dry clean. I think that is perfectly valid.
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I know that for me I am the kind of woman who likes to wear nice dresses that I can throw in the wash
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and that I like to be out and about with my sons all day rather than be home cooking because it's more
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fun for me to explore the world with my children than it is for me to be in the kitchen all day. Now I
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enjoy the process of cooking with my sons. I think that it's fun but that's not an activity I want to
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do every day. So I try to find different ways to cook well for them without it taking up my entire
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schedule. And the way that I approach motherhood may not be the way someone else approaches motherhood
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and that's okay as long as the kids are the top priority. You get to decide what that looks like as
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far as the activities you share with your children. The other question I think that comes up a lot
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with the trad wife content that we see on the internet like ballerina farm is does it make it
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look too idealized? Is it too unrealistic? Does it make women feel bad? And I think that that is silly.
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When women are trying to put out content that makes being a mother look appealing we should be happy
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about that right? It should appeal to the women who may be questioning whether or not they even want
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to become mothers or whether or not staying at home looks like fun. That's a good thing that we're
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giving them a view into this world that is very positive. As a mom already if you look at that content
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and it makes you feel bad maybe you should rethink the way you're approaching things. Maybe you can
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consider if there's some things that you want to do differently. Otherwise if you are confident in
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your approach to your mothering then you shouldn't feel bad looking at somebody else's stylized version
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because that's what it all is. It's all stylized. They're not showing us the dirty kitchen. They're
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not showing us the dirty dirty diapers they changed. They're showing us the highlights which we know
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it's social media is. So if you can look at that and take away things that maybe you want to incorporate
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into your own lifestyle rather than being mad at the person who's putting out stylized content which we
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all know they do maybe that's the way to approach it. But I don't think that putting out an idealized
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version of being a mom and enjoying your day-to-day is a bad thing. I think that it's a nice thing and
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we can be smart enough to parse through that and say okay is this actually something I can relate to
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if I if I can understand that it's also a highlight reel. But the last thing that I want to touch on is
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how has the term trad wife become so political? Like why is it so political? And I sort of touched on this
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earlier in the video but I think what it really comes down to is the rejection of second and third wave
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feminism. So if you know the history of feminism it started off as equity feminism which is the stuff
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you kind of think about when you think about feminism which is women getting the right to vote.
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Stuff like that. I think that's great. Sure. Women should absolutely have the right to vote
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and we should be equal in the eyes of the law. All of that. Then we start getting into second and
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third wave feminism. And second and third wave feminism are under the the umbrella of gender
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feminism. Gender feminism is a an offshoot of Marxism. Marxism says that there is always an oppressor
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class and there's always an oppressed class. In gender feminism what that looks like is women are
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the oppressed class and men are the oppressors. So women no matter how successful they are are always
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going to be oppressed simply by virtue of the fact that they are women. So a woman at home is the
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perfect example in gender feminism of someone who is oppressed. Men get to go out and work. Men get to
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have all the fun. Women are locked at home. They have to be subservient. They have to serve their husbands.
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This is the problem with the idea of being a trad wife is that you are rejecting that idea. You are saying
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that men are not the oppressors and women are not the oppressed. What it really is is that men and women
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are different and women thrive taking care of their children. Women thrive taking care of their
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homes and they are doing something really important. Whereas men not that they have to go out to work
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but the fact that they are providing for their families protecting their families is their role.
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And a lot of feminists hate this trad wife stay-at-home mom concept because what it looks like to them
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is that women want to be oppressed. Women who are home with their children or trad wives if you want to
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use that term here reject that idea. And we say that we love men. We don't hate men for being
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oppressors. We love our men for being different than we are and for providing different things to
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our families. So that's kind of how the trad wife thing crosses over into politics. But I think one
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of the important things to keep in mind is that being a stay-at-home mom and this is a whole other
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video we're going to talk about. Being a stay-at-home mom taking care of your kids it doesn't have to look
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like being at home. It doesn't have to look like being lonely. These are modern problems with the
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stay-at-home lifestyle when really it should be communal. It should be supported. It should be
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fun to go out all the time. And it's not just about being at home in your home. I know that me as a
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stay-at-home mom I am rarely at home because I take my kids out and about constantly. But I think that
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this conversation about trad wives the reason it's so hot right now is that women are trying to
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come out of the narratives that media has sold us. We are trying to understand what really brings
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women fulfillment. What really is the beauty of being a woman? Is it just trying to be men as hard
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as we can even though we're different? Because that's kind of where we're at. We're encouraging women
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to put off having kids longer and longer, pursue their careers, to have sex before we're married,
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to do all these things that men do. And by the way, I'm not saying that these are good things that men
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do, but men do do them. Maybe there is a wisdom to the traditional values we have heard about, we have
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seen in the past. There may be a wisdom to that. And I know that for me, embracing my feminine role,
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embracing my womanhood, embracing being a mom has brought me so much more joy and fulfillment than
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any other career could have because I get to see my children grow every single day. I get to be present
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for them every single day. And I get to see what my presence does that if I wasn't around, they wouldn't
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get. So I'm glad that there is a conversation to be had about trad wives. I don't, again, fall into that
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category so much because I don't like to embrace that term since it has so many different meanings,
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but I'm glad the conversation is being had at all. And I think that there are beautiful things about
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being a traditional wife, a classic wife, a classic mother. And I think that's really part of this is
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that it should almost be trad mother rather than trad wife. But I know that living with traditional
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values is the way, is the best way to live. So that's my thoughts for today. I would love to hear
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your thoughts in the comments below. What do you think about trad wives? What's your understanding
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of the term? And if you watched all the way to the end of this video, I would love if you would leave
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a fruit emoji, your favorite fruit, leave it down in the comments below. And I will see you guys in