We exist in a bleak capitalist hellscape. Everything feels terrible. As inflation and the cost of living continue to rise, the idea of working a dead-end job for the rest of our lives, only to likely never be able to afford the fundamentals –like a house and nice retirement – that were accessible to previous generations, is not appealing to many of us. And understandably so.  

Young people feel cheated out of a future that they never got a chance to claim. For young women who came of age in the "girlboss" era, the reality is especially difficult to swallow. We spent our childhoods being told we can be anything we want to be, only to be released into the labour force and realize that "what we want to be" is still severely limited. Institutional misogyny and the broader restrictions of modern capitalism make upward mobility increasingly unrealistic, especially for marginalized groups. For women of colour, the barriers are even higher. For women born into poverty, they're sky-high. Unfortunately, these two groups often intersect and render these barriers almost insurmountable. 

At the same time, many of us were raised with the internalized idea that being a stay-at-home wife or mother, as generations of women have done in the past, is shameful and anti-feminist. Our foremothers found and died for our right to work a shitty 9 to 5, and we couldn't possibly let them down. Or so we've been told.  

Things have recently taken a turn with the “tradwife aesthetic” becoming increasingly popular on social media, especially TikTok and Instagram. Popularized by creators like Nara Smith and Ballerina Farm, tradwife content glamorizes the lifestyle of a so-called "traditional wife" who takes care of her husband's home instead of working a typical job. The content itself consists mainly of "day in the life" or "cook with me" videos showing off bundles of fresh flowers, candles, and homemade goods, ranging from cereal to chewing gum to sunscreen. These creators are young, thin, beautiful, and – with some exceptions – overwhelmingly white. Wearing long, flowy dresses with their hair back in perfect knots, they wake up early to pick fresh tomatoes from the garden, then take their time rolling out homemade pizza dough in their spotless beige kitchens to the tune of calming piano music.  

To many of the young women watching, this lifestyle is immediately attractive. The idea of swapping a degrading job for gardening, cooking and frolicking in sundresses sounds like nothing short of a dream. But it’s not the whole story.  

Tradwife content presents the life of a stay-at-home wife and mother as the easiest thing in the world, with plenty of extra hours in the day to spend on making ornate flower arrangements and homemade cough drops. Absent are screaming children. Absent is any sign of sleep deprivation. Absent is illness, general disorder or chaos.  

Managing a household is an admirable job, but that's just what it is: a job. It's hard work. Most of the time, it's not pretty, especially when there are kids involved. Smith has three; Ballerina Farm's Hannah Neeleman has eight. Others have ten, eleven, or even twelve. In an article for The Sunday Times, Neeleman has admitted that she's sometimes so exhausted from taking care of her household and farm that she can't get out of bed for a week. And that's with the hired help they've admitted to having (not that they, or Neeleman's exhaustion, are ever shown in the videos).  

Crucially, being a stay-at-home spouse or parent simply isn't viable for most of us. The not-so-secret ingredient found in most tradwife videos is an air of immense wealth. Smith's husband, Lucky Blue Smith, is a well-known model, and Neeleman's is the heir to the JetBlue fortune. Tradwife creator and mother of eleven Karissa Collins shows off her multi-acre Texas property online and insists that her husband is just an average man with a 9 to 5. She neglects to mention his former career as a successful professional basketball player, or that their family's 15-passenger van was purchased for them by Shaquille O'Neal.  

The average household in the US, where they all (and most tradwife creators) live, could not afford the kind of lifestyle they flaunt. Additionally, tradwife creators are not actually “traditional” wives if we go by their definition of “traditional” which translates to being a non-working housewife. Prominent tradwife creators make money off of their content – sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. It is, in effect, a job, contributing significantly to the funding of their elegant lifestyles. To imagine that an average person could live like they do on only one income and without generational wealth is unrealistic.  

Perhaps most importantly, the tradwife aesthetic is not aspirational because it glamorizes dependency. Again, there's nothing wrong with being a stay-at-home spouse or parent, providing that both parties have agreed to the arrangement; however, there is an inherent power imbalance that comes with a marriage in which one spouse is entirely in financial control of the other.  

In the case of prominent TikTok creators, the women are contributing income to the household, but this is not the case for actual "traditional wives" who don't monetize their lifestyle. In the same Sunday Times interview, Neeleman raised eyebrows when recounting the history of her relationship with her husband. She explained she had wanted to date for a year before getting married, but he insisted on marrying just two months after meeting and she was pregnant a month later. Most shockingly, she confessed she gave up her dreams of being a professional ballerina after she met her husband and started having children. Neelman implied that the life they live is his dream, not hers; she had wanted to live in New York City with her own career, but now she's managing her husband's farm instead. She even mentioned that she was only able to get an epidural for the one birth her husband wasn't present for, and that it was "great", but he hasn't allowed her to get one since.  

When one partner is the head of the household, that dynamic can quickly turn abusive. Obviously, this isn't the case for everyone, but it's especially difficult for women to escape abusive marriages when they have no access to – or idea of – their own finances, and no job experience to fall back on when attempting to break free and become financially independent.   

Implicit in most tradwife content is a strong aura of religious fanaticism. Smith and Neeleman are both Mormon, and you'd be hard-pressed to find any other tradwife creator who doesn't have at least a Bible verse in their bio and an Instagram story highlight about the evils of abortion. Some, like Karissa Collins, are borderline religious extremists. Many are anti-vaccine and pro-traditional medicine. Nearly all are clearly conservative, even if they don’t say it outright.  

Most of the young women I see who idolize this lifestyle are not religious or conservative; they just like the idea of not working a corporate job, which is fair. But to assume that the type of man who would want to support this type of lifestyle wouldn't be someone who leans toward conservative, or even misogynistic beliefs, is perhaps a naive perspective. At its core, this lifestyle is about submitting to men. That doesn't mean that it's inherently bad, or that it can't be done consensually, but it's a difficult line to walk. In participating in this type of relationship, you're taking the risk of losing everything you have as soon as your husband decides he doesn't want to be with you anymore. At the very least, we need to be able to take care of ourselves.  

You can do whatever you want with your time, money, and life. If you have the means to live a real "tradwife" lifestyle and find it fulfilling, then go for it. But be careful before deciding to throw away all of your future plans in favour of marrying a rich man. It may not be all it's cracked up to be, and you may end up wishing you had never seen those bread-making TikToks in the first place.