What's Missing From the Trad Wife Trend Convo
Source: Getty Images via apartmenttherapy.com
If you had asked me a week ago if I knew what a trad wife was, I would have stared at you with a dumbfounded look on my face. I had never heard that term before. Honestly? I still wish I didn’t know. I would love to travel back in time to about seven days ago when my ignorance of what a trad wife is was strong. Sometimes, ignorance truly is bliss. But, alas, I now know what a trad wife is. I can thank TikTok for that. Someone mentioned this trad wife movement on another social media app, and in an effort to cure my ignorance, and at the risk of screwing up my algorithm, I took to TikTok to teach me about this odd phenomenon of trad wife-ism.
First, some context, in case you’re not familiar with me. I happen to be a homeschool mom. When hearing that, by default, you might assume that I’m a trad wife. A trad wife, or “traditional” wife, stays at home, raising the kids and tending to the housework full time, all while wearing 1950s housewife dresses and a stand of pearls around her neck. Many “trad wives” are also home educators, which does not surprise me. But, no, I am not a trad wife and my reasons for home-educating are not because I believe that a woman’s place is in the home.
However, at one point in my early 20s/early Christian journey, I was *this* close to believing this ideology. I was a recent graduate of Howard University, which is one of the most prestigious HBCUs in the nation. When you graduate from Howard, nothing less than career excellence is expected of you. You will be a mogul of some kind. You will have numerous degrees. You will have success to brag about. You will wear your power suit during the day as you slay your career and then come home to your children and spouse to slay your roles in the home. Period. No less is accepted and I was ready for that life. I never not envisioned myself as a working mother with some sort of powerful, distinguished career.
That is until I began attending a predominantly white church where most of the women were stay-at-home moms. I would stare at them as much as I could without looking weird and think to myself, “Wow. I want what they have. They are perfect.” They seemed to have endless smiles, be madly in love with their children, and have perfect marriages with husbands who adored them. My little heart that yearned for love wanted to emulate everything they did to get exactly what they had. Between my envy for them and the realities of the working world not panning out as I hoped, I soon began to long for stay-at-home-motherhood. I was searching for a happiness I had not experienced in several years, and every time I saw these mothers at my church, they seemed to experience the happiness I was yearning for. Soon, my prestigious career aspirations were replaced with an obsession with becoming a wife and a mother. I was convinced that this was the key to unlocking my happiness.
It was an illusion.
It was all an illusion. It was an image to sell. As is the trad wife movement of today. As was the actual traditional wife lifestyle of the early 20th century that today’s trad wife movement is trying to echo. Now, I’m not saying that marriage and being a mother who stays home is an image to sell. I don’t believe the women I was fascinated with in my early 20s were illusions themselves. Neither is the fact that I am happily married and am over the moon in love with my children. The illusion was the idea that being a wife and a stay-at-home mother was the key to my happiness as a woman; my greatest calling and honor as a woman of God. The illusion was in the presentation of wifehood and motherhood being the holy identity that God had given me, and that as soon as I answered this call, I would be complete. The illusion was allowing the rest of my desires, passions, and dreams to fall by the wayside in pursuit of the image I was being sold as the true expression of my feminity.
Again, the illusion isn’t in marriage and motherhood itself, no matter what choice you make in both arenas. The illusion is in the belief that marriage and motherhood are the completion of a woman and the truest desires of a woman’s heart. And, the illusion is in how this so-called feminity completion is happening in the first place, complete with a wide-toothed grin and nary a hair out of place. We are sold this illusion by our patriarchal society to keep us in the rightful, controlled place it believes we, as women, belong in. And this illusion is just as true today as it was when the modern patriarchy began.
The Illusion of Traditional
I’ve been thinking about how we, as a society, decide what classifies as traditional or non-traditional. Or, how society classified it for us, since, we modern folks of the 21st century are simply walking around dealing with the cards our ancestors’ ancestors have dealt us. I often think this is the missing link to our determination to better our world, end oppression, and break generational cycles — getting to the bottom of where and when these ideas were birthed and how they evolved. In terms of “traditional” gender roles, we didn’t just arrive at these roles from the beginning of our humanity, did we?
As much as we have been fed the idea that patriarchal ideals are the natural order of humanity and have existed since the origin of humanity, especially if you are someone who has a faith-based view of the world, this is just simply not true. Modern patriarchy is a pretty Westernized, one-sided view that disregards many Indigenous, African, Asian, and other nations of the global majority and beliefs or lifestyles of antiquity. Yes, patriarchal beliefs that subject women to lesser, subservient roles in life and marriage are centuries old and not limited to the Western world. However, if we believe that patriarchy is the beginning, middle, and end of humanity’s take on gender, we are participating in the erasure of many different societies and cultures whose beliefs have also transcended time periods to modernity, just as patriarchy has. In short, patriarchy is just one ideology. It just so happens to be the one that has become the most dominant in our era, thus having the greatest impact on our lives. And, an oppressive one at that, might I add.
The idea that patriarchy is traditional, in my opinion, is subjective.
There are a few definitions of traditional, or, tradition.
a: an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (such as a religious practice or a social custom)
b: a belief or story of a body of beliefs or stories relating to the past that are commonly accepted as historical though not verifiable
the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or example from one generation to another without written instruction
cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions
characteristic manner, method, or style
While, yes, our patriarchal ideals could be considered an established pattern of thought, as described in the first definition, I would argue that the ideas became customary through force and have never been fully accepted by a large percentage of the population, no matter the generation. When I read these definitions, I feel a sense of warmth, community, pride, and understanding in the establishment and inheritance of traditions. I imagine the handing down of a Southern cornbread recipe, jumping the broom, or opening presents on Christmas Eve. I think about the widely cherished holy month of Ramadaan within the Muslim community or the beloved celebration of Passover by the Jewish community. These are traditions that aren’t just inherited but typically trusted by all who hold them near. Does the “tradition” of patriarchy fall under this definition? Or, is it an ideology of control and abuse, forced into the minds of those in subservient positions?
Saying that patriarchy is tradition is nearly equivalent to saying that racism is tradition. Nearly. Was racism once a widely accepted inherited practice? Absolutely. Did society at large participate in customs and patterns of thought and behavior to create a racist culture? 100%. Does that make it traditional? No! Racism, without argument, is oppression. It is violence. Most of us wouldn’t look at returning to a period of Jim Crow segregation as returning to “traditional times.” I say “most,” because we all know there are racist bigots who would argue that those are traditional times we should return to. But, most of us would fight against and stand up to such beliefs, right? And those of us who exist in the bodies that are the most oppressed by racism would definitely not agree that racism is traditional.
I think if you ask most women who endured the height of abusive patriarchy in marriage, motherhood, and society at large whether this is something they would want to return to, or even remotely consider a “tradition” to subject their children and grandchildren to, the answer would be a resounding, “NO!”
The rise of feminism and the sexual revolution of the 1960s that demanded women finally receive the rights we have always deserved was not random. This was a fight that had been brewing for centuries, and rightfully so. Women were fed up. Just because women were forced into submission and obedience by a society that decided, selfishly, that power belonged in the hands of elite men, and they obliged with that submission, doesn’t mean they agreed with it. Women were bullied into silent suffering, forcing that wide-toothed grin that was only made possible through the help of “mothers little helpers” and the knowing that, since you were white and middle class, you were at least not the lowest tier of society. You knew that you at least had the upper hand over Black women, and had the power to hire them to do much of your housewife duties without ever acknowledging their existence.
Oh, by the way, if it wasn’t clear, the patriarchal “trad wife” lifestyle of past and present is primarily represented by middle to upper-class white women. I’ll get into this more in a bit.
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Sources:
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