What the Tradwife Trend Actually Tells Us About Modern Motherhood
- Aug 23
- 5 min read
I love entertaining at my home, dressing feminine and being a woman. I loved all the things girls growing up were encouraged to love; playing with dolls, wearing pink, performing for others. I am heterosexual and have always dated men, I am married (7 years this August), have a 5 year old son I adore and routinely get botox injections. I have dedicated my professional career to helping others navigating trauma and relationships, I would most definitely consider myself a nurturer. And I have always enjoyed having lots of other women around me, going on girls trips, prioritizing my female friendships, having been captain of the cheerleading team, joining a sorority, the Junior League, and now my second book club in Los Angeles --- the one where we actually read a book, in addition to drinking wine and talking. And the book I chose was Yesteryear, hence the homemade sourdough spread. It's the buzzy new novel based on a tradwife influencer who gets sent back to the 1800s, to live the life she always romanticized. You can find my complex thoughts on it LINKED HERE.
I do, however, loathe cooking. I enjoy eating --- other peoples food. Sometimes I can convince myself when I watch Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy whilst double checking my chicken isn't raw in the middle. My family does need to eat afterall, as do the guests I routinely invite over to enjoy my maximalist tablescapes I love to make. I don't exactly like to clean my house but I do it obviously and the payoff of clean countertops and bedding is always worth the effort. I do most of the grocery shopping, dishwashing, school coordination and home organizing. I plan all our parties, celebrations and travel. I am both tired and satisfied and annoyed on a daily basis.
Why are women so desperate for any exit that sourdough feels like rebellion?
Thank God my husband made the sourdough --- and monogrammed it for me. Because I am not a tradwife by any stretch of the imagination. And I would imagine neither are any of you. The 'trad' in tradwife is short for 'traditional' and the true definition is still being debated in pop culture via viral videos on the internet that range from prioritizing homemade meals and raising multiple children, to submitting to one's husband and essentially taking gender roles back in time. The definition is contested---it ranges from these positions and circumvents a number of facets of modern womanhood. Like many cultural phenomena, the tradwife trend appears tangled in attempting to define itself, in my opinion.
If we look back to the 1800s, marriage was about survival. One simply had to have a family in order to live; someone had to sew clothes, raise livestock, make soap. Children were an integral part of a functioning household, husbands and wives relied on one another for very practical reasons. Post-industrialization in the 1950s allowed less laborious work and more opportunity for marriages to be based on love and attraction. Gender roles became a bit more defined à la I Love Lucy as women were encouraged to cover domestic roles like cooking, cleaning and childrearing while their husbands pursued professional careers. Modern technology allowed American couples to focus on things like materialism, wealth and beauty. However, the divorce rates of the 60s and 70s proved that formula didn't work. Women were overwhelmingly disappointed and as a society we started encouraging women to pursue careers outside the home and create independent financial stability outside of marriage.
The tradwife trend is not nostalgia. It is a diagnosis. Women saying: the system promised us everything and delivered exhaustion.
We made homemade sourdough in the 1800s because we had to, now we choose to make it in response to big food and a desire to feel better. We choose to leave the chaos of a city to find peace and safety in the suburbs. We set up farms on rural land because it was a practical way to feed a large family, now we can choose how many children we want to have and how exactly to feed them. We married young in the 1950s because it was our only option, now we choose matrimony for love and self-actualization. We can establish a career, we can wait to marry the right person. Someone who helps us become a better version of ourselves, marry our best friend, and the maker of my book club's monogrammed chicken-potpie.
Before we critique the tradwife trend, we must first critique the system of modern womanhood itself. Women can work outside the home---but school pickup remains at 3pm, non-negotiable. Women can build businesses---but childcare and seed money are both scarce. Women can achieve financial success---but monetize femininity online and watch the world humiliate you for it. We have access to groceries and medical care, and yet our bodies remain unexplained, dismissed by systems designed for efficiency, not health.
The tradwife trend is not simply nostalgia, fundamentalism, or sexism. It is a diagnosis. It is women saying: the system promised us everything and delivered exhaustion. Some women are choosing tradwife aesthetics not out of ideology, but out of strategic surrender---at least in the 1800s, the work made sense.
In the 1800s, everyone knew it took a village. Now we're supposed to do it alone. Then blame ourselves when we can't.
Choice without infrastructure is a trap. So women are making rational calculations. Some choose to opt out of the system entirely. Some monetize their femininity. Some build a career and sacrifice sleep. Some choose to stay home and admit they need help. None of these are failures. They're survival strategies.
And the hard truth is they never did, neither in the 1800s, 1950s or modern day, did women actually do it all. But the difference is honesty. In the 1800s, everyone knew it took a village. In the 1950s, we had extended family down the street. Now we're supposed to do it alone---and when we can't, we blame ourselves. The tradwife is just admitting what we've always known: mothering is meant to be shared. Americans pride themselves on individualism yet we truly remain collectivist in nature. We are all truly reliant on one thing: interdependence.
I couldn't have hosted this book club without having the help of my housekeeper to clean during the day while I saw back-to-back patients, my mother-in-law to pickup my child from camp and my husband to have secured the dinner. I couldn't have set up the buffet table, made myself presentable and shot these photos without having help. I wouldn't have been able to offer guests beverages and a dessert without having asked them to bring something to share. And it's not because I am inadequate or lazy, it's because our expectations of women are ridiculous and untrue.
My frustration isn't the fundamentalism. It's that we're using tradwives as a distraction from the actual problem: we've built a system that makes all women fail. So stop mocking the tradwife aesthetic. Stop defending it. Start asking: Why are women so desperate for any exit that prairie dresses and sourdough feel like rebellion?
It's easier to mock her, to dismiss her as MAGA or abused or naive. The reality is we're more similar to her than different. We're all saying: This doesn't work. And when we stop fighting each other about how that manifests---prairie dresses vs. power suits---and start focusing on what we actually need---childcare, healthcare, financial independence, time---that's when the conversation shifts. That's when we actually build something better.
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