In the last couple of years, "tradwife" content has been booming on social media. Videos using the #TradWife hashtag have been viewed over 300 million times on TikTok alone.
The trad label, short for traditional, indicates a wife who's dedicated to staying home, raising kids, and submitting to her husband, patriarchy-style, while the man works outside the home. But much of the current tradwife content boom glamorizes this lifestyle and ignores its pitfalls. Scroll through the hashtag, and you'll see so many creators in frilly dresses and full makeup talking to the camera about how much they love keeping house and wish every woman could live this life.
To be clear, there's nothing wrong with a woman choosing to stay in the home. As a feminist, I love that women have so many choices today. If you want to vacuum in heels, go get it, girlie! But there are risks involved in the tradwife lifestyle that often get glossed over on social media, and women really can't afford to ignore them.
That's why 41-year-old former trad wife Enitza Templeton is sharing her story, and going viral in the process.
Recently, Enitza posted a TikTok about her situation, writing, "Imagine this: The trad wife life didn't work out. You have a 10 year gap in your résumé, four kids that need to be taken care of while he's off living with another woman so now you're at the food stamps office trying to see when your application will be approved."
The video has been viewed over 1.9 million times and has more than 9,000 comments, including messages from other women sharing how they were left scrambling when their traditional-style marriages fell apart.
Other women who've been in Enitza's shoes and are in a better place now also joined the conversation to let her know that there is hope.
And others mentioned the importance of getting a prenup for financial protection, especially for women.
Enitza told BuzzFeed, "I was raised to believe traditional gender roles were perfect by design as God created them, and if I were faithful and good enough it would work out." She looked forward to a traditional marriage throughout her upbringing and believed she would be incomplete without one.
She says, "I was completely bought in and believed that as a young woman all of my feelings of wanderlust, curiosity, and unfulfilled desires were the result of still being unmarried and childless." Thinking that her life had to revolve around a husband and children, Enitza believed that happiness would only really begin once she was wed.
But now, Enitza says she has a very different take on traditional gender roles. "They get to go out and experience life, challenge themselves, interact with other adults and create things while we get to clean their toilets? In hindsight, I wish I could go back to that young girl I was and tell her all that I know now, allowing her to create a life she loved and one SHE dreamed up."
"I never really had the opportunity to dream up a life of my own. The path of motherhood and wife were handed to me at birth and now that I’ve lived that life, I’m starting over and trying to figure out who I would’ve been had I not been programmed in that way."
Now, Enitza is sharing her story as a cautionary tale to help prevent other women from ending up in a precarious financial situation when their marriages end, one way or another. She says, "What if he loses his job? What if one of your kids is disabled and needs extensive medical treatments? What if your husband dies?"
"This isn’t the middle ages or biblical times where his brother or next of kin will take up the responsibility and add you to his harem of women he has rescued. Be so for real. You will be left to fend for yourself while picking up the pieces of your life with children in tow. It’s just too risky of a decision."
And she points out that traditional gender roles put a ton of pressure on the husband, too. "The pressure to financially provide for multiple people can be immense. He is also thinking what if I lose my job? What if something happens to me? What if this expensive emergency pops up? What if he hates his job and feels stuck because he is miserable? It is an unfair life for everyone involved."
Plus, in her experience, being a trad wife was far less glamorous than social media might lead you to believe. "You’re the one doing all the cleaning and behind-the-scenes work. Sure, once it’s all done it’s nice, but it’s a life of manual labor. You are the maid, cook, nanny, errand runner, etc. person. Sure 'gardening' sounds fun but have you ever had a real garden? And children? And a husband? And you want to bake bread from scratch and cook every meal? Think about it realistically!"
Finally, she has a message for any woman who's not happy in her traditional-style marriage. "This is your life and you get to be happy, too. Spend some time making some plans and then make the changes needed to be happy. When you stay in that unfulfilling marriage you’ll stay unfulfilled. If you leave, you might be sad for a little bit, but life will only get better. I’d rather be in the food stamps office receiving a little help than crying myself to sleep every night next to a man who doesn’t support me."
