Scrolling through TikTok over the last year or so, you’ve probably stumbled upon a wave of videos in which women are fully embracing traditional homemaking roles — think cooking up fancy meals, tackling household chores and caring for large families. This “Tradwife” trend, short for “traditional wife,” is stirring up both admiration and debate across social media.
At the forefront of this movement is Nara Smith, a 23-year-old model and internet personality. Originally from South Africa and raised in Germany, she moved to California at 18 to pursue modeling. Her TikTok account, which has over 9 million followers, features her whipping up intricate dishes from scratch while dressed in chic designer outfits, often narrating in a soothing whisper. This unique mix of culinary flair and high fashion has captured a global audience.
Smith’s content embodies the Tradwife “aesthetic,” reminiscent of 1950s housewives who focused entirely on home life. Many supporters see this as a celebration of personal choice and a return to family values. On the flip side, critics like myself argue that it romanticizes outdated gender roles and glosses over the real struggles many women faced in that era and today. It creates unrealistic expectations for most women who need to work to support their family. It shows only the perfect curated picture on social media, and doesn’t show what their lives are actually like and the many struggles of taking care of kids and a home.
What’s intriguing is that Smith’s dive into this lifestyle came after she faced some health issues. Dealing with eczema and lupus, she found that cooking and eating meals from scratch helped manage her symptoms, prompting her to embrace and share this lifestyle online. Her resilience shows the power of personal choice and how it can change one’s life. Nara Smith doesn’t just make a sandwich with ingredients from the store. She makes her own bread, sometimes even her own cheese and often uses home-grown vegetables. She has reinvented the definition of “homemade” food.
The Tradwife trend has also created negative effects that have caused other creators and women across the US to reevaluate their lifestyle choices. Take Jennie Gage, for instance. At 49 and with five kids, she left her traditional, religiously conservative life behind to start anew after a painful divorce in 2018. Her previous role as a “tradwife” seemed perfect from the outside but, in reality, brought intense stress and struggles because she took care of her home and raised five kids under the age of 10. Now, Gage encourages women to seek financial independence and self-reliance, challenging the Tradwife ideal.
As we navigate our own journeys in high school and beyond, the Tradwife trend makes us reflect on how people find fulfillment. It pushes us to think about the balance between personal choices and societal expectations, prompting a deeper understanding of what drives these lifestyle movements. More importantly, it inspires us to challenge the harmful stereotypes the trend reinforces.
Taking care of multiple kids while maintaining a “perfect” home is just not possible, especially in a world in which most women also work to support their families. Especially at an academically driven school like Archer, where women are empowered and expected to have highly successful careers, it’s hard to do both that and fulfill the societal expectation for women to have children and maintain the home. A tradwife from the 1950s is not what tradwives look like today.
In a world flooded with carefully curated snippets of life on social media, it’s crucial to approach these trends with a critical eye. Recognizing that every video tells a complex story shaped by unique experiences helps us make thoughtful decisions about the trends we choose to engage with.
