“Thwarted Dreams”: 40 Stories From Mid-20th-Century “Tradwives” To Make You Think Twice
If you were wondering if time travel has suddenly become a thing, you’re mistaken. It’s not that. It’s the so-called ‘tradwives’ taking the internet by storm, shedding light on a lifestyle based on traditional gender roles, and, well… cooking stuff from scratch.
With the woman in the family being dependent on the man—the sole breadwinner in the household—it resembles (to some extent, at least) women’s lives back in the ’50s, but the two are not entirely the same. If you’re wondering what some of the differences are or what actual traditional housewives from the 1950s would like to say to their 21st-century counterparts, scroll down to find their messages, as shared on Reddit, and see for yourself what they want the younger generation to know about such a lifestyle.
If you scroll down, you will also find Bored Panda’s interviews with the incoming assistant professor at Purchase College in New York, author of ‘What ‘Real’ Women Want: Alt-Right Femininity Vlogs as an Anti-Feminist Populist Aesthetic’, Dr. Megan L. Zahay, and the award-winning journalist and author, creator of the podcast ‘Under the Influence’, Jo Piazza, who were kind enough to share their thoughts on the tradwife lifestyle and the influencers who endorse it.
#1
Not me. I got married in the 90s. But all the women in my grandmother’s and mother’s generations fit that bill, and they were miserable and trapped and dehumanized and left with no options and it made them mean. They didn’t choose that lifestyle, and they barely chose their husbands. They were forced into it by a lack of other viable options and the pressure of their families. Most were just grateful to have found someone to support them, without much regard for whether they liked them or not.
It’s the choice that matters. As long as you choose that lifestyle and choose your partner and it makes you happy? Terrific. But there are still people alive who would gladly force women back into having no choice and no options because that was easier for men. Be careful that you are not on a slippery slope back to that hell scape because I’m here to tell you, I didn’t know one happy woman in those generations.
#2
My grandmother raised 5 kids on the prairies in the 40s. She worked from before dawn until midnight.
She almost died from one homebirth and had to get up with a broken pelvis 2 days later to help with the farm.
She wasn’t allowed to wear pants or cut her hair and slaved her entire life. She had little or no agency in anything. Don’t be like that.
#3
I’m not a woman, so this will rightly languish down the bottom of the page, but the tradwife resurgence amongst young women, especially as it’s emerging from the right, is not yet old enough to have experienced that the next step after trad-wife is trad-betrayed-wife-in-an-anti-divorce-culture
#4
My friend is a tiny bit older than I am but was mother, home-maker, hostess for business dinners-seriously! Gave up her STEM job for the whole mom/wife thing. Husband traded her in for a younger model after 27 years. I would never suggest anyone do this without a viable income.
#5
My mom was a tradwife.
Based on conversations with her over the years, she’d probably tell those young women: “There’s nothing wrong with learning and mastering the domestic arts. You should always be proud of yourself for learning new skills and keeping a nice home.
But ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ also applies here. In this modern age, things change so quickly. Relationships, geographic location, even family. You need to be comfortable having the skills to take care of yourself too — not just your house and your husband.
It’s much better to view homemaking as a hobby rather than your raison d’être.
We did lived that way because we had to. But people also used to drink wine because the water wasn’t safe to consume. Just because it’s traditional, doesn’t make it good.”
#6
Personally I was too young, but lots of women in our family’s social circle were Ye Olde Wyfe. Overall, they seemed content enough, but once you really listened to them talking amongst themselves, you could hear faint tendrils of Unhappy.
This one dropped out of Juilliard (although her husband finished his education, naturally), that one left her job at the courthouse as a judge’s assistant (although of her husband hadn’t left his job, naturally), that one wanted to travel and of course could not (although her husband made frequent business trips, naturally), this one loved sports but certainly couldn’t indulge, as a wife and mother, in playing games, (although her husband never missed his days at the golf course, naturally) etc. All of them – every last one of them – had given up Some Thing they had loved or wanted in order to marry and have children, as society dictated they were supposed to do.
The men had not sacrificed anything that I ever heard them mourning over. The men could happily go off to deer camp for a week, the women might go to a 2 hour long Tupperware party presentation.
The wives took refuge in the spotless house and soap operas, mostly. There was a s***ide, a m*rder of a philandering husband, a few had to take pills “for their nerves”, some of them were completely flummoxed when their husband died and they were faced with mysteries like writing a check or driving a car.
I always felt faintly sorry for these women. Now I look back and am horrified at all the lost potential, the wasted earning power, the abandoned ambitions, the thwarted dreams, the abnegation of Self that these women embraced because that’s just How Things Are, my dear.
“Trad wife” of today does not seem anywhere close to all of that. They can bake their own bread and dress like Beaver Cleaver’s mom, but no, it’s not quite the same now as it was then.
#7
My mother was the typical trapped Christian Trad wife. She had three daughters and told us constantly that we needed to be self-sufficient and never rely on a man. When she was first married as a woman, she could not get her own bank account or credit card without my father’s permission. She had no identity other than Mrs. “Dad’s first name/Last name”. My father kept an iron grip on her and she was very depressed. I made sure that I could always fully support myself. I would never put myself in that position because I grew up seeing the abuse perpetuated on so many women by their husbands. Never, ever, ever give away your power and identity to another. I believe in equal partnership in a relationship.
#8
My mother was one. Watching her life is why, at the age of 8, I swore never to have kids. And now, safely post menopausal I can confirm I never did. You will lose yourself completely, everything you think of as you. Will be consumed by the lifestyle. Your bodily autonomy is taken not only by your husband and pregnancy, but taken by your children, your privacy, your time, your thoughts, and your ability to make a decision for yourself. Every decision you make will have to put someone else first because hubby isn’t picking up the slack.
#9
An English woman I know told me a great story that I think fits here:
She came to America in the 50’s after marrying a G.I. By the 1960’s she had two children. Right after she gave birth to her second child, she developed a really terrible pelvic infection. Like fever, sharp pains, hurt to pee, the whole nine yards.
Her husband was deployed so a neighbor friend drove her and all their children to the hospital. The friend waited in the car with the kids and she walked in alone. She explained at the reception area that she had just given birth and was in terrible pain.
They refused to treat her because she was wearing pants.
They said if she came back in a skirt she could be seen. She frantically made her way back to the car and told her friend what happened. Friend immediately takes off her own skirt in the car and they try to trade bottoms so the English woman could go back in. She couldn’t get the skirt zipped up because she had just had a baby. So they left.
The friend took her to own gynecologist who, after examining her, said that her pelvis was so infected he thought he was going to have to give her a full hysterectomy. She did end up having surgery but he was able to leave all her bits intact. Took her ages to recover and I nearly fell out of my chair listening to this story. We will never know, truly, how bad it was for so many women then. Stories like these don’t often get told and it’s a shame because these women were hard! The s**t they put up with is unreal.
Oh and all this took place in California which surprised me to no end because I thought they’d have been one of the most progressive states for women.
#10
It’s terribly risky. You are staking the survival of your self and your children on a man. So many women have been dumped for a trophy girlfriend after twenty years of loyal service to a husband, and left penniless, with no job skills.
Even if your husband doesn’t leave you, he may still become disabled and unable to work, or he may die.
If you’re gonna be to do this, make sure you have a huge multi million life insurance policy on your husband. Make sure you are funding a retirement plan for yourself out of the family income. In your name only, not your husband’s name. Make sure you keep up some sort of resume with a part time job.
Don’t let your husband take the attitude that he controls the money because he’s the one who earns the paycheck. Remember that the services you provide for free would cost him a lot of money if he has to pay fair market wages for the work you do.
