What is a 'trad wife' - and what are they promoting?

A new movement of socially conservative and fiscally prosperous women has taken over social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok and X with content ranging from baking Cocoa Puffs from scratch to entering beauty pageants for married women. But who are these women, and what are they promoting? Kate Demolder writes.

'Hannah Neeleman is an entrepreneur and inspiration,' a caption on Instagram by Mom The Mag, a magazine for professional mothers, reads. ‘Who, after attending The Juilliard School of Performing Arts in New York to become a professional dancer, forgoed [sic] the city lifestyle to raise her family on a farm … her content does a lot more than just showcase farm life. Instead, it demonstrates that if you can dream it, you can live it.’

Neeleman––a slim, blonde, traditionally beautiful woman of indeterminate age––is a homesteading mother of eight, and one of the best-known in ‘trad wife,’ culture, a burgeoning movement of women who spend their days catering to the traditional forms of motherhood that stories like Little House On The Prairie, and The Sound of Music, might have perpetuated; the birthing of multiple children; cooking meals from scratch; tending to farm animals in flowing dress - all while preparing meals in time for your husband to return from work.

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Neeleman, who has at the time of writing, 8.9million Instagram followers, has been a prominent influencer for some time. From what I can see, the basis of her appeal rests on the claim that historical times, namely the postwar period of the 1950s and 1960s, were simpler and more clearly defined for women, an understanding that marries aesthetically with social media presentations of freshly churned butter, or videos of baby lambs.

In her daily life, which she resolutely posts to Instagram, Neeleman shares videos of herself in white, flowing dresses or loose dungarees, milking cows, baking cookies and taking part in beauty pageants, to the delight and incomprehension of her followers. (Earlier this year, competed in the beauty pageant for married women, Mrs World, two weeks after giving birth to her eighth child.)

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If Neeleman is the white, mid-century ideal to mark the popularity of the trad wife aesthetic, then Nara Smith––the traditionally sexy, Mad Men-adjacent, light-skinned model wife of model Lucky Smith––is proof that influencers of all races are glamorising a return to fundamentalist values, such as women retreating from the workplace to care for their husband and children.

In a recent TikTok video, Smith, dressed in a sweeping black peignoir set, speaks unctuously to the camera to say: "Today is my husband and I's fourth wedding anniversary, so I decided to wake up super early and make him bagels and cream cheese from scratch."

The light catches her contoured cheekbones as she pours olive oil into a mixing bowl. She dutifully pours yeast from a ramekin into the steel vessel, just as one can’t help but notice that she is third-trimester pregnant.

Smith’s content is neither overtly political, nor does it advocate for a specific agenda or demographic. Yet online commenters have accused the model of promoting her husband’s - who was raised Mormon - ideals.

Members of the faith are well known for a lifestyle that includes paying tithing, conservative dress and grooming, a law of health known as the Word of Wisdom, morality, honesty, integrity, Sunday Sabbath observance, and dedication to families and community.

In a TikTok video posted on March 4, Smith addressed these online comments, saying that she's still "figuring out" her faith and that she's "not in any way a hardcore Mormon or anything like that".

"I don't wear garments. I didn't get married in the Temple. Both me and my husband are on our own journeys and figuring out how we want to raise our kids", she added.

The fact that she is a Black woman married to a white member of the Church, which barred Black people from the priesthood and the temple until 1978, also further complicates the narrative.

While many online commentators dismiss trad wife culture as something sinister wrapped up in bows, lest it be less threatening––it’s "like a frilly version of fascism," one YouTube commenter wrote––in the press, some have gone as far as linking trad wives with the alt-right.

"It is especially popular among white supremacists," Hadley Freeman wrote in The Guardian, "who are extremely down with the message that white women should submit to their husband and focus on making as many white babies as possible."

Like many trad wives, neither of the women mentioned above makes religion an obvious part of their brand. That said, the line between being a good representative of a certain faith and proselytism can often be blurry. ‘"He is not here: for he is risen!" Matt 28:6 Happy Easter 💕,’ Neeleman writes in a post where she is pictured alongside her husband. ‘Sunday morning church prep. 👀’ another reads.

This is where complications regarding trad wives arise––are those involved actively engaged in acts of evangelism, or simply promoting the allure of traditional stay-at-home motherhood, largely to an audience that may not have the means to embody them? (Neeleman, for example, is married to the scion of the JetBlue fortune and is worth an estimated $400 million. Smith and her husband, too, are internationally backed IMG models.)

Interestingly, some of the newer trad wives are more openly political, even if they prefer not to admit it. One of Abby Roth’s––a popular YouTuber whose bio reads: 'Traditional Values Let's Be Classic'––most popular videos from 2020 is Conservative women: it’s our time, which contains the exhortation, "Let’s take the culture back." It’s worth noting here that conservative political pundit, Ben Shapiro, is Roth’s brother.

In February, Evie Magazine - a publication described by Rolling Stone as 'Gen Z Cosmo for the Far Right' - ran two stories about Smith too, with one headline calling her "the ultimate TikTok tradwife."

"She has the idyllic life that Gen Z dreams of, one that older millennials can’t relate to," blogger Nicole Dominique commented at the time, accusing "white, liberal women" of demonising her out of bitterness and jealousy."

While it’s unclear as of yet to truly decipher whether any trad wife is using their platform to proselytise, I believe the active endorsement of regressive values on social media highlights a bigger problem: toxic motherhood.

Few wives and mothers boast the same time, resources or financial backing as those intent on hand-baking cinnamon rolls from scratch. Of course, it is neither Smith nor Neeleman’s fault that these are the choices they’ve made, but it remains concerning to think that such a life is viewed, by millions, as aspirational.

In short, it doesn’t really matter whether Smith, Neeleman, Roth or, indeed, anyone else is promoting anything religious, political or otherwise, because, at their core, they are simply three of millions of other influencers who are attempting to catch our collective attention for moments at a time.

They, like Hailey Bieber and Kim Kardashian, are simply riding the social media wave, and attempting to wrangle a flock not dissimilar to the lambs they hand-rear.

It begs the question: would anyone care about trad husbands? Or indeed, stay-at-home boyfriends?

The answer, I imagine, would be no. Though trad wife culture is alarming in many ways, it feels, to me anyway, to be little more than reactionary to corporate feminist culture. It, too, lacks any sort of belief system, in that it’s yearning for a past that never really existed.

The reality is that in the post-war period, women had it much, much harder, by way of little to no political power, appalling health care standards and grueling, physical labour - day in, day out.

Indeed, trad wife culture feels like a full-circle moment in a number of ways, but that it ties itself to the mast of Kardashian culture (amassing followers online, sharing lifestyle tips, offering discount codes for products they endorse, etc.) is particularly interesting.

Either way, make no mistake about it: trad wife culture is simply one of thousands of ways in which women can get life wrong. It will go down in the annals alongside staunch feminists, prudes, stay-at-home mothers and sexualised popstars. Take your pick, the gang’s all here.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ.

What is a 'trad wife' - and what are they promoting?

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