CNN
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With their retro '50s hairstyles and cinched aprons, “tradwife” influencers have taken over a corner of the internet.
With content on homemade sourdough bread and 30-second videos that give you a glimpse into how they create the perfect home, these traditional wives are no ordinary housewives. They firmly believe in traditional gender roles. It means remaining devoted to the housework and caring for children, and being submissive to a working husband.
Enitza Templeton of Littleton, Colorado, lived the tradwife lifestyle for 10 years. She started baking at 4 a.m. and always started from scratch preparing her meals for the day. The mother of her four children did all the household chores while her husband focused only on earning an income.
Now that she's out of a “miserable” and “unfulfilling” life, Templeton is sharing her story with her social media followers and podcast listeners to inspire other women in similar situations who want a new life. trying to help.
“Social media can make everything look really beautiful because it's a 30-second clip, but if you have 30 seconds out of a decade, a lot of the ugliness in those relationships really gets cut out,” she says. I did.
Templeton, now 41, said she was raised as an evangelical Christian, believing that husbands had authority over their wives. But now, she's a divorced single mother of her own volition and an advocate for women who want to break free from relationship dynamics that can all too easily create extreme power imbalances.
Tradwife influencers romanticize and glorify the period before and immediately after World War II, when most women were housewives. There are also trade housewives who take a stand against the feminist movement, believing that women should focus on family life and only men should be in the workplace.
As with any relationship, a trade wife arrangement does not necessarily result in a happy couple without family problems. Ms. Templeton felt as if her daily menial tasks were meant to distract her from her lack of autonomy and independence, and the pressure to be perfect weighed on her. I'm here.
“Some people in traditional marriages are happy, absolutely happy,” said Christine Bolsmart-Ganey, a counselor and adjunct professor in the School of Human Services at Elon University in North Carolina. . She said: “It's a real high-risk situation where someone can become overwhelmed with their responsibilities and not be treated with respect or valued by a partner who is completely in charge of financial and other important decisions.” It's a situation.”
In the world of traditional wives, husbands have the authority when it comes to financial choices. However, the restrictions could be more far-reaching, with some women unable to leave their homes without permission and some relationships facing penalties. This arrangement leaves room for financial abuse, where all the money and power is placed over the other partner's head, and emotional abuse, which leads to one partner losing their sense of agency and self-confidence, said the certified counselor. said Suzanne DeJesus White, professor and chair of the association. Department of Counseling and Higher Education, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.
“It can give a tremendous amount of power to the working partners. … It should be a shared partnership,” Deges-White said. “We should all be encouraged to have this sense of agency, which means we can be active, feel in control of our lives, and feel the power we need to contribute to the greater good.” You can do things.”
At 24, Templeton began to feel pressure to get married as soon as possible. She got married at the age of 26 and soon after her first child was born, she quit her job and became a housewife.
“I was just doing the next thing in life because I thought that's what you're supposed to do. And I thought that's when the happiness in my life would begin,” Templeton said. Ta.
Templeton had always wanted to be a mother, and even after the birth of her first child, she felt empty and alone. “I started thinking, “Oh, maybe I should have more kids. I'm not enough of a mother. I just need more kids who really flex my motherly muscles, and then I'll be completely satisfied.'' To do.”
Templeton's eldest son is only six years older than her youngest. However, she still felt unfulfilled, and communication between the couple decreased. Ms Templeton sought support from a therapist, who helped her realize what was “wrong” in her relationship.
“Every time something is glamorized, you have to seriously question whether it exists in reality. …You run the risk that the other person has your best interests at heart, and you actually have expectations.” So you're abdicating your responsibility to yourself,” Bolsmart-Ganey said.
Templeton realized that her relationship was making her unhappy and began taking steps to become independent after her divorce. She found her job despite having a 10-year gap on her resume and arranged her financial situation so that she could take care of herself and her four children.
Starting over at age 37 was tough, Templeton said. But after receiving food stamp assistance and getting a job at his children's school, he said he began to notice that his expenses were actually going down, now that he was now his only source of income. for her and her four children.
When she ended her traditional marriage, she said, she immediately felt a sense of relief. Templeton advises other women still living that lifestyle to think back to when they were young and ask themselves if this is really what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives. There is.
“You don't want your entire identity to be wrapped up in one thing. We want diverse identities,” said Dr. Kelly Campbell, interim vice president and co-chair of diversity at California State University, San Bernardino. . “It's good to have a very satisfying and loving relationship, but you can't lose your identity through that relationship.”
Campbell said it's important to maintain strong relationships with friends and family so you have a support system in place if your marriage doesn't work out. Several tradwife influencers say they don't see the need to have a backup plan, but they do at least have an idea of how they'll get their income if their circumstances change unexpectedly. Templeton says it's important to keep things in check.
“I wonder if my stay-at-home partner still has balance in their lives, remembers who they are as a person, and is able to pursue passions that interest them, not just their partner’s. “We want to make sure that,” said Campbell, a former psychology professor who has taught classes on interpersonal relationships and gender.
Maintaining open communication between partners and setting clear boundaries and expectations for the relationship also helps, Bolsmart-Ganey said.
Alexia Delarosa is currently living the lifestyle of a traditional wife. Although she doesn't label herself a tradwife, people often associate her with the depictions of her traditional home life that she shares on social media, something she has made no attempt to correct. I haven't.
Dela Rosa now happily embodies a traditional lifestyle. Her husband works and she stays at home with her children. But she doesn't think that lifestyle is suitable for everyone.
“I don't think there's one way to live, and I don't think there's one way to have a family dynamic that works,” Delarosa said. “Every family is completely different.”
Delarosa always knew she wanted to be a mother, but as she got older, her vision for the lifestyle began to emerge in her head. “I wanted to be that kind of person who is with them. And, you know, doing all the activities, cooking, baking and all the other good stuff. I mean, that was always the plan. And fortunately, it worked out well for my family.”
Her advice to women who want or are currently living a similar lifestyle is to make sure both partners have matching goals and visions. And discuss early on what is expected.
For those living the tradie wife lifestyle, she said it's important to not put too much pressure on yourself and ask for help when you need it, while also giving your partner grace.
“Everything isn't perfect all the time, and it's easy to make it seem that way, on social media,” De La Rosa said. “I definitely have high standards for myself and set my own standards for how I want my day to go, how I want things to end, and how I want things to look.'' We're trying to achieve that vision. But it's not the end of the world if we don't reach our goal every time.”
Delarosa earns other income from her social media accounts, but she said it depends on the relationship and situation as to whether she needs a backup plan. She said, “Everyone just needs to look at their own situation and find out what they need.”
Delarosa said there is no one right way to live, whether you identify as a traditional wife or a feminist. “This is what I do personally, what works for our family, and I love it. And if you disagree with it, that's okay. And you If you love it too, that's great. We have something in common.”
Although Ms. Templeton was raised to believe in the lifestyle of a businesswoman, she made sure that her daughters grew up understanding that they had options, and that they were interested in them when they were older. Facilitating conversations about jobs you might have.
Templeton believes it's important for children to understand that mothers aren't always perfect, and frequently shares this message and other advice about motherhood on her podcast, Emerging Motherhood. I am.
“Putting a mother on a pedestal of perfection is literally bad for everyone, for the whole world, because if she falls – and she's human, she will fall – the higher she falls, the more hurt she will be. ,” Templeton said.
Templeton posted her experience on TikTok in January, and her video quickly went viral, receiving more than 2 million views. The video attracted comments from other people who had similar experiences. “I got my degree before I had my son. And thankfully, yeah, he left me too,” one user commented. “That's how life was for a trad wife. Now they're divorced and the six of them are rebuilding,” another commented.
Since then, Templeton has made several videos answering questions about her life as a tradie wife and how she left it, and her podcast focuses on advice for single mothers.
“I do this work to inspire others, but also because so many people continue to inspire me to keep doing it,” Templeton said. “It was my salvation.”
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