The tradwife content I have seen is very judgmental - their message is that someone (God?) thinks that women as homemakers is the right way to live. It is very evangelical in its high production efforts and that is what I have a problem with. Women who have no way to support themselves outside the marriage can find themselves and their children in a very vulnerable position if the man turns abusive or leaves them. The courts too often favor the abuser.
The Baffler article is excellent - I love how it goes from Ballerina Farm to Evie to Great Reset conspiracies and back to the farm. Starting the piece with the hours of preparation to create *a single* meatball hero that is then consumed on camera bite by bite by each family member is *perfection*.
I didn't catch any ridicule of cooking at home or eating fresh foods in the article (the author goes out of her way to talk about the impacts of corn subsidies on American diets), but instead a broad condemnation of the way being present with your family and cooking at home is rapidly becoming an unattainable dream for the majority of Americans who have no savings and will work themselves to death.
As the article writes in closing: "The question, as always, is who this civilization is for, and who it will leave behind."
I don't find anything objectionable about the choices, but I am incredulous about the characterizations of "traditional." Some of those who are most strident in staking out a corner of history need to be more curious about actual history. It would be no less traditional for us to eat in taverns and never set foot in a kitchen.
Yes. And the fact that "traditional" changes based on what your point of reference is! Like, I consider myself more "conservative" and am a homemaker myself, but let's be honest..... the Industrial Revolution changed SO much. Traditional before that would most likely mean a whole family living and working together! So these expectations that mom's gonna be doing EVERYTHING (childcare, homemade meals, maybe educating kids, running a business or whatever) by herself is just a recipe for shame, disappointment, and exhaustion. The husband would have been around to be part of that family unit's flourishing in a more concrete, daily way. In addition to having a built-in village of some sort.
I loved the way Mary Harrington explained it here, and how the rise of different types of modern work could allow for more varied different family setups & flourishing: https://ifstudies.org/blog/is-there-hope-for-marriage
This kinda reminds me of GK Chesterton's commentary arguing that women shouldn't work outside the household on the premise that men also shouldn't work outside the household, for very much the reasons you listed.
Along what you suggest, traditionalism, when blind to the conditions of the modern world, basically ends up as a kind of moralistic roleplaying, rather than anything. It's why the image of the 1950s housewife died so quickly, since the need for a full-time homemaker in the vein had been made largely redundant by technological advances, and so seemed arbitrary. It's a shame we couldn't have found a better role for spouses in a single-income household, rather than just lump everyone into the rat race of modern employment (with all the detrimental societal effects therein).
I sometimes wonder if this is another reason a lot of our social institutions are failing. Single-income households means having someone available for more volunteer opportunities that simply aren't well addressed by either the market or government. Now they compete for ever shrinking time between work and entertainment. Heck, I myself wish I could prioritize more time for these things, but the demands of a full time job really drag one down.
Man thank you for this. I’m a big fan of this blog. The mocking and dunking I agree is a little over the top. Who cares? Let people live their lives. Let people enjoy what they enjoy. I think people are fascinated partly because these kinds of domestic arts are dying out, so rare.
It is fascinating to see the domestic arts revived, and if people truly just love them and want to pass them on to their kids -- that's an objective good, social media posturing aside. haha A lot of the attraction is certainly the fascination of a different kind of life.
I mean… this is what a lot of people used to have to do in order to eat food. The fact that it’s potentially trendy content fodder for the internet these days is weird.
I also don’t get the hostility to family dinners. It’s like many of the upper middle class journalists had such distant parents and siblings (everyone was too busy working or doing extracurriculars and studying) that they are shocked that families actually want to spend time together and actually even like each other at least some of the time.
Homesteading is not for everyone, but I think one of the biggest mistakes we made in education was getting rid of home economics on feminist grounds. It should have been made compulsory for all high schoolers, boys and girls instead. Everyone needs to know how to cook a couple of decent meals, how to wash up, basic laundry and stain removal, a little personal finance and how and why to clean basic home fixtures, replace a lightbulb... You can’t assume kids are going to learn it at home. Even rich kids who’s parents can afford to outsource these tasks still need to know this stuff!
I didn't learn how to cook until I left home. I could follow directions on a box, but I had no idea what it meant to actually cook potatoes, or meat, or put together a meal that was more than mixing everything together into a casserole. Because that's not something my parents really ever showed me. I also eventually taught myself how to mend clothing, how to garden, a lot of typically "feminine" tasks.
On the other hand, I could do my laundy, use a lawn mower, change the oil in my car, etc.
Everyone ends up with holes in their practical knowledge (my mother never had to change the battery in a smoke detector??), and things they CHOOSE not to do (my mother again, but with cooking) but as a parent, I consider it part of my job to teach as many of those skills as I can, so that my kids won't feel intimidated by the "real world".
This is very true and I even have my 2 and 4 yr old ‘helping’ with dusting, laundry and cooking. The love hanging out with Dad in the garage and watch him change lightbulbs. Not that we have to do that very often with LEDs anyone.
On the other, hand my mother-in-law *still* has her home economics ‘bible’ and refers to it for some basic recipes, on a techniques she doesn’t use often and stain removal. She still follows the very simple cleaning method when taking on a room. Now I do too! I know YouTube has most things like that, but there’s something about a book that is just easier sometimes than having to scroll YouTube and judge if the creator is actually right and helpful.
Yes to everythingggg here, especially that last paragraph!
And yeah, I am always shocked when people react to eating as a family.... daily (or almost daily).... like it's some weird, ancient custom. Like, no it's not at all. lol Very healthy to prioritize it, in fact.
Some of my kids' friends definitely think it's weird (but good) that our family eats dinner together most nights. With teenagers in various activities that bleed over through dinner time, it's not EVERY day anymore, but it's still our usual pattern.
For sure. And I've heard people say that sometimes there's a season where the "meal together" might be breakfast or lunch, depending on the family. But the principle is there!
This reminded me of my parents telling us about “New York people.” My Dad got head hunted by a large consulting firm based their and the got married and moved to New York City for 2 years, until my mum got pregnant with me! They impressed ALL their NYC friends by… cooking a cake from scratch and having flour in their pantry. “Oh you actually cook??” Was the incredulous exclamation. Apparently everyone in Manhattan eats out or buys conviene dinners. Even families! It’s so weird and even now that kind of non-cooking culture has only just started to come up in inner city areas. But even then it’s still the height of privledge to be able to not cook.
This strange trend to mock anything that’s healthy and wholesome includes the headdesk-inducing take that fitness is somehow right-wing. Only obese junk-food addicts can be for social justice now.
I hope you are able to keep up your routine once you have kids! We still make most meals at home but it's a lot more cooking big meals on Saturday and Sunday and eating leftovers through the week now. Also cooking used to be something we did together but now at best it's one of us running interference on the kids so the other can prep a meal.
Thank you for normalizing cooking at home and eating meals as a family, Addison. It's better for our bodies, better for the planet, and better for our relationships.
The tradwife content I have seen is very judgmental - their message is that someone (God?) thinks that women as homemakers is the right way to live. It is very evangelical in its high production efforts and that is what I have a problem with. Women who have no way to support themselves outside the marriage can find themselves and their children in a very vulnerable position if the man turns abusive or leaves them. The courts too often favor the abuser.
The Baffler article is excellent - I love how it goes from Ballerina Farm to Evie to Great Reset conspiracies and back to the farm. Starting the piece with the hours of preparation to create *a single* meatball hero that is then consumed on camera bite by bite by each family member is *perfection*.
I didn't catch any ridicule of cooking at home or eating fresh foods in the article (the author goes out of her way to talk about the impacts of corn subsidies on American diets), but instead a broad condemnation of the way being present with your family and cooking at home is rapidly becoming an unattainable dream for the majority of Americans who have no savings and will work themselves to death.
As the article writes in closing: "The question, as always, is who this civilization is for, and who it will leave behind."
I don't find anything objectionable about the choices, but I am incredulous about the characterizations of "traditional." Some of those who are most strident in staking out a corner of history need to be more curious about actual history. It would be no less traditional for us to eat in taverns and never set foot in a kitchen.
Yes. And the fact that "traditional" changes based on what your point of reference is! Like, I consider myself more "conservative" and am a homemaker myself, but let's be honest..... the Industrial Revolution changed SO much. Traditional before that would most likely mean a whole family living and working together! So these expectations that mom's gonna be doing EVERYTHING (childcare, homemade meals, maybe educating kids, running a business or whatever) by herself is just a recipe for shame, disappointment, and exhaustion. The husband would have been around to be part of that family unit's flourishing in a more concrete, daily way. In addition to having a built-in village of some sort.
I loved the way Mary Harrington explained it here, and how the rise of different types of modern work could allow for more varied different family setups & flourishing: https://ifstudies.org/blog/is-there-hope-for-marriage
This kinda reminds me of GK Chesterton's commentary arguing that women shouldn't work outside the household on the premise that men also shouldn't work outside the household, for very much the reasons you listed.
Along what you suggest, traditionalism, when blind to the conditions of the modern world, basically ends up as a kind of moralistic roleplaying, rather than anything. It's why the image of the 1950s housewife died so quickly, since the need for a full-time homemaker in the vein had been made largely redundant by technological advances, and so seemed arbitrary. It's a shame we couldn't have found a better role for spouses in a single-income household, rather than just lump everyone into the rat race of modern employment (with all the detrimental societal effects therein).
I sometimes wonder if this is another reason a lot of our social institutions are failing. Single-income households means having someone available for more volunteer opportunities that simply aren't well addressed by either the market or government. Now they compete for ever shrinking time between work and entertainment. Heck, I myself wish I could prioritize more time for these things, but the demands of a full time job really drag one down.
Man thank you for this. I’m a big fan of this blog. The mocking and dunking I agree is a little over the top. Who cares? Let people live their lives. Let people enjoy what they enjoy. I think people are fascinated partly because these kinds of domestic arts are dying out, so rare.
It is fascinating to see the domestic arts revived, and if people truly just love them and want to pass them on to their kids -- that's an objective good, social media posturing aside. haha A lot of the attraction is certainly the fascination of a different kind of life.
I mean… this is what a lot of people used to have to do in order to eat food. The fact that it’s potentially trendy content fodder for the internet these days is weird.
I also don’t get the hostility to family dinners. It’s like many of the upper middle class journalists had such distant parents and siblings (everyone was too busy working or doing extracurriculars and studying) that they are shocked that families actually want to spend time together and actually even like each other at least some of the time.
Homesteading is not for everyone, but I think one of the biggest mistakes we made in education was getting rid of home economics on feminist grounds. It should have been made compulsory for all high schoolers, boys and girls instead. Everyone needs to know how to cook a couple of decent meals, how to wash up, basic laundry and stain removal, a little personal finance and how and why to clean basic home fixtures, replace a lightbulb... You can’t assume kids are going to learn it at home. Even rich kids who’s parents can afford to outsource these tasks still need to know this stuff!
I didn't learn how to cook until I left home. I could follow directions on a box, but I had no idea what it meant to actually cook potatoes, or meat, or put together a meal that was more than mixing everything together into a casserole. Because that's not something my parents really ever showed me. I also eventually taught myself how to mend clothing, how to garden, a lot of typically "feminine" tasks.
On the other hand, I could do my laundy, use a lawn mower, change the oil in my car, etc.
Everyone ends up with holes in their practical knowledge (my mother never had to change the battery in a smoke detector??), and things they CHOOSE not to do (my mother again, but with cooking) but as a parent, I consider it part of my job to teach as many of those skills as I can, so that my kids won't feel intimidated by the "real world".
This is very true and I even have my 2 and 4 yr old ‘helping’ with dusting, laundry and cooking. The love hanging out with Dad in the garage and watch him change lightbulbs. Not that we have to do that very often with LEDs anyone.
On the other, hand my mother-in-law *still* has her home economics ‘bible’ and refers to it for some basic recipes, on a techniques she doesn’t use often and stain removal. She still follows the very simple cleaning method when taking on a room. Now I do too! I know YouTube has most things like that, but there’s something about a book that is just easier sometimes than having to scroll YouTube and judge if the creator is actually right and helpful.
Yes to everythingggg here, especially that last paragraph!
And yeah, I am always shocked when people react to eating as a family.... daily (or almost daily).... like it's some weird, ancient custom. Like, no it's not at all. lol Very healthy to prioritize it, in fact.
Some of my kids' friends definitely think it's weird (but good) that our family eats dinner together most nights. With teenagers in various activities that bleed over through dinner time, it's not EVERY day anymore, but it's still our usual pattern.
For sure. And I've heard people say that sometimes there's a season where the "meal together" might be breakfast or lunch, depending on the family. But the principle is there!
This reminded me of my parents telling us about “New York people.” My Dad got head hunted by a large consulting firm based their and the got married and moved to New York City for 2 years, until my mum got pregnant with me! They impressed ALL their NYC friends by… cooking a cake from scratch and having flour in their pantry. “Oh you actually cook??” Was the incredulous exclamation. Apparently everyone in Manhattan eats out or buys conviene dinners. Even families! It’s so weird and even now that kind of non-cooking culture has only just started to come up in inner city areas. But even then it’s still the height of privledge to be able to not cook.
This strange trend to mock anything that’s healthy and wholesome includes the headdesk-inducing take that fitness is somehow right-wing. Only obese junk-food addicts can be for social justice now.
I hope you are able to keep up your routine once you have kids! We still make most meals at home but it's a lot more cooking big meals on Saturday and Sunday and eating leftovers through the week now. Also cooking used to be something we did together but now at best it's one of us running interference on the kids so the other can prep a meal.
Thank you for normalizing cooking at home and eating meals as a family, Addison. It's better for our bodies, better for the planet, and better for our relationships.