S4E29 Tradwives conversations are delusional and the new grift

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Transcript

Speaker 2 (0s): Bow and bowties. Good morning. I have about 20 good minutes so I'm gonna see if I can get through this quickly. You guys saw the thumbnail that came with this talking about the tribe wives. And although I find it somewhat fascinating and humorous, I still think there's something to be said. I think much of the content that's out there is rather delusional because I don't think people are being honest I, think it's just one big grift. I see some of these influences out there. I don't even know how I got on the tra wife freaking I guess algorithm, but I'm there now and so I just think that much of it is like one big grift But.

anyway, I'm going to sit here and put up a couple of tiktoks that you can see while I eat my non scratch Eggo Waples. And you may hear my kids in the background making noise because this is real life as a mom and I work, so I'm not really a tribe wife. But I'm just gonna throw up a couple of things and I'll make my commentary here and there. Let me see

Speaker 3 (1m 25s): All that working. What did it get me?

Speaker 2 (1m 33s): I'm gonna put that up again.

Speaker 3 (1m 36s): All that working, what did it get me?

Speaker 2 (1m 44s): Okay, so we're gonna go ahead and and toss that one.

Speaker 4 (1m 48s): I used to be a tri wife and now I'm a single mom. It all started back when I was a teen mom. I was 19 years old when I got pregnant. I was not married when our daughter was like a week old. We just eloped at the courthouse and made it signed, sealed and delivered. We were married. I was married to a military man and my job was to be a wife and a mom. I wasn't supposed to have any time or any thoughts about doing anything other than being a wife and a mom.

I love my kids very dearly and I do not regret my decisions to have them. I do regret my decision to pick the partner that I picked to be their dad and to be my ex-husband. I had very low self-worth and self-esteem and thought that I was only good at being a wife and a mom because that's what I was shown growing up. It wasn't until we were teenagers that my mom and ever started going to college. When she got married, she didn't have a college degree.

She was in the military and she did her four years in the Air Force. And my dad was a career military man and my mom just married him and became a tri wife. And don't get me wrong, tri wife life comes with perks. I think it's best when you pick the right partner. I've seen a video talking about stitch this and tell me why marriage is hard. Marriage is only hard when you pick the wrong partner. My ex-husband would make fun of my weight.

He would make fun of the little gap I have in between my two front teeth right here. Basically anything he could find to make fun of, he would make fun of it, but he would try to play it off as if it was just him being sarcastic and that we should make fun of each other. And don't get me wrong, I know there's couples out there like that and that is the way they show their love. And I am not passing any judgment on how anybody else lives their life. I just know for me, coming from a house where we never did that, it really sent me into like I would say emotional distress.

I wanted to laugh all of the things off, but deep down inside I knew all of the jokes were true. And

Speaker 2 (4m 12s): So, let me say this, I have seen this type of woman before and I usually have like a lot of people want to go in hard on women and say, oh, well you chose this person, right? but I do have some empathy. It is hard to be in situations where you witness this type of thing. I've seen this, I've seen, I've witnessed this behavior and I've had women tell me that their husbands would say certain things to them and I just thought that was so cringe.

Cringe. Okay, But. anyway, I'm gonna move on to another one 'cause I don't wanna be here all day. I'm just gonna show some clips. Let's see

Speaker 3 (4m 55s): All that work and what didn't get me

Speaker 5 (4m 58s): As a California divorce lawyer, I

Speaker 2 (4m 59s): Went so quickly

Speaker 3 (5m 1s): All that work. What didn't get me

Speaker 5 (5m 3s): As a California divorce lawyer, I don't,

Speaker 2 (5m 6s): Geez. Basically what she's saying is when you baked all this bread from scratch, gave birth to four kids and basically she ends up divorced. Now as I eat my Eggo waffle, which I haven't had in a while, that has not been baked from scratch, I'll let you listen to this lawyer.

Speaker 3 (5m 22s): All that work and what didn't get me

Speaker 5 (5m 24s): As a California divorce lawyer, I don't hate on Tradwives. I don't celebrate Tradwives, frankly, I just worry about them. One of the comments on the post that I stitched, kind of encapsulated why And? they said that you never see Tradwives in their forties on TikTok celebrating being a tra trad wife or stay at home mom or whatever. That's because you oftentimes find these women who are in their late thirties, early forties, still with school aged children in an office like mine, trying to figure out what options they have now that their marriage is over. That's when they discover they're gonna have to fight for every little bit of financial support that they get get.

And it's not gonna be nearly what they were living off of before. The children that they've grown accustomed to seeing every single day of their lives are now gonna be spending half their time in a house that they don't even get to enter. And if they were lucky to save up any financial resources, they're probably gonna be spending it on someone like me to fight for all of this tooth and nail. I see people comment things like, well that's why I went and got a college education and worked a little bit before I got married, so I'll be okay if things don't work out. 'cause you've been on the workforce so long, you can't get a job making that kind of income anymore.

Yet your ex and the court will kind of expect you to anyway because well, you have those credentials now. So how do we fix this? How do you still have that kind of life but protect yourself? This may surprise you, but the best way to protect yourself is with a prenuptial or even postnuptial agreement. This agreement will state that for every month that you stay home and take care of the kids or any other domestic duties, your husband will place a certain amount of money in a separate account under your name. And that that money will be your separate property. The amount of money is up to you, but my suggestion is always one half of whatever it would cost to hire someone to do the same kind of work that you're doing.

Now, the

Speaker 2 (7m 6s): Now, I mean he, he, he finishes up So. let me just say this. I have been saying to many people, there's nothing wrong with being a stay at home mom. There's nothing wrong with being a traditional wife. I will just stay at home mom for three years before I return to the workforce. But let me tell you something, it is scary to go from having a profession to not having your own, even though when your husband's making money, it's your money like together, right?

But when you're used to being independent and now you have to rely on your husband or somebody, guys, come on, go ahead, hurry up. So this is, this is, this is real life here. What you hear in the background is shenanigans happening. So when you have to rely on somebody, come on like, hurry up please. So anyway, when you have to rely on somebody, see what I'm saying?

When you have to rely on somebody, it becomes scary. And then when you leave the workforce for a period of time and try to get back into it, let me tell you something. I was really fortunate when I left the workforce. I left the workforce as an engineer. I was able to go back in as an engineer, but I took a financial pay cut. I took a huge pay cut. When I say huge pay cut, I was making less than entry level engineers. And I had experience, I had a lot of experience. Okay?

So with that being said, it took me a couple years before I can, I basically command the salaries. It's like a year and a half to two years before I was able to command the salary that, you know, I deserved. So when I would talk to women who were teachers, And, they had been outta the workforce for so long, they were so scared to go back 'cause they're afraid that they're gonna be deemed as incompetent and all these other things. And, they, I know one lady started off as a this, this was a woman who had full credentials, by the way, she had been outta the workforce for, I wanna say it was 11 years or 13 years.

So what she wound up doing was, Hey, sit down at that table the right way, please. So she wound up returning as a teacher's aide first. And I was like, holy cow. And you know, teachers are already not making the salary I think they deserve, but she started off make being like a, a teacher's aide or a tutor or I forgot what it was before she returned as a full-time teacher, because I've seen so many people, their self-esteem takes a hit. I've seen women that I knew when I was playing tennis, they relied on their husbands.

I know the one woman, her husband was a, some sort of financial hot shot. Like they were kind of like wealthy people. And when the divorce came, I don't think she, she hired a financial forensic, financial forensic accountant or whatever and then she couldn't find all the money. I don't know what he did with all of it, but let's just say it didn't work out well for her. And now she's like, well, what am I gonna do? This was a middle aged woman, really nice lady. She was like, I haven't worked in 15, 20 years and now, so I just wanted to throw that out there.

Let me just say this also for all these, so-called Tradwives out here promoting this lifestyle. The lifestyle isn't necessarily bad if this is what you want. I just think that people aren't being honest. I think that these influencers who are out there, what people are not seeing, it's like these influencers are getting paid. I believe many of these influencers are well off actually. So they have all day to sit there and make Cocoa Puffs from scratch. 'cause in real life, if you're trying to feed your child, if your child is hungry or sick or something and you gotta get them some toast or whatever it is, you're not gonna pull out your bread maker and spend hours making bread.

You're gonna go to the convenience of getting bread. So what you're seeing online is not realistic. Okay? What you're seeing online is a bunch of women thinking that they're going to bake in heels. It's not even realistic. And for the record, for those of you who are wondering, I'm not saying I'm the greatest cook, but let me tell you something. There are times I do bake things from scratch. Sometimes I make my own dough, make my own pizza. But a lot of the times I might just throw in a frozen one or put, you know, have it delivered or whatever.

But if I'm feeling some kind of wine, I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna make my pizza from scratch. With, with that being said, I, I don't think this is realistic. I'm gonna show a few more, okay? 'cause I think some of these women have some really interesting comments.

Speaker 7 (11m 49s): Okay, listen, I'm your typical trad wife, okay? I post Tread wife content. I have over 140 whatever thousand followers on Instagram. Not that I'm bragging, just trying to explain because I post Tri Wife content, okay? I understand the whole Tri Wife movement. I'm a part of it. Love it. Okay? One thing I do not understand is these videos being like, my toddler requested Cocoa Puffs and jam scones and toast for breakfast.

So now I'm gonna make everything from scratch and cook it all, and it's probably gonna take six hours. My toddler just asked for breakfast and it's gonna take me probably three to six hours to cook this total breakfast. And that's what, like, I'm sorry, but if I asked for toast for breakfast and my mom started making some bread, I would be pissed.

Speaker 2 (12m 46s): And so I actually, one of the talking points I just mentioned, it was funny because as I was watching everything this morning, and I just downloaded a few videos and I was like, who's baking bread every morning or whatever it is. And then I ran across her and I was like, oh my goodness, she's my people. I was like, she said it like she just said it, but I felt like it was better coming from her because she's living that tread of life life now.

Okay? So if I say it just seems like, oh, you're just a modern woman, blah, blah, blah. But I'm like, no, didn't, when I was home and my kids were like, eh, I was like, okay, you better take this. There are times, you know, like when you would buy like baby food, like you can make your own. but I would just buy organic. Sometimes they didn't even get their organic. If I was out and about and I need to grab something really quickly, I would just grab whatever was available. but I usually have my own stuff and you can make stuff, whatever. But the point I'm making is nobody's doing that. Let's see, what else?

Speaker 8 (13m 50s): So this is love.

Speaker 9 (13m 52s): All right? I saw this video like most people several days ago, and I have not been able to stop thinking about it since this video really struck a chord with me because it's, what happened is what happened to me. I am 27, I got divorced at 26 after I had done the trad wife thing. I got married at 19, I had three babies and then, and I was a stay at home mom. I dropped outta college, I didn't have a job.

So at 20, we separated when I was 25. So at 25 years old, I had nothing. I didn't have an education, I didn't have a work history. I, because of those two things, when we went to court over custody of our kids, he was able to point to those. He want, he asked me for the divorce, he fought for custody of the kids, given I had stayed home and taken care of these kids as my full-time situation for six years.

And he was able to say, you know, she doesn't have a job, she doesn't have an education. She, she lives with her mom and dad. She can't take care of these kids. And he got, he got primary custody of our kids. And so every video that I see now of trad wifes and people idealizing this lifestyle, I want, it makes my heart break. It like hits a cord with me because I did everything right.

I did all the things you were supposed to do, stay home and raise your babies and do all of that. And in the end, I got left out on my ass.

Speaker 2 (15m 41s): All right. So you, you saw that, I mean like, and I don't know the, the, the details over of her relationship, but what I will say, the, the beginning of that video, And, they had the, the words up on there is basically what I was saying. Imagine I think she said, what did she say it was?

Speaker 8 (16m 4s): So this is love.

Speaker 9 (16m 6s): All right, I just want,

Speaker 2 (16m 8s): And you have all these kids. Okay, so that's basically what she was saying. And so like I've seen, look, I have seen some of this stuff. And let me tell you, I was like, that will not be me, honey. That will not be me. Okay? Just a few more exclusively

Speaker 11 (16m 24s): In the home, you're working with no rights, no protection, no safety net. You are providing

Speaker 10 (16m 28s): Services. Yes, a hundred percent yes. I was a stay at home mom for my older two children and living with that person for over five years while raising our two older children. And he went to work and I got to stay home with the kids, which is something that I actually really wanted to do. I cooked, I cleaned, actually our oldest child was in the hospital, so I spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals day in and day out at the hospitals. And he was a great partner in all of that. But when I no longer wanted to be in that marriage, I had not furthered my career at all.

I had no 401k, I had no homes in my name. I had not built a rental house portfolio. I had never bought a home on my own, and I really had no resume at all. So when I got a divorce, I actually had to finish my college degree, which meant childcare, which meant going and getting loans and having absolutely no ability to get loans.

Speaker 2 (17m 24s): And so basically she, she's just talking about her whole life, like starting all over and it's like she didn't have anything. I've seen this. There's so many of these examples that are out there. People are like, I was young, I was beautiful. I did all these things for my husband. And then look, some of these women still look amazing. And it's not that it should be about looks, they're still beautiful women. Some of these women are amazing, but you know, the things that their relationship was built on. And now it's like they found a, the younger, fitter, hotter child.

Speaker 12 (17m 55s): We're talking about Tradwives again today. And oh my God, do I have a story for you? TikTok ruined my husband of 12 years now. He wants a trad wife and we're getting divorced. I'm gonna go through and summarize the article of basically that like they got married. They were never a traditional couple. They both worked, they both had the same hours at work. And all of a sudden he started watching trad wife content and idolizing a specific content creator and started making like mean, nasty, comparative comments to her and talking about how now he wants a submissive trad wife, even though she said she never wanted to be a homemaker or a stay-at-home mom, And, they had been living 12 years of their marriage with a very, very equal dynamic.

And all of a sudden he's becomes verbally abusive. He says he wants a submissive wife that he deserves better and yada, yada yada. He ends up contacting other women having emotional affairs, and now they're getting divorced, quote unquote, because he deserves better. Now, as someone who does have like a semi fifties aesthetic and is a stay-at-Home mom, I often get lumped into this idea of being a trad wife. but I wanna start off by saying there's nothing wrong with having traditional gender roles as long as that's something, as the woman you want to participate in and you feel safe and supported in doing so.

Same thing with dressing modestly. I don't think there's a problem with a woman choosing to dress modestly or a woman choosing to stay home with her children because that's how she feels the most fulfilled I. think the problem comes in when that's the type of woman a man is searching for, because usually they're doing that. To search for somebody who they can be dominant over and tra wife content can kind of lean into the fantasies of men like this. These men who are wishing to have this submissive dominant role within their marriages. And what you see online absolutely has an element of fantasy and cosplay that gets lost in the social media literacy of some of these viewers.

That is one of the reasons I take a lot of issue with trad wife creators on TikTok who talk about this being the idealized and natural role of a woman. Because although that might be right for you, making that a broad generalized statement can do some real harm to actual women and actual marriages like in that article.

Speaker 2 (20m 6s): All right, almost done. Sorry. So anyway, that, that's basically it. Oh, I have one more and then I'm gonna have to end this.

Speaker 13 (20m 14s): I just realized what it is about traditional wife or tra wife content that bothers me and probably so many other women that it's hard to put into words. It's the same reason why I don't make that type of content, even though you could consider me a t tra wife I think it has to do with the fact that, look, you know, if you really wanna talk about the experience of being a traditional wife, it doesn't look like this content that we're being shown with the 1950s housewife. Like that niche, right?

Where they're like cooking all day And, they make this beautiful breakfast and they're all glam in their hairs and rollers, And, they get dressed up for their husband because so many of us, and probably the majority of us, that is just not our experience as wives. Being a traditional wife is messy. It is little fingers under the door when we're trying to go to the bathroom. It's minty bees, it's, you know, the house being a mess when he gets home because they've gotten out every toy in the house because we actually played with them And, they played with each other.

It is homework. It's being late, it's shuttling kids from activity to activity. It's every time I need to do something for myself, my child didn't get something that they needed. This thing that's being put out on the internet. For most of us, the postpartum period isn't us all dressed up in a bad looking, beautiful, you know, with a photographer. This doesn't resemble the majority of our experience. So when we see this content, we have like this visceral reaction, like, my life doesn't look like that.

My life is messy. It's hard, it's postpartum depression, it's weight gain, and getting used to this new body, it is trying to have a relationship with my husband and be a good enough parent at the same time. And this content does not reflect, it is not relatable. So if it's not relatable, then what is it? It's fetish. That's what it is. It's fetish content. It is like soft core corn for men. So we're realizing that this content isn't for us.

And when this content is put out there and it's grabbing men's attention, it's like saying that that's what we should be like. And that's why it's offensive. So,

Speaker 2 (22m 39s): So, and I should't have uploaded these better and so that I can have it off to the side, but I was rushing But anyway. I just wanted to say she was spot on. I mean, like I, I hear so much like, look, I am fortunate that I get to live a certain way. I've met people, I've met so many, I won't say they had the 1950s aesthetic, but I've met some of the women who live these lifestyles. And I say many of them, I do think they're suffering from some self-esteem issues because they're being compared to other women, they're trying hard to live a certain way, look a certain way.

And it's really unfortunate because I feel like if these women were able to live authentically I, think that we would see a much better version of them, a much better human or whatever it is. Anyway, these aren't bad people. I just think that I see this a lot. I've seen so many, oh, something's pulling on my hair. Sorry. You guys can tell. I doing a couple of flexi rods and I didn't get a chance to do this the way I wanted.

So it is what it is. We're gonna rock with this today. It is what it is. So anyway, you was, man, this is really bad. Anyway, you, I just feel like we have to just recognize that what we see out there is just the, the, the most current grift, you know, people are making money off of this whole lifestyle that they're trying to glamorize. Hey, tell everybody, go get in a car. They're trying to glamorize it. And it's, it's silly I think being a traditional wife, there's nothing wrong with it. I. think how they're portraying it in social media.

I think that's the issue that I have. all right, well, look, I gotta go, I gotta run my kids to the bus stop and then I've gotta go be one of those modern women because I chose to have a career for myself so that I, I don't know, I just wanted to have something for myself. And it's not that I like working, it's, I have a way of supporting myself if something should happen, right? No, but in all honesty, it's, it's, it's the balance that we chose for our marriage.

Okay? So my husband had what we call the early shift. I have the bus shift on Tuesdays and Fridays, and actually he takes the lion chair of the shifts now because I've done it for so long. So he does Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday and sometime Fridays, but all right. Look, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, I'd love to hear them. This is a great opportunity for you guys to go ahead and subscribe and let me know what your thoughts are. I wish I could have had more time to prepare this way I wanted to, today, I was rushing, so that's why the videos are like in the middle of my video and I should have had this off to the side.

And this is the whole situation, however. All right, have a good one. Don't forget to subscribe.