S4E103 You better have agency in yourself | SAHM, tradwife.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 (0s): Good morning, both in bow ties. Alright, it's hump day Wednesday, hump day. And let me tell you, I really felt like Hump Day was yesterday. Seriously, if you only knew I was like, life was life yesterday. I was like, come on. Literally But. anyway, we move on. So I was not going to come on five this morning.

And I was in my kitchen making my coffee. I was giving my cat some cat treats, packed my lunch and I had TikTok on. you know, TikTok is truth all the time, right? So I happen to see this creator. Now I've seen this person several times and once I tell you what she does, you'll know exactly where this conversation is going. I. think she's an ex Mormon, ex tradwife.

I don't know if she's still Mormon But. anyway, long story short, she had stitched together. It was like a video clip of someone saying, Hey, if you're going to do a divorce, they said, make sure you have a job. Don't start looking for a job while being separated or something like that. And then she comes on and she talks about her story, what happened to her when she got married, but she never finished her education and was just throwing everything into her marriage and her husband. And then, you know, he wound up walking out on our, on the 19 1% of the stuff and she didn't have anything this's more to the story.

So, let me just say this. I've spoken about this type of thing before, several years ago when I was doing my channel and I didn't know the term was called, right? Like being a traditional wife, you know, tradwife support Mando of a traditional and wife. So I, I mean there is a difference between stay at home mom and a tradwife. I don't want to get into those differences here in this video.

Like I guess it could, but I don't want to. I need to focus on what I'm doing here. So anyway, so this woman gets on there, she talks about the things she went through while going through her divorce and, and, and continues to, to experience, you know, post being a, you know, post divorce, you said divorce setting. And let me just say this, for the blackout weirdo dudes who are getting ready to get in their feelings, this is not for you.

So you need to go ahead and click outta this video. This is for the women. Now listen to me. I am not against you being a stay at home mom. I am not against being a so-called traditional wife. Everybody do what you wanna do. I always say have agency in yourself that who knows what that looks like. But you need to have agency in yourself. So on the extreme end, I would say, you know, if you wanna be tradwife traditional wife and you're sitting on a $1 million in some sort of trust or whatever it is, I say, be that person, right?

Be that it's going up my temperature situation here. Just okay, be that. What I'm saying is when I tell you to have agency in yourself, I'm talking about you need to have control over your life. And that includes finances, that includes choices, that includes access. you know, I, I don't believe in putting everything on men in our current day and age.

Meaning like a lot of these men claim they want a traditional life and I don't believe that's what they want. Because there's a lot of responsibility that comes with being the head of the household. I was have stuff like, don't get me wrong, like my husband is the head of the household, but like, come on, I really run the house. So with that being said, I always say, you need to have agency in yourself. Now, this is what I will say, I do believe, regardless of whether you're working or not, you should educate yourself, preferably formal education.

But education doesn't necessarily mean you come out with an institutional degree. I mean, you need to pick up a set of skills that are transferrable outside of being a stay at home mom or a traditional wife. Anything can happen. you know, your, your husband can fall outta love with you. Maybe your husband falls, ill, maybe, maybe he, he spontaneously blows up. Like who knows, right?

You may be in a situation where you have to fend for yourself and it is nothing worse than a grown person able-bodied person who can't take care of themself, men or woman. There's nothing worse than a person who cannot make decisions because they haven't been empowered to make decisions. There's nothing worse than a person who can't see more for themselves or can't plan because all of that has been taken off the plate or whatever like that, right?

You need to have agency in yourself. I mean, when you think about it, it, it, it's for everybody really, right? Everyone should have agency in themselves. I look at young people, you know, you wanna be able to take care of yourself, you wanna be able to get off the teeth, you wanna be able to go find a skill, whether it's through a trade or formal education or something like that. So your parents aren't taking care of you when you're like 30.

You wanna be able to have agency in yourself care for yourself. It's a gift to yourself and to your loved ones. Not only in a present, but knowing that when they, you know, depart from this area, they know that you can take care of yourself. But for the women who are in such relationships where they are not bringing income, and I choose my words specifically for that because I do believe that they are performing domestic labor in the home.

So it's not that they're not working, but they may not be bringing in income. I always say you need to have agency in yourself. So whether you are given some sort of allowance or stipend or something like that, you should have that. You should have money going into a separate retirement account or something to that effect. Go talk to a financial advisor. They can give you all the specifics on that. I don't wanna speak to that type of thing because I am not an expert on that. I am also not staying at home.

I did that for a few years and then I returned to the workforce. I have my, and okay, it's gonna sound weird when I say I have my own retirement, but I do have retirement in my own name as well. Even though my husband and I, we are a unit, we are a partnership. I also have a retirement. So what I am saying is when I see women who stay home, I don't think there's anything wrong with them staying home that works for their family unit.

I, I have a problem when they don't have agency in themselves. I've seen this happen multiple times where they're like, I have access to all the accounts and blah, blah blah. I'm like, sure you do. And then the husband, I've seen this a few times, lock amount accounts or they just stop putting money in certain accounts because they earn the money, they put it in different accounts or lock them out or they transfer to a place that you can't get to. Now you now the woman has to go fi hire a forensic accountant like me.

So I always say you need to have agency in yourself. There were people who were surprised that my husband and I, so like we have an account that I'm on one of his accounts that I never even used I. think I've only accessed it two, three times 'cause I don't need to, I have full access with stuff. I mean I see it, it's linked to mine, but I don't. Well 'cause I bring income as well. I like have my own separate account. Part of the reason why that happened because the, the tip was for us to actually combine everything. But when we got married and it kind of happened by accident and we just never, I was going to close out some of my accounts and I was gonna be added to his accounts and everything like that.

And I remember when I first got married and I changed my name and everything like that, it was like weird because I was trying to access some of my, even like my old money and I forgot what it was. But there was an issue because of when you changed names and everything like that, all your identification, everything has to match up. And I remember I was having a hard time getting money because it was just, it was an administrative exercise and I was so irritated, you know, so I was like, screw it and, and I forgot exactly what the scenario was, but I wound up just keeping going, keeping my account open or account or whatever.

And I never actually closed it. And, they just kind of like stayed that way. And so I wound up 'cause what? Ha oh I know what it was. So the saving grace was because I had my cards like debit card or credit card or whatever like that. I was able to still move and do things so they could administratively fix things, if that makes sense. So if I was just do something online or just doing something, whatever, like I could swipe, but heaven forbid if I wanted to do something where it required me to like grab money or something like that, it was just a mess.

And so I still have my debit card. It was the whole thing was a mess. So anyway, and I wanna just keep my account. I mean never we just left it on. But the point I'm getting at is I've seen women go through scenarios where they're like, I'm on everything. I have access to everyth, you know, everything. I'm like, you are on everything and you have access to everything until you don't. If that makes sense. So a lot of people are like, you have a separate account. And I'm sitting here thinking like, this seems to be working just fine.

So even though I'm on a account with him, he sees my look, he sees my our counselor LinkedIn, there are other things going on. If I need him to log to my county can, whatever, and if he wants to get me, this will be, he can get me. The point I'm getting at is this, You need to have agency in yourself. It's not just the ability to have, it's having access to the accounts. It's maybe having income that's actually in your name.

If something happens to your husband, there's gonna be issue. Like for example, when someone passes away, when you share an account, you know they do lock those accounts down for a period of time because the person passed away or whatever like that. You always wanna have something that's in your name too, okay? So that you can move, that you can have access to things. A lot of people don't think about things like that unless rules have changed.

It, it, it can't do a whole lot with certain accountants when somebody has passed away I think there's like a freeze or something for a period of time. So I just say have agency in yourself. That means access. That means having money, that means educating yourself. you know, that means having transferable skills that are not just within the home. I'm not saying you have to have a job.

What I am saying is you wanna be able to, it, it'd be great if you could get a part-time job or something for you to just bring in income for yourself, right? And I'm not saying it has to be a lot of money, but it has to be something that if you need, I don't know, an emergency should something happen. I'm not saying you're planning for theise of anything, but what I do know is for myself, I have agency. Even if today I was completely wiped out, I have a set of skills, I have a set of skills, I have the capability of bringing in income.

I have the capability of in short order to say if everything was wiped out today, I could save up money in short order and put something aside and go secure a place to stay. It may not be at the standard that I want. I probably have to change, you know, some criteria. but I can do that. And then what I'm saying is to women out there whose dream is to be a stay at home mom, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I don't think there's a single thing wrong with it. I think when you surrender agency in yourself, that's when it becomes a problem. Some of the most successful men have very educated women on their arms. And I've spoken about this before, but you know why? Well for them that's their ego stroke, right? I was able to retire. My wife, you know, doctors so and so ever, but women passed on legacy.

So it is an honor for a woman to carry your child, your progeny. You wanna pass on, you know, your family name and all kinds of stuff like that. When you need a woman for, you need somebody who's educated too or knowledgeable to understand your values, care values. Hopefully you have to share, you know, you share the same values. If there's certain things you're trying to do. Think about all of these, those big names, these, these names that have remained in hidden power for so long.

These women would, would carry on the family legacy. They understand this is how we move in this world. This is how we keep wealth within the family, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I hope that made sense. This isn't a man bashing video. This, this, it has nothing to do with that. But you do want to have agency in yourself. You wanna have agency, you wanna make sure that you are still capable of making decisions, you have access to funds, you are capable of bringing income.

So you, you need to, you wanna be educated or have a set of transferable skills. You know, I remember when I was out of the workforce for about three years and I was so scared to return back to work. And I said, I never wanna have that feeling again. Nope. Sorry, I hate sneezing while driving.

Anyway, I said that I never wanted to have that feeling again. And you know, my husband and I, we have an agreement. It was like a, a loose agreement where like we don't really question what anybody's buying, but we don't just go out buying things. It's like crazy, right? Like that's just not how we get down. But when you start approaching, we have a limit. We have a limit. I think at one point we said it was a thousand dollars, but we have a limit if it gets all, like, I don't know if few hundred dollars we're like, I don't know, what do you think?

And we're both bringing in income even though we set our limit was like a thousand dollars. It could be like three, 400 US we're like, I just thought of so and so. Are you good with that? Like, you know what I mean? It's not that we don't trust each each other. It's more like courtesy and respect. But the cool thing about me being back in the workforce, not that I wanna work, you know, it allows me to have, and I hate to use this word power 'cause people are going to like try to take that and, and run with it, right?

But it gives me agency, so to speak, power in doing what I want to do. My husband also trusts that I'm not out here just buying crazy stuff, right? I'm not out here doing that. I don't do that kind of stuff at all. Anyway, for those of you who want to be stay at home moms or want to be a tradwife who are currently in a situation such as that, I would implore for you to figure out how do you gain agency in yourself If you don't have it.

If you have it, great, then this video is not for you. But if you don't have agency in yourself, meaning education, access to funds, the capability to possibly, Sorry, my thing, just my alarm went off. If you don't have agency in yourself, and that's basically access to access to, to funds via educating yourself, you know, to have transferable skills outside of the home and money.

And I'm not saying it has to be income, but it has to be some form of money. Whether you're getting some sort of allowance, save that, save it off. You need to have agency yourself. If you don't have agency in yourself, you need to figure out how do you wanna show up in this world? You need to figure out what do you need to do to get agency in yourself. That doesn't necessarily mean a job, but a part-time job could look like, I don't know, earning money through YouTube or something. I mean, I don't earn money through YouTube 'cause I'm not that good at it, right?

I don't dedicate a whole lot of cycles to it. I'm not talking about a whole bunch of salacious topics that are trendy and, and I, I film on the way to work, right? But you need to figure that out for yourself. And it doesn't mean that you don't trust your husband, but it does mean you have agency in yourself. You'll feel better about yourself. You'll look yourself in the mirror. And if you think you like yourself now, you'll like yourself or love yourself even more.

All right. That's all I've got. Go ahead and subscribe, leave the thumbs up and watch all my videos. 'cause they're all more amazing. They're so amazing....