Trad Wife Equals Bad Wife? - by Rev. Matthew Littlefield

 The first time I heard of the trad wife trend, several years ago, I was like, “Oh, that’s interesting, good to see that catching on.” But then I looked a little bit closer at it and realized, that it was just another way for women who want attention to get attention. There is nothing traditional about turning your quiet home life, or homesteading life, into an online social media movement.

I have not followed this movement closely, because following such people does not interest me. But also because it was obvious where such a movement was going to go. Some of these women would turn out to be frauds. Others would publicly deconstruct their traditional family lifestyle and go full open feminist. Others would have been planted in the movement to do just this, so that many young, impressionable wives were motivated to upturn their family life. Others would just become generally disillusioned by the movement and seek to go the way of many modern normie women. And the true traditional wives, the ones whose way of life has been appropriated for social media stardom and attention, would simply keep plugging away in their family homes, caring for and raising their children, and honouring their husbands, blissfully unaware of the grifting these social media starlets were doing.

Low and behold, where are we now? Evelyn Rae from Caldron Pool notes,

“It now seems like hardly a few months pass without another self-styled traditionalist influencer being exposed as a fraud. We’ve all seen it happen. A carefully curated online persona proclaiming modesty, order, submission, virtue, and family values, followed by the sudden unveiling of a gross, double life. The warning from the Book of Numbers proves inescapably true: “be sure your sin will find you out” (Num. 32:23).

But why does this keep happening? And why does it seem particularly common in the world of “trad” or conservative influencers?...

…The Corrupting Power of Recognition

There is also another factor rarely acknowledged. The intoxicating effect of even minor fame......

https://revmatthewlittlefield.substack.com/p/trad-wife-equals-bad-wife?publication_id=1182452&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=y7h5a&utm_medium=email 

....This does not mean that woman should not be contributing to the public culture, not at all. But wherever you see women making themselves the focus, or men for that matter, you should see serious problems.

In reality if you and your wife are living a simple, traditional life, her focus will much more centre around the home, than it will in public presence and attention. In the case of some women God has used them to bless other women in society, and they have a genuine positive influence, but this not the norm. The norm is that many women, and men, see online presence as an arena with a low bar of entry with which they can attempt to get attention for dubious reasons. A movement like this was bound to attract such bad elements. When a woman is seeking attention about herself from others, especially men, then you know that she is going to end in disaster. When a woman is seeking to stand for something, that is different. But overall, this trend was always going to end in disaster.