āTrad wivesā are becoming more popular for young women. What to know.
The ātrad wives,ā or a traditional wife lifestyle gained popularity on social media. Now more young women are exploring the alternative lifestyle.
Ariana Triggs and Claire Hardwick, USA TODAY
MeghanĀ Montelibano-Gorman, 32, didn’t know what to do after she had her first baby in 2021. She’d always been a hard worker and never saw herself as a stay-at-home mom. But she didn’t want to miss out on her son’s early milestones, either.
She said she felt like she had to choose between two camps of womanhood regularly blasted in movies, politics and social media: The “girl boss” or the “trad wife.”
Four years and another baby later, Montelibano-Gorman said she realizes how “totally naive and oblivious” she was to the realities and nuances of motherhood. She wants to forge her own path ā one that allows her to see all of her babies’ firsts, work part time and create an online parent community that goes against the typical “momfluencer” trends.
“Iāve tried to really consciously, kind of, shift the paradigm,” she said. “I canāt have it all, I know that. But I can have little bits here and there.ā
From working moms breaking down in their cars after dropping their kids at child care, to stay-at-home moms putting on eyeliner and lipstick to bake bread from scratch, TikTok’s picture of motherhood looks overwhelmingly binary. But while working mom and trad wife stereotypes reign online and in popular culture, many moms fall somewhere in between those two tropes. Still, the damage those images create can be long-lasting, experts say.
The “false binary” of motherhood distracts from the need to truly value care work, said Elissa Strauss, author of “When You Care,” who writes about the politics and culture of parenting and caregiving. For some moms, it also limits what they feel comfortable sharing with other moms about their experience in motherhood.
āI do love parenting,” Strauss said. “But I feel like the second I say that out loud, Iām a trad wife.ā
While some moms acknowledge that picture-perfect images of motherhood on social media are performative, a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research in 2023 found “the bombardment of these idealized images” led moms to criticize themselves and feel guilt or anxiety. There’s been pushback in recent years as more moms on social media show the chaos and compromise of parenthood, but still, past research suggests moms looking to social media for guidance are often left feeling insecure.
āIt puts us in a position of competition, as women. Or that there is, like, some sort of āright wayā or āwrong wayā to be a mother,ā saidĀ Emily Klear, marriage and family therapist and director of adult psychotherapy services at The Family Institute at Northwestern University.
And promoting a fairytale image of motherhood “creates deep, real pain for mothers,” Strauss said, even if they know what they’re seeing is just entertainment.
There aren’t just two sides to motherhood, Strauss said. āBut somehow these are these categories that are thrusted upon women and I think theyāre distorting the conversation and distorting the actual efforts to create real stability and support for moms.ā
Motherhood: ‘You’re just surviving.’
Lindsey Schubkegel, a 38-year-old mom in the Chicago suburbs, left her full-time job as a senior billings specialist when her son, Levi, was born in 2023. She still works part time styling hair, but said she relates more to the trad wives on TikTok than the working moms.
“I don’t believe it,” Schubkegel said of those videos. Whenever someone posts photos or videos trying to show how “perfect” their life is, she said, all she sees is “a giant red flag.”
Most days, Schubkegel said she doesn’t have time to do her makeup or follow a strict schedule. A lot of the time, she said, “you’re just surviving.”
Still, Schubkegel thinks there are grains of truth in the girl boss/trad wife binary. Some women are more drawn to domestic life, she said.
Schubkegel said her own decision to leave the workforce put her family in a financial bind. But the cost of child care, which she said could have been $2,500 a month in her area, wasn’t worth the time she’d have to spend away from her son.
āI honestly feel like you either have crazy mom guilt for working,” she said, “or you have this feeling of, like, holy cow, how are we going to make it this month, financially?ā
Montelibano-Gorman said she used to have a lot of her identity wrapped up in work. It’s taken a lot of effort for her to reprioritize her life and unlearn societal expectations of what work should look like, she said. Now that she works part time as a marketing consultant while raising her two children, she often tells her clients that her kids might make noise in the background.
She’s been pleasantly surprised to find her clients welcome her authenticity.
Finding real connections is the best antidote, experts say
Montelibano-Gorman’s Instagram page is full of ideas for fun things families can do with their kids in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she lives. Montelibano-Gorman said her account isn’t about her morning routine or painting a picture of her everyday life. And it’s certainly not about pitting different kinds of mothers against each other. It’s about sharing resources and building community.
āThis āversusā dichotomy really frustrates me, because weāre all just having a hard time, I think, as women,” Montelibano-Gorman said. “I think, no matter what, on either side of it, itās hard. There are challenges. And itās just the patriarchy, at the end of the day, thatās trying to pit women, birthing folks, against each other.āĀ
Schubkegel said her network of mom friends runs the gamut among stay-at-home moms, single moms, working moms and other parents. She said they lean on each other often, asking parenting questions and finding support in each other’s stories.
āThat really helps, having a group of women that are also going through the same thing you are at that moment,” she said.
What moms and all parents really need to thrive, Klear said, is better parental leave policies, access to high quality child care, workplace flexibility and “more nuanced space for what women can do and be.”
And when it comes to social media consumption, there are things moms can do to feel more connected and less competitive. Set a time limit, Klear said, and ask yourself: “What do I get out of this?” Klear said she benefits from the recipes some content creators post, and finds good tips on time management. Chima Hope-Lubin, a marriage and family therapist at BetterHelp, agreed setting time limits can help. Finding a supportive community is key, and if all else fails, get offline.
It’s easy to get sucked into the fantasies of influencer content, Strauss said, especially since a lot of content creators are affirming what many mothers want to hear: that caring for kids is meaningful.
Madeline Mitchell’s role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership withĀ PivotalĀ andĀ Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Reach Madeline atĀ memitchell@usatoday.comĀ andĀ @maddiemitch_Ā on X.
