This has always been my concern with the tradwife movement. I can certainly see why there would be appeal but you need to be very cautious of who you want to be a tradwife to. You create a lot of dependence on your partner, You sacrifice a lot of power, and once you start doing this it becomes increasingly difficult taking it back.
Even with the perfect partner to be a tradwife to. You don't remove the problems with dependence. You can argue that "well I have full faith my partner and I will stay together" but at any point it can all get taken away.
With two partners a single layoff sucks, but you can stay afloat much better than two layoffs. It's like a two engine and a single engine plane. A two engine has redundancy, it can limp. Single engine becomes a glider after failure.
Speaking of failure, doesn't matter how angelic your partner is, heart failure will kill them and wreck your life too. Then you have life insurance but no resume or job experience. Hope you saved.
It's genuinely kind of infuriating, because start mixing in handywork, house repair, landscaping, childcare, cooking, cleaning, organizing, with the recently added 3dprinting, searching online for 2nd hand goods, volunteering within your community, a LOT of value should be getting generated... but none of it gets recorded... or removes your dependency on your partner.
I can certainly see why there would be appeal but you need to be very cautious of who you want to be a tradwife to. You create a lot of dependence on your partner, You sacrifice a lot of power, and once you start doing this it becomes increasingly difficult taking it back.
Hear hear.
I've seen so many older couples where the woman was 100% dependent on the man. He never allowed her to manage finances, have access to the bank accounts, pay bills, etc. and then after 30-40 years he leaves or dies, and then she's left without any life experience whatsoever and has no idea how to manage her own life.
Or, he's abusive, shitty, and terrible, but since she has no agency of her own or any idea of how to have that agency, she's trapped and can't even conceive of the idea of leaving him.
I’ve seen so many older couples where the woman was 100% dependent on the man. He never allowed her to manage finances, have access to the bank accounts, pay bills, etc. and then after 30-40 years he leaves or dies, and then she’s left without any life experience whatsoever and has no idea how to manage her own life.
That's the part that really kills it for me. Even if you have the absolute perfect couple, its got glaring flaws. It increases risk for higher... comfort? Because in high risk high reward, if it pays off you are more stable than you started. That doesn't happen with a tradwife couple. You constantly have a higher risk, but a nicer house, a warmer family, better food, more involved community. (Again, I'm assuming the absolute perfect couple. I'm not even considering the power dynamics.) Which... it's bizarre because that all should be worth it but... it topples so much easier. Even in the best case.
Like... this seems straight up like a flaw in society.
It also doesn’t help that this is a self-selecting group. I know I wouldn’t trust anyone who says this what they want in a partner, as the venn diagram between partners who want this and those who treat their partners poorly has more than a little overlap. Like cops and domestic abuse.