Were Tradwives Always a Myth? (Famous Tradwives Disavow Label)

Simone and Malcolm break down the alleged tradwife exodus and explain why the entire aesthetic was never an authentic return to 1950s life. They trace its roots to progressive cottagecore trends, BDSM roleplay, and online fantasy rather than any genuine historical model. The discussion covers high-profile influencers distancing themselves from the label, the straw-man portrayal in the novel Yesteryear, rising ex-trad wife creators, and how AI-driven unemployment will fuel more homemaking content without reviving any real trad movement.

Show Notes

The Tradwife Fanfiction

I started seeing signs of the shift with the April debut of Yesteryear, which was a huge hit (and even before the book came out, Amazon MGM Studios bought the rights to it; Anne Hathaway will both star in and produce it). When I read it, I mentally referred to it as “Strawman: The Musical.”

It is an utter piece of trash, not just because it gives off the air of written by someone incapable of modeling other people (and this is coming form an AUTISTIC PERSON incapable of picking up fundamental social cues), but because it doesn’t even try to explore what tradwife influencers actually are.

Some notes:

* On the author, Caro Claire Burke

* She does not appear to have children and it really shows

* She makes the main character seem like someone who is secretly living a nightmare the moment she became a mother

* Like, she wanted the baby to die when she became a mother

* And postpartum depression is real, but what she describes seems like something very different

* Yet somehow this character has SIX KIDS and no interest in raising any of them