Do you consider Tradwives to be Old Style?

Angel_Jenny

Just curious really with all the interest in housewives etc in the press this week.

To me, traditional is such a broad term and people seem to have strong views about it. In some ways I am traditional but I'm too modern for the super traditionalists

It would be nice if the old style values of thrift & reducing waste would be embraced more widely. x

VJsmum

Well, I am quite old-style but definitely not a trad wife.. so I guess not :rotfl:

PasturesNew

The trouble is the many variations of what it means.... and what that means ... and what that encompasses.

I think that the whole feminism thing was to make women equal to men, but women should also have a choice of whether they wanted to stay at home and just t1tfer about the house looking pretty all day. If they "married well" and have that luxury, why not.

I would

[Deleted User]

It depends on why people decide to live that lifestyle. When we got married there were few nurseries that would take babies while parents went back to work so wives usually stayed home to be the child carer and it was the norm for the wife to do virtually all the household running, budgeting, childcare, shopping etc. while husbands went out and were the 'breadwinner' for the family. Tradwife is only a word and just means happy to be at home in this role housewife. These days it's rare that one salary can cover the 'necessities' of modern day living, back in the 1970s we were less likely to want all the material things that are the norm today and therefore much happier to just be a housewife I think. I can however only with certainty speak for me and I loved every minute of it.

CapricornLass

And not just the lack of nurseries, either. The idea of women being paid the same as a man for doing the same kind of work was only just starting to be accepted. Many women were paid half or I think even only a third of a man's wage in the 60s and 70s. And its still not the same 50 years later on either. Look at the presenter who has just won her equal pay case with the BBC.


At the end of the day, whether a woman stays at home full-time or not boils down to inclination and hard economics. When my second son was born, I hoped to get a couple of years at home with them as a stay at home mum. Then the mortgage rate jumped to 15% whilst I was on maternity leave. I had to go back to work to keep a roof over our heads.


But I've also met stay at home mums who were heartily bored after a year.

Brambling

I believe they never use to include the wife's salary when calculating the mortgage which also kept house prices down? up until the1950s certain employments had a 'marriage bar' and once a woman got married she lost her job, I use to work for a large insurance company and was told by a company pensioner that they use to do that into the 50s even for clerical roles

Now days some woman can't afford to go back to work because the nursery fees are more than their salaries.

ivyleaf

I loved my babies to bits, but I was bored and depressed stuck at home. We were overseas with the army so very few jobs available for the wives, and virtually no childcare in any case. Wonderful if housework makes you feel fulfilled, not so good if it doesn't.

Frith

Tradwife? Eurgh.

VfM4meplse

Did anyone listen to the item on Jeremy Vine this week? The tradwives he had on were short-sighted, plain a simple.

They forget there was a generation of women left destitute when their husbands traded them in for younger models. To be financially dependent on another without a contingency is neither healthy nor desirable - why put yourself in that vulnerable position?

ETA: they are discussing this right now on "The Pledge" on Sky News! The resident feminist is predictably going nuts :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Wednesday2000

I hadn't even heard of this expression before!

snoozer

A tradwife isn't just another term for housewife. As well as fulfilling the traditional household duties she is expected to defer to her husband's opinion, dress to please him and just generally be a second class citizen. despite being a stay at home mum in the eighties and being fairly old style there is no way I would have pandered to my husband to that extent.