I’m currently a stay-at-home mom and housewife, so I’m allowed to write this, and I do so with the disclaimer that there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with being a SAHM. In fact, there’s something pretty noble about it—as long as you haven’t chosen this particular pathway from a place of resentment or religious guilt.
My initial gut reaction to the hyper-romanticized 50s tradwife cosplayers on social media was "oh this is a kink." For one, a tradwife who really was into the lifestyle wouldn't be on social media posting pictures of herself all dolled up.
May 23, 2023·edited May 23, 2023Liked by Kaeley Triller Harms
It's yet another fetish. A man who needs to dominate a woman in order to feel like a man is absolutely fetishizing the intrinsic inequalities of sex. He is, to use an awful phrase, "getting off" on the control and abuse. And yes, it goes much farther back than even the 1950s. I would shift that marker back to the end of the Mesolithic, or if you prefer, Eden.
It depends where you are looking: it doesn't seem to have been a thing in Gimbutas' "Old Europe" or the Indus Valley Civilisation for instance; and the Pre-Columbian Americas were different again.
This is inferred from archaeology in the first two cases, colonial sources in the second case, and therefore a contested claim. Many New World cultures are intensely patriarchal, others not so much. Gimbutas was of course a key figure in our understanding of all this, however not all of her ideas have withstood the test of science, while many have been modified, and that is totally normal. What I know from my own branch of study is that for 40,000 years or so, the bow and arrow seems to have been a male sociological device, since we never find arrow wounds in skeletons positively identified as female. We have cave art depicting battles with arrows during the Mesolithic. It appears the Neolithic transition came with intensified patrilineal conflict. About 95% of all Y chromosomal lines disappeared from the Old World gene pool. Whereas humans seem to have been monogamous in the hunter-gatherer-temporary settler context, the farming and animal husbandry revolutions seem to have encouraged (a) enforced domesticity of females (b) polygamy. YMMV from region to region but the pattern is that we came out of deep time one way and then had a formative epoch using a different "strategy." There are of course many examples of "deep time" reflected in the Bible, such as Job having all those wives and kids. We do not live in that world anymore. Christianity played a huge role in changing that social norm across so much of the globe, but we have had much less time to change: 2000 years versus 5-10,000 years. The return to monogamy has been a revolution.
YMMV on the precise dating. Eden is, I think, a reference to the lost world before things changed and the world the Bible *did* recall came into existence. We cannot know that world. We can only infer it. It is, by nature, a matter of speculation and belief. Or faith, if you prefer.
"What I know from my own branch of study is that for 40,000 years or so, the bow and arrow seems to have been a male sociological device, since we never find arrow wounds in skeletons positively identified as female."
I can only go off the evidence. The evidence of those trying MAN-fully to have us believe their misrepresentation of the past as much as the mute evidence of the historical sciences that gainsays that misrepresentation.
"Rigid adherence to superficial gender norms is part of the problem, not the solution. Let people be who they were created to be, wear what is comfortable, and enjoy what they’re wired to enjoy without creating legalistic formulas that inevitably place a whole lot of people at odds with the reasons for which they were actually created." Amen sister! I am also a SAHM, and prefer the term homemaker to housewife. I'm not married to my house, but I try to make a home that my family wants to be in. My childhood was mostly in the 70s when a girl could be a tomboy and was told she could be anything. Maybe because I grew up in a farming community, a woman would didn't have a "paying job" wasn't considered a woman not working. I earned a marketing degree, worked outside the home until our son was born and have been a homemaker ever since (3 more kids, 37 years of marriage). I am happiest this way. My sister, the attorney, would not have been. I know I grew up in a "sweet spot" in time.
Yes. This. 70s. Tomboy. Bachelor's in Computer Science. Worked at a big corporation in IT until I had my first child. Did not feel the constant demand of ridiculously long hours was the way to raise a child, so homemaker was the best path for me. Another child, 35 years of marriage, and it has been the best choice I ever made.
I used to believe that the primal battle is good vs. evil. It's not. The primal battle is the individual vs. society, and the trick seems to be raising children who don't betray themselves by trying to be who someone else (most often, parents) wants them to be.
I largely agree with this post. And especially agree with the idea of letting people be what they want or are wired to be. However, I also believe that having traditional roles or paths can be helpful as well. What I mean by that is that telling boys that they will likely end up in a stereotypically male job (Welder, policeman, whatever) has value. It can give direction and purpose. BUT they should be far from rigid. And there shouldn't be any stigma for falling outside of those norms.
Like your example of not letting a boy play with a kitchen or dolls or whatnot.
The reason I think having traditions can help is that many young people seem directionless. They have all of the options that no other generation has, and they I think many are paralyzed by choice. Narrowing the parameters a bit may help. But, again, it is important to take away adherence to the norms and take away gatekeeping to keep the 'wrong' gender out.
The whole point of the women’s movement was to shatter gender stereotypes and allow women And men to be whoever they want to be.
The new trans movement is turning that on its head and claiming that a woman can be whoever she wants to be as long as she becomes a man, and a man can be whoever he wants to be as long as he becomes a woman. Stupid! There’s no epidemic of people being born into the wrong body.
Most important is the recognition that people are willingly abdicating personal agency. That is the real epidemic.
There is so much to this post, that I can only scratch flakes off the granite. First I think your commenter Cheryl Ruffing has the right idea: "The primal battle is the individual vs. society" although how I would say it is, the struggle is for individuals to be responsible and answerable for their own actions, no matter what. The way I say it is, "What you've been through means nothing. What you've become because of what you've been through means everything."
One of the great tragedies of our very free society is one I observed long ago. If you choose to tolerate something, soon you will be made to celebrate it. If I think 2 people of the same sex who love each other should be allowed to live their own lives that way, and it's no business of mine, that does not mean I celebrate the gay bath-house lifestyle any more than I celebrate heterosexuals turning sexual infidelity into a business or Hollywood groomers or Harvey Weinstein's behavior.
Christ's true teaching is that we all have an individual relationship with God and that you'll stand in judgement before Him individually. Not with our husband, not with our family, not with our tribe, not with our nation. You got to walk that lonesome valley. You got to walk it by yourself. Ain't nobody here can walk it for you.
One more point. If you think you can suppress intelligent, capable women by keeping them from making decisions in the official way male society does, you're only fooling yourself. You're merely turning them to evil and subterfuge. If you doubt me, sit back next Thanksgiving or Christmas when the whole clan gathers, walk away from the football game, and observe the women gather and talk among each other. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Not sure which part you don't understand, because I agree with your post. If a woman's calling is to spend time at home raising her family, more power to her. If instead she's called to write, run a bank, run for president, then more power to her.
I may take some shortcuts as if everybody understood so-called honor culture (really reputation culture), where bringing shame to your group is the greater sin than lying or condoning or even engaging in evil behavior. In that paradigm, your first obligation is to your group (family, tribe, nation) rather than to God and your own ethics. In that way such a culture is incompatible with Christian ethics.
I read part of the article. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Under the right circumstances, at home mothers with 4 plus kids contribute more to society than career women who have no kids.
No, it's about plying your ideas against other women's and spouting your resentment because they see the world differently than you. My Mom showed me what a woman should be. She took little jobs now and then, while we were in school. She made her own choices, just as we all should. She used to say that what is wrong with kids, "today", is that no one is home raising them. Children are sent off to the babysitter or daycare or after school care. They are raised by people other than their parents. It doesn't matter if it's the wife or the husband, but ONE OF THEM should be there when the kids get home from school. You are not raising your kids if you are rarely with them. Raising your children shouldn't be a matter of juggling your time.
It isn't an idea of just the alt right, or religious fanatics or anyone else you blamed. PEOPLE MAKE CHOICES, and PEOPLE NEED TO LEARN to look around, research and make the right choices for their own family and not condemn others for their choices. You are no better than those you are condemning. I don't know one SAHM who wears stilettos or feeds the baby while basting the turkey but, if they did and they thought it was great and their kids and husband were satisfied, that is their choice. They are hard workers who do everything in their power to put their families needs ahead of desires. In my opinion, our children are our most important investment. I homeschooled my daughter because the school was going to hold her back in kindergarten because she didn't finish her work. I asked if she knew the work and was told she did. I put her needs before my wants. I had a neighbor who told me she wished she "could stay home like" I did, but she "had to work". No, she chose to have cars that were never older than 4 years, eating out every weekend, exotic vacations every year and a motor home. If that's what she chose, that's her business, but she is wrong in making herself a victim, blaming other women for broadcasting that you can stay home with your kids, that it might even be best. I'm tired of everyone vilifying others just because they tout a different way. If you don't like what John Piper says, then don't listen to him. Tout what YOU think, but don't make everyone who doesn't think, as you do, some kind of enemy.
Nope. I stand by every word I said. If it’s not for you, that’s fine. Feel free to keep on scrolling. I don’t take my marching orders from strangers on the internet. Cheers!
"Children are sent off to the babysitter or daycare or after school care. They are raised by people other than their parents. It doesn't matter if it's the wife or the husband, but ONE OF THEM should be there when the kids get home from school. "
In traditional cultures there's not just ONE person at home raising the kids because the homes are multi-generational. This idea of a small, atomized (nuclear) family is a recent phenomena. Even now, in many countries around the world the "joint family" (such as in India/South Asia) or the extended family, is the norm. It is unnatural for just one person (or 2 at most) to care for the children. "It takes a village" - maybe not an entire village but at least a very large family - to raise a child, properly. That's why I don't see having other people, such as babysitters or daycares, taking care of children as abnormal. What is abnormal are these small families with just 2 adults at the helm and just 1 adult being the primary caregiver. And we see that it doesn't work because at least 1 of the adults (but often both) get burned out. But this culture was engineered for this. The multi-generational household was nuked on purpose here.
Yes, I agree that multigenerational families would be best. Where I don't agree is on daycare and babysitters being the same as multigenerational family care. Day cares are full of wonderful people who care, but they may not necessarily have the same values, beliefs or place importance on the same ideals that your family would, and they are incapable of loving each child as family would, including in disciplinary situations. I think many children feel as though they are farmed off because they are not a priority to their parents.
"But this culture was engineered for this. The multi-generational household was nuked on purpose here." My mother used to say much the same thing.
1 Cor. 12:28, Romans 16:7. Apostles were first in authority in the Church. Junia, a women, was in authority amongst the apostles and an apostle before her kinsman, Paul. Sorry Fundieloons; you don't get to make your up your own meaning for what Paul, THE Apostle, the FIRST Xtian writer and a LOOOONG time before the Gospels, wrote.
I LOVE these crazy folk, "The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it"? Patriarchal Fundies; going AGAINST what they will INSIST is the WORD OF GOD from almost immediately it was put on papyrus and fudging almost immediately Luther insisted on 'Sola Scriptura'.
Trads and Fundies: Wherefore come out from among them, and BE YE SEPARATE. 2 Cor. 6:17 KJV
This gives some background to the role women played in the early Church, but even before this, you see that Jesus himself accepted women in a way that many in that time did not. During the time when the New Testament was written, women were not treated close to equally. But Jesus accepted women into his ministry, teaching them and seeking them out to share the Good News. Woman at the well? For the first time in the Gospel of John, Jesus reveals that He is the Messiah. To a woman. She becomes an evangelist to her entire community.
Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, Salome, Joanna, Susanna, the sisters of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, and according to Luke, many other women who followed Jesus, learning, teaching, traveling with, helping, and ministering.
Thank you, I haven't come across Dr. Abrahamsen before.
It is clear enough from Paul, and from those that added to him and/or faked epistles in his name, that the faith he'd "converted" to was a far more egalitarian outfit than even that of the Gospels' legends.
Paul is very egalitatarian for his era; but "his" church perhaps more so.
This made even him a bit uncomfortable but the best argument the genuine Paul can make to women being not quite so forward is the rather lame "because the angels" of 1 Cor 11:10.
No one has a clue now what that is supposed to mean!
My initial gut reaction to the hyper-romanticized 50s tradwife cosplayers on social media was "oh this is a kink." For one, a tradwife who really was into the lifestyle wouldn't be on social media posting pictures of herself all dolled up.
Most of them will be divorced in a few years.
It's yet another fetish. A man who needs to dominate a woman in order to feel like a man is absolutely fetishizing the intrinsic inequalities of sex. He is, to use an awful phrase, "getting off" on the control and abuse. And yes, it goes much farther back than even the 1950s. I would shift that marker back to the end of the Mesolithic, or if you prefer, Eden.
It depends where you are looking: it doesn't seem to have been a thing in Gimbutas' "Old Europe" or the Indus Valley Civilisation for instance; and the Pre-Columbian Americas were different again.
This is inferred from archaeology in the first two cases, colonial sources in the second case, and therefore a contested claim. Many New World cultures are intensely patriarchal, others not so much. Gimbutas was of course a key figure in our understanding of all this, however not all of her ideas have withstood the test of science, while many have been modified, and that is totally normal. What I know from my own branch of study is that for 40,000 years or so, the bow and arrow seems to have been a male sociological device, since we never find arrow wounds in skeletons positively identified as female. We have cave art depicting battles with arrows during the Mesolithic. It appears the Neolithic transition came with intensified patrilineal conflict. About 95% of all Y chromosomal lines disappeared from the Old World gene pool. Whereas humans seem to have been monogamous in the hunter-gatherer-temporary settler context, the farming and animal husbandry revolutions seem to have encouraged (a) enforced domesticity of females (b) polygamy. YMMV from region to region but the pattern is that we came out of deep time one way and then had a formative epoch using a different "strategy." There are of course many examples of "deep time" reflected in the Bible, such as Job having all those wives and kids. We do not live in that world anymore. Christianity played a huge role in changing that social norm across so much of the globe, but we have had much less time to change: 2000 years versus 5-10,000 years. The return to monogamy has been a revolution.
YMMV on the precise dating. Eden is, I think, a reference to the lost world before things changed and the world the Bible *did* recall came into existence. We cannot know that world. We can only infer it. It is, by nature, a matter of speculation and belief. Or faith, if you prefer.
"What I know from my own branch of study is that for 40,000 years or so, the bow and arrow seems to have been a male sociological device, since we never find arrow wounds in skeletons positively identified as female."
That's because women were doing the shooting.
I can only go off the evidence. The evidence of those trying MAN-fully to have us believe their misrepresentation of the past as much as the mute evidence of the historical sciences that gainsays that misrepresentation.
Historians rely on text, that silence is the male monopoly over text for most of writing history.
"Rigid adherence to superficial gender norms is part of the problem, not the solution. Let people be who they were created to be, wear what is comfortable, and enjoy what they’re wired to enjoy without creating legalistic formulas that inevitably place a whole lot of people at odds with the reasons for which they were actually created." Amen sister! I am also a SAHM, and prefer the term homemaker to housewife. I'm not married to my house, but I try to make a home that my family wants to be in. My childhood was mostly in the 70s when a girl could be a tomboy and was told she could be anything. Maybe because I grew up in a farming community, a woman would didn't have a "paying job" wasn't considered a woman not working. I earned a marketing degree, worked outside the home until our son was born and have been a homemaker ever since (3 more kids, 37 years of marriage). I am happiest this way. My sister, the attorney, would not have been. I know I grew up in a "sweet spot" in time.
Yes. This. 70s. Tomboy. Bachelor's in Computer Science. Worked at a big corporation in IT until I had my first child. Did not feel the constant demand of ridiculously long hours was the way to raise a child, so homemaker was the best path for me. Another child, 35 years of marriage, and it has been the best choice I ever made.
I used to believe that the primal battle is good vs. evil. It's not. The primal battle is the individual vs. society, and the trick seems to be raising children who don't betray themselves by trying to be who someone else (most often, parents) wants them to be.
I largely agree with this post. And especially agree with the idea of letting people be what they want or are wired to be. However, I also believe that having traditional roles or paths can be helpful as well. What I mean by that is that telling boys that they will likely end up in a stereotypically male job (Welder, policeman, whatever) has value. It can give direction and purpose. BUT they should be far from rigid. And there shouldn't be any stigma for falling outside of those norms.
Like your example of not letting a boy play with a kitchen or dolls or whatnot.
The reason I think having traditions can help is that many young people seem directionless. They have all of the options that no other generation has, and they I think many are paralyzed by choice. Narrowing the parameters a bit may help. But, again, it is important to take away adherence to the norms and take away gatekeeping to keep the 'wrong' gender out.
Excellent analysis!
The whole point of the women’s movement was to shatter gender stereotypes and allow women And men to be whoever they want to be.
The new trans movement is turning that on its head and claiming that a woman can be whoever she wants to be as long as she becomes a man, and a man can be whoever he wants to be as long as he becomes a woman. Stupid! There’s no epidemic of people being born into the wrong body.
Most important is the recognition that people are willingly abdicating personal agency. That is the real epidemic.
There is so much to this post, that I can only scratch flakes off the granite. First I think your commenter Cheryl Ruffing has the right idea: "The primal battle is the individual vs. society" although how I would say it is, the struggle is for individuals to be responsible and answerable for their own actions, no matter what. The way I say it is, "What you've been through means nothing. What you've become because of what you've been through means everything."
One of the great tragedies of our very free society is one I observed long ago. If you choose to tolerate something, soon you will be made to celebrate it. If I think 2 people of the same sex who love each other should be allowed to live their own lives that way, and it's no business of mine, that does not mean I celebrate the gay bath-house lifestyle any more than I celebrate heterosexuals turning sexual infidelity into a business or Hollywood groomers or Harvey Weinstein's behavior.
Christ's true teaching is that we all have an individual relationship with God and that you'll stand in judgement before Him individually. Not with our husband, not with our family, not with our tribe, not with our nation. You got to walk that lonesome valley. You got to walk it by yourself. Ain't nobody here can walk it for you.
One more point. If you think you can suppress intelligent, capable women by keeping them from making decisions in the official way male society does, you're only fooling yourself. You're merely turning them to evil and subterfuge. If you doubt me, sit back next Thanksgiving or Christmas when the whole clan gathers, walk away from the football game, and observe the women gather and talk among each other. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I genuinely do not understand what you are saying here. Help me see what you’re saying?
Not sure which part you don't understand, because I agree with your post. If a woman's calling is to spend time at home raising her family, more power to her. If instead she's called to write, run a bank, run for president, then more power to her.
I may take some shortcuts as if everybody understood so-called honor culture (really reputation culture), where bringing shame to your group is the greater sin than lying or condoning or even engaging in evil behavior. In that paradigm, your first obligation is to your group (family, tribe, nation) rather than to God and your own ethics. In that way such a culture is incompatible with Christian ethics.
Hope that helps rather than muddles my point.
Helps a lot. Thank you!
John D. Rockefeller funded the Suffragette movement for one reason, and one reason only.
"Why tax only half the population when you can tax the entire population"
- John D. Rockefeller -
I read part of the article. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Under the right circumstances, at home mothers with 4 plus kids contribute more to society than career women who have no kids.
Stay at home moms are great, but that’s not what this article is about.
No, it's about plying your ideas against other women's and spouting your resentment because they see the world differently than you. My Mom showed me what a woman should be. She took little jobs now and then, while we were in school. She made her own choices, just as we all should. She used to say that what is wrong with kids, "today", is that no one is home raising them. Children are sent off to the babysitter or daycare or after school care. They are raised by people other than their parents. It doesn't matter if it's the wife or the husband, but ONE OF THEM should be there when the kids get home from school. You are not raising your kids if you are rarely with them. Raising your children shouldn't be a matter of juggling your time.
It isn't an idea of just the alt right, or religious fanatics or anyone else you blamed. PEOPLE MAKE CHOICES, and PEOPLE NEED TO LEARN to look around, research and make the right choices for their own family and not condemn others for their choices. You are no better than those you are condemning. I don't know one SAHM who wears stilettos or feeds the baby while basting the turkey but, if they did and they thought it was great and their kids and husband were satisfied, that is their choice. They are hard workers who do everything in their power to put their families needs ahead of desires. In my opinion, our children are our most important investment. I homeschooled my daughter because the school was going to hold her back in kindergarten because she didn't finish her work. I asked if she knew the work and was told she did. I put her needs before my wants. I had a neighbor who told me she wished she "could stay home like" I did, but she "had to work". No, she chose to have cars that were never older than 4 years, eating out every weekend, exotic vacations every year and a motor home. If that's what she chose, that's her business, but she is wrong in making herself a victim, blaming other women for broadcasting that you can stay home with your kids, that it might even be best. I'm tired of everyone vilifying others just because they tout a different way. If you don't like what John Piper says, then don't listen to him. Tout what YOU think, but don't make everyone who doesn't think, as you do, some kind of enemy.
It’s almost like you didn’t comprehend a single word I wrote. Oh well. Can’t win ‘em all. Have a blessed night.
Right. Maybe you need to rethink what you wrote. I'm not the only one who heard you the way I did.
Nope. I stand by every word I said. If it’s not for you, that’s fine. Feel free to keep on scrolling. I don’t take my marching orders from strangers on the internet. Cheers!
Not giving you orders, just giving an opinion about what I read.
"Children are sent off to the babysitter or daycare or after school care. They are raised by people other than their parents. It doesn't matter if it's the wife or the husband, but ONE OF THEM should be there when the kids get home from school. "
In traditional cultures there's not just ONE person at home raising the kids because the homes are multi-generational. This idea of a small, atomized (nuclear) family is a recent phenomena. Even now, in many countries around the world the "joint family" (such as in India/South Asia) or the extended family, is the norm. It is unnatural for just one person (or 2 at most) to care for the children. "It takes a village" - maybe not an entire village but at least a very large family - to raise a child, properly. That's why I don't see having other people, such as babysitters or daycares, taking care of children as abnormal. What is abnormal are these small families with just 2 adults at the helm and just 1 adult being the primary caregiver. And we see that it doesn't work because at least 1 of the adults (but often both) get burned out. But this culture was engineered for this. The multi-generational household was nuked on purpose here.
Yes, I agree that multigenerational families would be best. Where I don't agree is on daycare and babysitters being the same as multigenerational family care. Day cares are full of wonderful people who care, but they may not necessarily have the same values, beliefs or place importance on the same ideals that your family would, and they are incapable of loving each child as family would, including in disciplinary situations. I think many children feel as though they are farmed off because they are not a priority to their parents.
"But this culture was engineered for this. The multi-generational household was nuked on purpose here." My mother used to say much the same thing.
1 Cor. 12:28, Romans 16:7. Apostles were first in authority in the Church. Junia, a women, was in authority amongst the apostles and an apostle before her kinsman, Paul. Sorry Fundieloons; you don't get to make your up your own meaning for what Paul, THE Apostle, the FIRST Xtian writer and a LOOOONG time before the Gospels, wrote.
I LOVE these crazy folk, "The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it"? Patriarchal Fundies; going AGAINST what they will INSIST is the WORD OF GOD from almost immediately it was put on papyrus and fudging almost immediately Luther insisted on 'Sola Scriptura'.
Trads and Fundies: Wherefore come out from among them, and BE YE SEPARATE. 2 Cor. 6:17 KJV
https://www.wisdomwordsppf.org/2021/07/10/the-women-of-romans-16/
This gives some background to the role women played in the early Church, but even before this, you see that Jesus himself accepted women in a way that many in that time did not. During the time when the New Testament was written, women were not treated close to equally. But Jesus accepted women into his ministry, teaching them and seeking them out to share the Good News. Woman at the well? For the first time in the Gospel of John, Jesus reveals that He is the Messiah. To a woman. She becomes an evangelist to her entire community.
Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, Salome, Joanna, Susanna, the sisters of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, and according to Luke, many other women who followed Jesus, learning, teaching, traveling with, helping, and ministering.
Thank you, I haven't come across Dr. Abrahamsen before.
It is clear enough from Paul, and from those that added to him and/or faked epistles in his name, that the faith he'd "converted" to was a far more egalitarian outfit than even that of the Gospels' legends.
Paul is very egalitatarian for his era; but "his" church perhaps more so.
This made even him a bit uncomfortable but the best argument the genuine Paul can make to women being not quite so forward is the rather lame "because the angels" of 1 Cor 11:10.
No one has a clue now what that is supposed to mean!