Does the Algorithm Think I'm a Trad Wife? What Simple Living Actually Means

Okay, so apparently the algorithm thinks I'm a trad wife. I didn't even know this was a thing until a couple of months ago, and now it's all over my feed.

If you haven't heard of it, the trad wife trend has been hitting hard, especially with Gen Z. It's a lifestyle that's all about living like you're back in the olden days, where the man is the provider and the woman stays home to cook, clean, and take care of the household.

You'll see a lot of flowery dresses, farm animals, chickens, and content that gets pretty biblical.

I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about this one, so let's get into it.

My Honest Reaction to the Trad Wife Trend

My initial response to all of this, even after watching a documentary on it, was somewhere between rage and wanting to be sick.

I always try to stop and ask myself why I'm having that kind of reaction.

Here's the thing. I don't have a problem with a woman wanting to be a stay-at-home mom, or a caregiver to her husband, or someone who loves to clean, cook, and organize. None of that bothers me on its own.

Part of what women have fought for over the decades is the right to make that choice if it's what they want.

I'm not a hardcore feminist by any means, but in general, with women's rights, that's been one of the big wins. The right to choose.

So if a woman wants to live with chickens, cook for her family, and take care of the home while her husband earns the income, I have zero problem with that.

What I had to sit with was figuring out what actually bothers me about the bigger picture here.

It's the intention behind the messaging. The idea that this is THE way of life, that it's better, that everyone should be doing it, that women should be taking care of a husband who provides for them.

I love my husband. We have a great relationship, and I wouldn't want to live without him.

He's told me more than once that if I became a millionaire, he'd happily become a stay-at-home dad. There's even ground there.

Women get to make that choice, and men get to make that choice too. It's all gravy as long as everyone's happy.

What I can't get behind is the message that life was better when women were subservient to their husbands and households, and that letting go of personal ambition is somehow the secret to a fulfilled life.

Even the trad wives aren't trad wives. Unless they've got an unlimited budget and someone following them around with a camera, they're working hard. Filming, editing, sticking to a content schedule, checking analytics, all of it.

That's a job. The women selling this idea are hardworking and ambitious, which is kind of the opposite of what they're selling.

What Simple Living Actually Means to Me

As someone in the simple living space, I feel like it's my job to share another side of this conversation. So let's talk about what simple living means to me, and what it does not mean.

Simple living isn't an aesthetic. It's a way of directing your life's resources, mainly your time, energy, and mental capacity.

Space matters too, but I think of space as something that feeds into those three things rather than being its own separate category.

When I'm thinking about how to simplify something or make my life feel calmer and easier, I keep coming back to the same questions.

• How do I get back more time so I can invest it in the things that make me happy?
• How do I get more energy so I can actually enjoy that time?
• And how do I get some mental clarity, because I feel most grounded and happy when my mind isn't full of jumbled-up noise?

This part is personal, not prescriptive. What that looks like is going to vary from person to person, especially when you get into the specifics of what you want to optimize or remove.

But there are some common themes that show up again and again in my content, like:

• Decluttering, which clears out the excess so you have more time, energy, and mental clarity
• Optimizing systems, habits, and routines, like setting up your space to build good habits without relying on willpower
• Slowing down, so you can actually enjoy where you are instead of constantly rushing to the next thing

A lot of what makes life feel fulfilling comes from those quieter, more reflective moments. The times when you're evaluating, analyzing, and growing as a person.

That's part of why I love talking on this channel about how my own beliefs have shifted over time.

Those growth moments, where you pull something meaningful out of an experience and move forward with a new understanding, feel like a huge part of what life is about.

What Simple Living Is Not

Simple living is not a gender role. It's not a rejection of independence, ambition, or having your own opinions. It's not submission or becoming subservient to anyone.

In my opinion, the trad wife trend is a dogmatic oversimplification of one potential way to live your life.

And to be clear, if you genuinely love wearing florals, raising chickens, and running a farm, that's wonderful. I'd probably enjoy that lifestyle too in a lot of ways. That's not what I'm pushing back on.

What I'm pushing back on is the idea being sold that being subservient to your husband, that your place is in the home tending to your household, is your rightful position and the secret to happiness.

I don't agree with that.

Where Optimization and Efficiency Actually Fit In

I can't wrap up a conversation about simple living without talking about where optimization and efficiency fit into it, because that's a big part of what I talk about here on the channel.

I think of optimizing and building efficient systems as being in service of those life resources I mentioned earlier, time, energy, and mental capacity.

When you optimize something that's eating up a lot of those resources, you get to reclaim them and use them however you want for your own growth or happiness.

The optimizing itself isn't the goal. It's not the end game, unless it's something you genuinely enjoy.

If you like building efficient systems the way Matt likes optimizing workflows in his video games, that's great, lean into it. But the goal of simple living isn't to be constantly optimizing and streamlining everything.

It's not even about having a more minimal life. I've talked plenty about why I lean into minimalism and the real benefits it brings, but becoming a minimalist or having a more minimal home was never the actual goal.

The goal is to create a more intentional life. Minimalism is just one of the means to get there.

The Bottom Line

Simple living is a wonderful way to live when you approach it the right way, from a place of intention about what you're hoping to gain and experience.

For me, it's about regaining control of my own life's resources, especially mental clarity, time, and energy, things most of us are seriously lacking.

When those things are missing, your body feels it, your mind feels it, and your life feels less pleasant.

We only get one life to live, so I'm a fan of simplifying it so we can actually enjoy the ride.

I don't think being a trad wife, or living by some dogmatic, prescriptive set of rules, is the secret to experiencing that.

If anything, I think that messaging risks sending us backward as a gender.

We're not there yet. We're still working toward equal representation across the board, and it's not the time to drop the ball and send us back to the early 1900s.

Live your life the way you want to live it. But it's easy to take some of this for granted if you're part of a newer generation that didn't see the work that went into getting us here.

You get to create and monetize your own social media channel right now. That alone wasn't always a given.

If you're dealing with emotional clutter or feel stuck in a cycle that's keeping you from creating the space you actually want, I've got a free workshop that walks you through breaking that pattern.

You can check out Break the Clutter Cycle here.