Tradwives and the pressures of modern motherhood

Added: 2026-05-09

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[00:00:24]Hey everyone, you're listening to Code Switch from NPR. I'm B.A. Parker and I'm here with our beloved senior editor Leah Donnella. What's good, Leah? Hi, Parker.

[00:00:37][music] All right, so talk to me. Okay, well, Parker, you know this Yeah. but our audience may not. Um, as we speak, I am 9 months pregnant with my second kid.

[00:00:50]She's [music] due like really any any moment now.

[00:00:54]Shh. Leah is uh like She's very pregnant.

[00:01:00]She is like like the baby's fully cooked and we're just chilling. [music] We're just waiting.

[00:01:06]>> She's She's biding her time.

[00:01:07]>> Yes, yes.

[00:01:08]Um, yeah, and you know, something you may not know is that when my husband and I were debating whether to have a second kid >> [music] >> um, I said to him "Honey we've got an expanded child tax credit we've got the Trump accounts, we got to take advantage of this stuff."

[00:01:25]And he was like, "Bet." [music] You You said that? Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. No, I got confused, mommy brain.

[00:01:33]Um, no, that was not me. That was actually the logic of Vice President J.D. Vance.

[00:01:39]And when Usha and I were having the debate about whether we were going to have a fourth kid, I said, "Honey, we've got an expanded child tax credit and we've got the Trump accounts. We got to take advantage of this stuff."

[00:01:50]>> [cheering] >> I I I love the idea of having a baby because of a coupon. Yeah, exactly. Um, [laughter and clears throat] it's it's such a good deal. Uh, that was a clip from his speech, by the way, at the March for Life in January of this year.

[00:02:05]Um, my reasons for wanting another kid were just so that in 30 years the US economy doesn't tank.

[00:02:11]That's pure patriotism right there.

[00:02:13]Thank you. I am nothing if not a lover of country and and kids. I love children.

[00:02:18]Good for you, Leah.

[00:02:20]So, Leah last time you were on the podcast talking about motherhood was about a year and a half ago in December 2024.

[00:02:30]And that was before you were actually a parent. I mean, to be fair, the the day the episode dropped, you did give birth.

[00:02:38]I I >> Both literally and figuratively.

[00:02:40]Committed [laughter] to the bit.

[00:02:42]During that time for that story, we talked about the wild and beautiful world of tradwives and momfluencers. We did, that's right. So, back then, you know, we started in a nice suburban home in New York state and on the outside it may have looked serene, but on the inside a woman named Sarah Peterson was uh starting to feel a little bit frazzled, maybe even a little desperate. My kids probably screaming at me for something.

[00:03:14]And in the midst of this screaming, >> [music] >> Sarah is hunched over her phone trying frantically to order something very very important off of Instagram. A wooden marble run? A marble run?

[00:03:28]Like [music] one of those old-timey where you push marbles down a little slide?

[00:03:34]Precisely. [music] And the reason she needs this marble run is because a momfluencer that Sarah follows [music] on Instagram has this marble run.

[00:03:42]And that momfluencer claimed >> "I haven't seen the boys in 4 hours.

[00:03:46]They've been so entranced with the marble run." Move over, iPads. Right?

[00:03:51]So, Sarah sees this caption and she's like, "I need that freaking toy yesterday." [music] I was like, "Oh my god, 4 hours? 4 hours?" Yes, like yes.

[00:04:00]Yes, click click but yes, yes, I don't care how much it is. Yes. And a few days later at the marble run arrives, she gives it to her kids. They're mesmerized. And suddenly Sarah's life goes from chaotic and harried to calm and peaceful.

[00:04:16]Honestly, she said [music] that was a huge turning point in her identity as a mom.

[00:04:21]Wait, really?

[00:04:22]No.

[00:04:23]Aw. Uh, not at all. The marble run arrives and absolutely nothing changes.

[00:04:29]It's just another moment in this cycle that Sarah and so many other people get caught up in trying to find some small way to make the burdens of motherhood feel a little bit lighter and being served up quick fixes and well-it promises that never really get to the root of the problem. That problem being Basically, that we live in a country where support for parents is nonexistent at least compared to other wealthy nations. So, you know, our leaders claim to revere mothers. Every year politicians come out and talk about how, you know, their mother set them on the path to where they are now and they're endlessly grateful and mothers do the most important job in the world.

[00:05:14]Since the earliest days of our republic, America's strength has come from the love and courage and devotion of our mothers. So much of what I've done and so much of what I've become is because of my mother. That's in stark contrast, we should say, to how those leaders feel about childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.

[00:05:40]Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, ladies and gentlemen.

[00:05:44]Brave words.

[00:05:46]But yeah, as Sarah sees it, there's a big difference between politicians saying that they cherish mothers and actually doing anything to support them.

[00:05:54]We don't have any federal paid leave. We don't have access to affordable or accessible child care.

[00:06:01]Um we don't have reproductive autonomy or the ability to make decisions about our lives or about how many children we have. So, moms all over the country are struggling hard.

[00:06:14]And in their search for support, they're coming across this booming industry of momfluencers.

[00:06:19]Like the woman who was pedaling that marble run. She just presented this very vibrant, colorful, fun, joyful version of motherhood that I was really struggling to tap into myself.

[00:06:33]Um and I knew, of course, that like performance is always a factor online.

[00:06:40]But I also found myself like clicking on her links for, you know, a beautiful red lipstick and you know, subconsciously or consciously saying to myself, "Maybe if I get up in the morning and like put on the red lipstick, this will impact the rest of my day. I won't [music] snap so much. Um, the drudgery of you know, the very mundane tasks of motherhood won't chafe as [music] much."

[00:07:03]I'm guessing that the lipstick was about as effective as the marble run in reducing the burden of child [music] care. You are correct. And of course, deep down Sarah knew that, you know, which is partly why she [music] set out on a journey to better understand why she was still so susceptible [music] to the ruse.

[00:07:24]So, that's what I want to talk to you about today, Parker.

[00:07:27]Where are people like Sarah turning when the promises and dreams [music] they've been sold about motherhood fail to materialize?

[00:07:33]Who's stepping in to try to fill the vacuum? [music] And how has that facilitated the rise of everything from momfluencers to tradwives to right-wing [music] fringe movements?

[00:07:43]All right, Leah.

[00:07:45]Let's get into it.

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[00:09:24]So, Parker, if you go on TikTok, you can find thousands of people talking about how hard it is to be a mom.

[00:09:31]They love it. You have to say you love it. [music] Love being a stay-at-home mom. God has blessed me to be a stay-at-home mom, but there's days where I just feel like I'm stuck in a hamster wheel. Typically, the mom is carrying 100% [music] of the labor distribution within the home. The mental labor of being the CEO of your home, the boss of your entire family is absolutely draining.

[00:09:55]>> guess like I never thought that I would resent being a mother so much and also love it more than anything in the world.

[00:10:04]They talk about motherhood being relentless, exhausting, unfair, a drain on their finances, boring. I mean, you don't have to go to TikTok to find those people. [laughter] Fair. Every mom I've ever spoken to has talked at some point or another about how hard it is.

[00:10:21]I mean, they ain't selling the the motherhood dream great IRL, I'll be honest. True. But you know, a lot of people wind up having kids anyway.

[00:10:34]So, it's no surprise that there's a huge market for people who are preaching an alternative message. What's the best part about being a mom?

[00:10:42]>> Aw, everything. [music] The love, the joy, the purpose. I really felt almost desperate to find narratives that would confirm that motherhood was right for me because it did not feel that way internally.

[00:10:59]Sarah Peterson was starved for those alternatives when she first became a parent. It it really did feel like my very selfhood was threatened, you know, in those first few months. So, as you heard earlier, for a while she got sucked deep into the world of momfluencers, you know, women on social media who create careers or at least side hustles out of making glossy content about being mothers.

[00:11:24]Eventually, Sarah wound up channeling that interest into a book called Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture. Even that title sounds like a lot of pressure.

[00:11:36]>> I know.

[00:11:38]Sarah told me that there's a wide spectrum of momfluencers. They run the gamut from, you know, people who occasionally post cute pictures of their kids to people like the marble run woman to the most buzzy kind of momfluencer in our current moment, tradwives. If you are not familiar with the term tradwife, it is a woman who chooses to live a more traditional life with ultra-traditional gender roles. So, the man goes outside the house, works, provides for the family. The woman stays home and she's the homemaker. She takes care of the home and the children if there are any. Oh, I'm quite familiar with tradwives. They're all over Instagram and TikTok, and they're usually in their 20s or 30s. Very poised, put together, hair done, makeup done, mostly thin, mostly white, and they promote the joys of being a mother and a wife. So, the videos they share are of things like them making their own yogurt or picking wildflowers with their kids or, you know, washing dishes.

[00:12:44]>> Doing the dishes on my five-star Mrs. Rinsing off the crumbs like it's part of my business. They seem to love hand washing dishes.

[00:12:55]Cover the domestic kind. There's never just one fork, never just one cup. And we love watching them hand wash dishes.

[00:13:02]I mean, Parker, tradwife accounts have exploded in the past few years. That term went from being pretty obscure to being widely understood and even kind of a national obsession.

[00:13:14]One of the biggest examples is Hannah Neeleman, who has 10 million followers.

[00:13:19]Hannah Neeleman, that's Ballerina Farm for those not in the know.

[00:13:22]>> making a egg salad on sourdough bread.

[00:13:25]So, last night I started the bread. I just added my flour, water, salt, and started.

[00:13:30]>> Right. Another popular one is SC Williams. She's the one who was defining what it means to be a proper tradwife in a clip that was liked almost 80,000 times.

[00:13:40]>> [music] >> Tradwives also believe that they should submit to their husbands and serve their husbands and family, and that triggers people because the words submit and serve, it [music] makes women think that we're saying that we're less than a man. That's not what we're [music] saying. She goes on to say that she doesn't believe that she's less than a man, just that her values as a Christian inform her ideas about submission, servitude, and the importance of traditional gender roles.

[00:14:07]Right. I know that a disproportionate number of people who represent the tradwife lifestyle are members of the LDS Church.

[00:14:17]A lot of them also seem to be hearkening back to what they see as a simpler time.

[00:14:24]Whether that be a 50s style Mad Men era, Mhm, the vacuuming in heels and a string of pearls. Or the more pioneer times with the prairie dresses and the homesteading.

[00:14:38]Yeah, [snorts] there there are so many different looks and different belief sets that inform any given person.

[00:14:45]But Sarah Peterson said there is something that seems to connect tradwives across that sort of superficial variation. I think the number one thing they're selling is the idea of clarity. And they're very certain that leaning into their femininity and their nurturing and their maternity and their domesticity will make them completely fulfilled and happy.

[00:15:10]They affirm something really important for a lot of women, that motherhood is hard work.

[00:15:15]But they also go further. They say it's important work and full-time work and sufficient work. You know, you don't also have to go be a girl boss. You can be totally satisfied with this one all-consuming identity. And I think that is sort of the catnip that we're all fascinated and revolted by.

[00:15:36]Revolted?

[00:15:38]Okay. I wasn't expecting her to say that.

[00:15:40]>> Yeah. Well, I mean, one of the things Sarah talked about in her book is that many of the people who follow tradwives don't actually aspire to be tradwives. I mean, guilty as charged. I like watching someone make a blueberry tart from scratch. It's just like a nice little brain massage. There's no thought involved in it. But I know I'm never going to do it.

[00:16:03]Well, you're not alone. And I mean, beyond that, a lot of people who watch tradwives actively loathe the ideas that these influencers are spreading.

[00:16:14]But that's kind of a perverse part of the appeal. So, for Sarah, it actually made her feel good to follow momfluencers that were especially annoying.

[00:16:24]We're not going to hate scroll in 2025, folks.

[00:16:27]>> [sighs] >> But we are.

[00:16:29]Yeah, I found myself like reading captions which were so sanctimonious and so just like all in on, you know, motherhood and wife's wifely submission and rolling my eyes and feeling sort of like better about my own inner compass.

[00:16:47]But again, the attraction and revulsion work together.

[00:16:51]Sarah didn't just feel superior to these women. She also felt jealous.

[00:16:56]Because she really had at one point believed that motherhood could be this magical, creative, fulfilling endeavor for her.

[00:17:04]And that was a hard dream to give up. I don't want motherhood to be my sole defining quality.

[00:17:10]And yet, like these women look so happy, so content, so like unburdened by doubt that it consciously or unconsciously made it seem possible. Okay. But Leah, can we be real for a second?

[00:17:29]Tradwives and many momfluencers in general are not really making happy motherhoods seem possible for most women. Mhm. Like I certainly don't watch tradwife content and think, you know, with a few little tweaks, I could step into that life. So true, Parker. Sarah said there are whole categories of moms who just don't fit into what it looks like to be a tradwife.

[00:17:55]Sarah said low-income moms and even middle-class moms can't be tradwives for the most part because they can't afford not to work outside of the home. And single moms like mine also can't do the tradwife thing because it inherently relies on a man to be there acting as the {quote} breadwinner.

[00:18:14]I mean, growing up, I was surrounded by my mom's single like black mom friends and my grandparents. And if one of them saw a kid running around, whether it was their kid or not, they'd yell, "Hey, you know, sit your ass down." So, it was always like a community effort, you know? Totally. I mean, in real life, there are so many different versions of motherhood and parenthood.

[00:18:40]>> [music] >> I'm curious how women of color fit into this because when it comes to black tradwives, I feel like the concept behind it could potentially [music] be kind of radical in that it allows space [music] for a sort of femininity that isn't often granted to black women.

[00:19:02]I think of Nara Smith, for instance.

[00:19:05]When my toddlers were playing in the backyard, they asked me for a Capri Sun.

[00:19:09]Since I had all the fruit at home to make some, I told them to give me a minute while I got started.

[00:19:14]>> She was my first introduction to tradwives. She's a member of the LDS Church, and on social media, she's constantly cooking elaborate meals for her three kids while wearing these absurdly glamorous like Joan Crawford gowns. Yeah, but I almost feel like Nara is the exception that proves the rule.

[00:19:35]Because yes, she is a black woman whose life is very, very beautiful looking.

[00:19:40]She's also a 23-year-old model married to another model.

[00:19:46]But the problem with these identities is that by nature, they're public, you know? People operating within the influencer space can't exist outside of the imagery and stereotypes that we already have about certain categories of people.

[00:20:01]So, to be a black tradwife and talk about how much you love cooking and cleaning and serving your husband, maybe Nara can get away with it, but for most other black women, it comes with some real aesthetic baggage. Hi, my name is Hannah Lee and I'm a farmer. Come pick some cotton with me. Yeah, that reminds me of this black woman who recently went viral.

[00:20:26]She's kind of twisting herself into pretzels trying to act like she can be a tradwife in the same way that white women can. Now, I know what you're thinking. What on earth is she picking cotton for?

[00:20:41]If you wanted me to be quirky, I'd say it's in my DNA. But the truth of the matter is, it's in my household and as someone who loves a cotton-stuffed mattress and a cotton-stuffed pillow and I'm getting low on both, I had to go harvest some cotton.

[00:20:54]Hearing that, it's so hard to believe it's not satire, right? It's just too on the nose. Also, like, you know, a real farmer would know you pick cotton in the fall and not when she was doing it, but whatever.

[00:21:07]But yeah, I do get a little defensive when it comes to tradwives of color in particular because I want them to be able to live whatever life brings them fulfillment.

[00:21:19]But it's hard to imagine black or indigenous or Latina women choosing the tradwife lifestyle because their subservience has always been the expectation.

[00:21:31]Right.

[00:21:32]Not to mention the fact that historically, women of color have so often been forced to fulfill the role of homemaker and child rearer, not for their own partners and children, but for someone else's. I would say the biggest difference between the mammy and the tradwife is that the tradwife just filter. The mammy doesn't have the filters.

[00:21:53]And um doesn't have the ring light, doesn't have all that. And everything that's happening to her, she's not consenting to it. Ooh, who's that?

[00:22:03]That's a woman named Marcy Alvis Walker.

[00:22:06]She's an author and a blogger and not long ago, she wrote a piece about this idea that the original tradwife was the caricature of the mammy. Her job was to make sure that the master had no worries. The house was taken care of.

[00:22:21]That was the priority. Marcy said that mammies were also responsible for taking the pressure off of the mistress of the house so that she would have time to inhabit these other roles, you know, gracious host, doting mother, sexy wife, even as the black women were doing most of the actual work of those roles, the cooking, the child rearing, the submission to the man of the house. We all know um baked to in all our DNA here in this country, mammies weren't safe from the bedroom with the master, but we don't talk about that. Woof. Yeah, she's saying that everything tradwives pride themselves on doing, that was stuff that, as you said, black women were expected to do, first during enslavement and later as domestic servants.

[00:23:12]And this trope has been all over the place in pop culture. Yeah, I mean, there's Imitation of Life, The Long Walk Home, Member of the Wedding. Mhm, and The Help, To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone with the Wind. Oh, now, Miss Scarlett, you come on and be good and eat just a little.

[00:23:31]>> No.

[00:23:32]I'm going to have a good time today and do my eating at the barbecue. IF YOU DON'T CARE WHAT FOLKS SAYS ABOUT THIS FAMILY, I DOES. I has told you and told you that you ain't all this We've reconstructed the narrative in order to fit um this trad idea of it being this modest and humble and beautiful and, you know, [music] um God's going to give you wings in heaven new thing, but we never said that about all these other groups of people who did the same work.

[00:24:05]So, Parker, obviously both tradwives [music] and mammies are caricatures, these easy-to-recognize figures with predictable characteristics [music] and they don't actually represent real people. Of course, humans are so much more complex and nuanced than any of these images can portray.

[00:24:21]>> [music] >> But the images are still really potent and in real life, they sometimes pave the way for certain women to get hold [music] of a particular type of power that can be really dangerous. And these are the mommy warriors that will make change >> [music] >> because we have to. Uh-oh.

[00:24:42]Okay.

[00:24:43]We're going to dive into that dangerous [music] power after the break.

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[00:26:12]Parker. [music] Leah. Code Switch. And we're back talking about the treacherous hellscape of modern motherhood from momfluencers to tradwives. Mhm.

[00:26:23]So, Leah, you are a black woman >> [music] >> and as we mentioned earlier in the show, you're about to have your second baby.

[00:26:32][music] Yes, could be any second now.

[00:26:34]Golly. So, we've been talking about how hard motherhood is and what a particular paradox it is for women of color.

[00:26:44]What are you [music] feeling about all of this this time around?

[00:26:48]I mean, to be honest, I feel a lot of the same things that I did [music] before, like I'm definitely excited, um but I'm still experiencing a lot of denial, a lot of wishful thinking, a decent amount of panic, [music] um and Parker, I'll admit, I I still do feel like there's something kind of compelling about [music] the tradwife life.

[00:27:11]Even now that you have like a real like tiny human in your home?

[00:27:16]Even more so, actually, probably.

[00:27:19]Because like so I'll be at work, you know, reading about different ways like immigrants are being terrorized or the Trump administration deciding to bring back firing squads.

[00:27:30]Um and then a part of my brain will be like, what if instead of doing this, >> [music] >> I were making a beautiful strong bowl like from scratch for my kids or what if I were knitting them a blanket or what if I were using this time to take them to the zoo? Like, wouldn't that be better?

[00:27:47]Sure. [snorts] Yeah.

[00:27:49]But then you'd have like, I don't know, kids with pasta hands handprints all over the walls and I already have that.

[00:27:55]I just also have to read about like devastating things.

[00:27:59]All right, fine, fine, fine. I would rather eat a plateful of deep-fried spiders than deal with the news right now. But you don't need to turn back time to find something more relaxing.

[00:28:11]True. Um because I think, you know, for some people, and I'll I'll put myself in this camp, like, the appeal of the tradwife uh is is truly very image-based.

[00:28:22]But for others, it's not just about the aesthetic of a different era, it's like about glamorizing a different time in history.

[00:28:29]We've been trained to see white, thin, uh feminine, you know, wearing aprons, like all the trappings around her, we have been culturally conditioned to see those trappings and make the quick connection to good motherhood. That's Sarah Peterson again. She talked about how much the tradwife narrative relies on a very narrow of an upper-middle-class mother in an idealized and racially homogeneous past. And so if we don't interrogate the real power of how the imagery is sort of consumed and how it continues to influence like actual decisions that impact real mothers in real lives, I think we're sort of missing a piece of the puzzle. I think we have to look at the power of imagery and the power of presumed maternal goodness. What sort of like real power does she get to wield in the world because of that assumed goodness?

[00:29:30]I mean, what power does she get to wield? Quite a lot, sometimes.

[00:29:36]I mean, I want you to think about Jenny McCarthy for a second. I mean, I haven't thought about her for a minute, but all right.

[00:29:44]I'm bringing you back.

[00:29:45]This is a woman who was famous as an actress and a model, but she became more famous or perhaps infamous for being the face of the anti-vax movement. Something different happened to our children, which then led to autism. Do I know that exact link? No. I don't have that proof, but I've got evidence in Evan. And I've got evidence in thousands and hundreds of thousands of parents all over the world. And these are the mommy warriors that will make change because we have to.

[00:30:18]Jenny McCarthy spent years and years spreading disinformation that has convinced tons of people that vaccines cause autism.

[00:30:27]And she's been able to do that in large part by wielding the image of a concerned, caring, devoted, white mom.

[00:30:35]And you can contrast that with the kind of power that other categories of moms have. So like, you know, many people have talked about how long and hard black moms have organized to convince people that police violence is something that negatively affects their kids and needs to be addressed.

[00:30:51]And thousands and thousands of black moms cannot get the same attention put to that issue that one white mom was able to draw to her issue.

[00:30:59]>> Yeah, I I immediately think of Moms for Liberty, right? Mhm. Moms for Liberty were founded by two moms who turned their mission of transparency in schools into a movement that was so powerful they were called domestic terrorists.

[00:31:17]We talked about them recently on the show because they're the group behind a lot of recent book bans. They're this group of mostly white women who have pretty quickly been able to gin up support and political power by leaning into this unimpeachable identity as concerned mothers. And as you heard them say, they've been flagged as an extremist group by civil rights watchdogs.

[00:31:41]That's for the accusation that they're promoting policies that would re-segregate schools and for teaming up in some instances with people like the far-right white nationalist group the Proud Boys. But that hasn't seemed to diminish their influence.

[00:32:00]That's a nice crowd. Thank you very much, everybody. Yeah, they got to interview Donald Trump for more than an hour this August.

[00:32:07]And there's this interesting two-way power relationship. Like, they're gaining status from having him at their event, but they're also using their platform to bolster his status. tell you personally, sir, that I endorse you for president of the United States.

[00:32:21]Thank [cheering] you, president. That's very nice.

[00:32:24]It's making the political nature of this identity explicit, right? [music] Moms as advocates for a particular vision of America >> [music] >> and a particular type of leader as their champion.

[00:32:36]Mhm. And again, not just any moms.

[00:32:38][music] Pretty, well-dressed, white moms. Moms who remind you of a modern-day Mrs. Cleaver, you know?

[00:32:45]People who really capture that image [music] can sometimes get away with saying some pretty remarkable stuff.

[00:32:54]Sarah said at some point her IG algorithm decided that she might be interested in some of that more intense momfluencer content. Many of these figures, at first glance, are really run-of-the-mill momfluencers.

[00:33:07]They look, you know, they've got the beachy waves, they've got the neutral backgrounds, they've got the flowy linen attire.

[00:33:15]And they'll be talking about homemade baby food, organic squash puree, one minute [music] and then talking about the deep state the next minute. And it was just super alarming to see how fluidly they could move in between pretty innocuous content and pointedly harmful content. And I think they are more likely to [music] convince like more mainstream, middle-of-the-road viewers that >> [music] >> you know, Hillary Clinton is drinking baby's blood if they're also selling you like an organic mattress topper.

[00:33:58]I mean, there are momfluencers out there literally saying like motherhood is a way to build your own army.

[00:34:08]>> [music] >> This reminds me of this one woman whose account was wife with a purpose.

[00:34:18]And I remember her tweeting her white baby's challenge a few years back where she's like, I've made six, match or beat me. Yeah, that was a woman named Alys Stewart. Most of her accounts are inactive right now, but she was popular and pretty prolific for a while. Alys Stewart was this woman who started sort of into like witchy, hippie women circles.

[00:34:44]And she just like really gradually veered further and further right. She was invited to speak at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville for context. She was actually at one point the only woman slated to speak there, although she ultimately wound up not being able to go. She talked a lot about how, you know, mainstream culture doesn't care about my motherhood. They don't care about my concerns as a mother, they don't care about, you know, how valuable my work is.

[00:35:14]And the right does. After Donald Trump was elected president the first time, she posted a video on YouTube about how excited she was to be pregnant with a baby that would be born during his administration.

[00:35:27]And she expressed her gratitude to the people who made that happen. My fellow white people who got out to vote, thank you. Thank you for not being ashamed to be traditional, to be Christian, to be conservative, and to be white. And it's okay to vote our interests. Of course we want to. Our ancestors are the ones who built and created this beautiful country, and we want to keep it wonderful. We don't want it to become Brazil. We don't want it to become a third world socialist hellhole. Oh, we're using a lot of uh dog whistle phrases. Oh, this is great.

[00:36:06]Coming back to her white baby's challenge, you know, that didn't come out of nowhere. It seemed to be a pretty direct homage to something that happened under Nazism. The Nazis used to give white mothers medals based on how many children they had.

[00:36:22]Really, really explicit like you will be rewarded for, you know, raising more white babies.

[00:36:27]I mean, >> [sighs] >> there's definitely a sense of history repeating itself. Yeah. And of course people like Alys Stewart are on the extreme ends of the spectrum.

[00:36:39]But I think one of the things that her story demonstrates is that there is this pathway for white moms who feel exhausted and underappreciated to look for meaning in some really dangerous places. [music] Motherhood is really lonely, it's isolating.

[00:36:55]And if you can find yourself as this this truth-teller, [music] this um person who's speaking back against evil powers in the world, as this [music] force to be reckoned with, I think that is just really, really compelling.

[00:37:11]So you can see the two sides of this coin, right? There's the appeal of creating this content, getting to be a truth-teller representing moms everywhere.

[00:37:20]And then there's the people who are isolated and struggling and prime [music] targets to drink it all in. And I think the women who are particularly vulnerable to this message are not getting much, you know, cultural respect >> [music] >> or validation. So I think the message that like actually you're doing really noble work and important work that is part of a bigger cause >> [music] >> is hugely attractive. So the divide grows between the moms who want to and can lean into this image of pure goodness [music] and all the other types of moms.

[00:38:01]>> [music] >> nothing like this. I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th [cheering] president.

[00:38:20]And look, the incoming presidential administration has made their priorities very clear.

[00:38:26]They want to return to America's golden age. Real or imagined. I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe, and prosperous America that our children deserve and that you deserve.

[00:38:39]This will truly be the golden age of America. That's what we have to have.

[00:38:45]>> [cheering] >> And an American golden age is an age of family. society. Or I think the most important way to measure a healthy society is whether a nation, whether the American nation is having enough children to replace itself. Do people look to the future and see a place that's worth having children?

[00:39:04]Parker, I don't know if I agree with that assessment, but if someone did, they might be interested to know that the US fertility rate reached an all-time low in 2023.

[00:39:15]And 38% of young people who say they don't want to have kids cite concerns about the state of the world.

[00:39:22]And 36% of those young people say they can't afford to have kids.

[00:39:27]These are all very valid reasons. Yeah.

[00:39:33]So >> [music] >> many of the people who preach about the joys of motherhood focus on these really small, intimate ways that you can make being a mom beautiful, you know, the lipsticks and the home cooked meals and the precious moments [music] with your chubby little babies.

[00:39:46]But it seems like the concerns that a lot of people have about parenthood are so much wider than that.

[00:39:52]So the question I'm [music] left with is how do you fill the voids that actually exist? The void of resources, the void of choices, [music] the void of money, the void of hope.

[00:40:03]Yeah, because a pat on the back or a medal for having more babies doesn't seem like it's going to do it. At least it wouldn't for me.

[00:40:12]Parker, they don't want you to have more babies anyway. I mean, that's fair.

[00:40:16]>> [gasps] >> But like some of the momfluencers I've encountered seem like they could sell [music] salt to a slug.

[00:40:23]But could they sell the idea of paid family leave to the Trump administration?

[00:40:29]And would they want to?

[00:40:30]Because that's [music] what it seems to keep coming back to.

[00:40:33]That what struggling families need is not trinkets or recipes.

[00:40:37]>> [music] >> They need help. Well, maybe that's what you can do on your maternity leave.

[00:40:41]Yeah, like you could become the alternative trad wife out there selling interracial, communal, cross-class motherhood networks. Mhm. Yes, I am sure I will have plenty of time for that just as soon as my kids are old enough to babysit themselves with their organic, wooden marble run.

[00:40:59]>> [music] >> And that's our show. And just a reminder that signing up for Code Switch Plus is a great way to support our show and public media. And you'll get to listen to every episode sponsor-free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org/codeswitch.

[00:41:18]This episode is produced by Jess Kung.

[00:41:20]It was edited by Courtney Stein. Our engineer was Josephine Niernai. And a big shout out to the rest of the Code Switch team, Christina Cala, Xavier Lopez, Jasmine Romero, Dolly Messatada, Berlyne Williams, Gene Demby, and Yolanda Sangweni. I'm B.A. Parker. I'm Leah Donnella. Hi Dre.

[00:41:40]>> [music] >> Wait, you don't have a call sign? No, that's why I put it in that order.

[00:41:48]Do you want to make meatloaf in a ball gown? Oh, I've never had meatloaf before.

[00:41:53]Yeah, you're not missing much.

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