This makes me gag. I’ve seen a couple of articles about a phenomenon called ‘tradwife on the internet.’ The articles were about women on the internet showing off their stay-at-home lifestyle, who turned out to be monetizing their websites, as they told other people, other women in particular, not to have an outside business. Because, they said, tradwives don’t do that.

Women don’t work.

That’s pretty twisted, to be making money telling others not to do what you are doing yourself. Whatever. I don’t know any of those websites and didn’t go looking. What matters to me is the phrase — she doesn’t work — said about a woman at home with a baby. Here’s the thing. Or two. Or three. 

When they say, ‘she doesn’t work’, what they mean is, she isn’t getting paid directly for what she is doing. She is working.

Women have always worked. Taking care of babies is work. Doing it right is really hard work. Bringing up children, and cooking, and cleaning, is work. Hard. Work. Doing the laundry is incredibly hard work, especially without machines. I remember hearing about a show that was some sort of “pioneer reality” where people tried to live as someone in the 1850’s might have. The 1850’s in the American Midwest I hasten to say. The producers had to “hire” a maid to help with the laundry in order to keep the show going. It isn’t just the washing machine either. My mother said she thought clothes dryers were a miracle. No more diapers hanging all over the house, while it rained outside, and she wondered when she should start cutting up a pillowcase.

The story of Sacajawea saving the explorers, Lewis and Clark, and the rest of the expedition from starvation, with her gathering of nuts and berries and other edibles, shows the critical importance of the gathering part of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Gotta do something when the meat’s not coming in.

The term ‘egg money’ meant money a farm wife made from her extra eggs; it was usually hers to use. Caddie Woodlawn’s mother (book by Carol Ryrie Brink, 1935), living in the 1860’s or 70’s, raised turkeys and sold them. She also sold large quantities of butter, and the butter buyer, who went around to different farms to purchase, had a special skewer that could sample deeply into a butter crock, so as to prevent fraud. 

Further, since Biblical times at least, women have worked outside the home to make money. Look at the description of the perfect wife from Proverbs 31. She cooks and weaves and makes deals and watches out for her household and children. 

Saint Paul met a working woman in the Bible, and by working woman, I mean that Lydia had a money making business outside the house. 

Some people, who do not want to do a particular kind of work, appreciate those that do it; others don’t. 

Stepping off soap box…