Return to Radiance with Danielle Venables

096. From Feminist to Trad Wife: My Unexpected Journey

• Danielle Venables • Episode 96

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The great debate between traditional and modern roles for women often misses the heart of what truly matters – a woman's freedom to choose her own path. Drawing from my unexpected personal journey, I share how I transformed from a staunch feminist with corporate ambitions to embracing elements of the "trad wife" lifestyle without sacrificing my strength or voice.

My story begins in business school, determined to climb the corporate ladder and fiercely protective of my independence. I once viewed traditional wives through a lens of judgment, assuming their choices stemmed from weakness or manipulation. But after having children and witnessing the consequences of my career-focused absence, particularly with my son, everything changed. The contrasting experience of being fully present during my daughter's early years illuminated what truly mattered to me and to my family's wellbeing.

The most profound lesson came through learning the art of submission – not as surrender, but as conscious trust and respect. This shift allowed me to discover complementary strength with my husband, creating a dynamic where we each bring our unique energies to our partnership. Contrary to what I once believed, women who choose traditional roles often embody remarkable resilience, wisdom, and power. They aren't weak or oppressed; they simply derive their value from different contributions. This journey has deepened not just my marriage but my spiritual connection and sense of self in ways corporate success never could. If you're struggling with societal expectations around femininity, partnership, or purpose, remember that true empowerment comes not from following external prescriptions but from the courage to forge your own authentic path.

Take a moment to examine where your beliefs about gender roles come from. Are they truly yours, or inherited from cultural messaging? Your unique journey deserves the freedom to unfold according to your values, not someone else's definition of empowerment.


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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the Return to Radiance podcast. Today we are going to be touching on a subject that has been the root of a lot of controversy, a lot of opinions, which I find really funny because ultimately, the way that we choose to live our lives is nobody's business but our own. But you know, you look at something like Ballerina Farms. There's a whole bunch of controversy there. You've got the sort of battle between feminism and the trad wife movement that are kind of duking it out and have been for a while, and so I wanted to talk about my own experience with the trad wife movement, with feminism, with the ways that I have grown and evolved and the things that I have learned on my journey, and so this one might be a little bit spicy at times, depending on which side of the spectrum that you fall on, but I'm just going to dive into it and share my own perspective, my own lived experience. What I have learned am aptly dressed in a very trad wifey looking dress today, which is kind of ironic given the topic that I chose to speak on. But I just want to start off by saying, first and foremost, one of the key things that I take from the roots of feminism is that I believe in a woman's right to choose, and I think that's something that's kind of gotten lost over the span of, you know, years of feminist movement. You know, at first it was women need to be able to open a bank account and you know, work and make money and sustain themselves. And in that regard, when I'm talking about feminism, I'm in this episode for the purposes of this episode. When I refer to feminism, I'm not referring to that. I am referring to sort of the new age, more modern feminism, where there's this attitude of women can do anything that men can do and we should be equals on all fronts, and that's going to be what I'm discussing here. So just know that, as I'm talking about feminism, I am not coming after a woman's freedom to choose because, as many of you know, if you've been around for a while, freedom is my number one value. It comes above everything else in my life. I will always fight for the freedom to choose. I will fight for medical freedom, I will fight for sovereignty in every capacity, because that is truly what I believe in. So I just want to set that context before diving into this so that I don't have a bunch of you who are maybe like me in more of the nuanced parts of the conversation to, you know, think that I'm completely suppressive to women.

Speaker 1:

So now let's just define trad wife here, if you're like, what the heck is a trad wife? I've never heard this term before. A trad wife is essentially somebody who lives in alignment with like an older way of being or anything like that. It's like the classic stay-at-home mom. She is, you know, tending to her kids and oftentimes in today's culture that involves like homesteading and things like that as well. It's often homeschooling and just really fulfilling like that classic some might even say ancient maternal role as a wife and as a mother within their family unit. So I'm going to take you all the way to the beginning.

Speaker 1:

When I was a kid, when I was in college and things like that, I very much considered myself a feminist. Actually, even in the beginning of my relationship with my husband, I very much considered myself a feminist. I did not enjoy being told what to do. I was strong, I was independent, I was hardheaded at times All traits that I still probably carry to a degree but I did not want any man coming into my life and telling me what I could or couldn't do. Now that still holds true. I'm not going to lie to you. That still holds true. So stick with me here. But I considered feminism to be like the best thing for women.

Speaker 1:

You know, I had big career goals. I went to business school. I was going to climb the corporate ladder, I was going to be a partner at an accounting firm. You know, I had big career goals. I went to business school, I was going to climb the corporate ladder, I was going to be a partner at an accounting firm. You know, I was very in my masculine and I wanted to make so much money that nobody could tell me what to do Not a man, not anybody. I did not want to be dependent on anyone. That was my goal in life and that was my outlook, was that I could do that and I should do that.

Speaker 1:

And, um, you know, I can do all of that independent of a man. Um, and so if you had presented the idea to me of a trad wife back in those days, to that version of me, I would have rolled my eyes and been like they're living in the wrong century. Um, you know, they are maybe weak or easily manipulated, or, um, you know, like there there would have been some narrative there for me around somebody choosing to live a trad wife lifestyle. And throughout the course of my partnership, I have been with my husband now for almost eight years and we have gone from a place where I was always trying to be hyper independent. You know, I would make my own money and I would pay my own bills and uh, you know, all all of these things that it was like I refused to let those go. Um, even when I got pregnant with my daughter, I was like I don't even want to take maternity leave, like I will take like three to six months and then I will be like dying to go back to work and um, you know, that was just like part of my personality.

Speaker 1:

It's like I had to hustle, I had to provide, I had to be in my masculine to a certain degree, and I largely actually blame that on this whole feminist movement which has created an attitude towards men where men cannot be trusted or men can't be the providers. It's like, you know, once a man's providing for you, then you're trapped. And don't get me wrong, that can be true, right, and it all comes down to an aligned partnership. It comes down to finding a man who is worthy of being that role for you, and sometimes that can be really hard to tell, and I know that women get stuck in really tricky situations because of that. And so it is important to use your discernment, and that's also why I believe in the grassroots feminine movement that began way before my lifetime. That does allow women to have sovereignty over themselves, right?

Speaker 1:

But throughout the course of my partnership, I have had to learn to soften, I have had to learn to let go of where I was deriving my worth from for one, which was my ability to match him, my ability to be independent, my ability to provide alongside him, and I had to really take a step back and reevaluate where maybe that wasn't serving my family. Right, because when I was working in corporate, my son was in daycare and then he was in school and he would go to afterschool care and I would miss everything at the school and I, you know, wasn't overly present. Even when I would get off of work, I would have a hard time unwinding and you know there was a lot of stuff there that wasn't serving me and it started to surface. For reference, my kids are five and a half years apart, my two oldest, and so I was starting to notice some behaviors in my oldest that I was able to attribute directly to my absence in his life. Right, it was like I was there but I wasn't really there and I was missing out on a lot, and not only missing out, but, you know, he was missing me. And so these behaviors started to come up and we started to have some real challenges in our relationship because of a lack of healthy attachment, because of a lack of, you know, nurturing.

Speaker 1:

He had been in daycare his entire life. He had been in school and in that regard, he probably felt pretty on his own in the world because I just didn't, I wasn't showing up, I wasn't that mom that was picking him up from school, I wasn't that mom that was volunteering at the school. Right, I had my career and I was really focused on building that out and proving myself in the world in that way. And so, as I started to realize that, that was at the same time that I was off on maternity leave with my daughter and I noticed the shift. When I was on maternity leave at first it was only supposed to be for a year Um, I noticed the shift in where I was able to show up for him differently too, as well as obviously being home in those precious first months with my daughter, who I completely missed out on that with my son as well, right, like I was just trying to prove myself, I had had him young and I was in school and I was in university and you know, I really wasn't there even in those critical first years of life, right?

Speaker 1:

So the contrast between putting a kid in daycare at a young age versus sending them off to school at age five, I noticed a very big difference in the development, in the attachment that each of my kids was demonstrating, that each of my kids was demonstrating, and even just being able to be there, being able to drive them home from school if they want me to pick them up, you know, being able to drop everything and be there for them if something comes up, if they're sick, if they're whatever, instead of trying to navigate how to balance my corporate desires with being there properly for my kids, right? Because ultimately, if you take too much time off, work, work doesn't like that and that can hinder your opportunities, right? So it was this very stuck place that we were in um that we were in. So all of that to say. When the one year mark came after my daughter's um birth right and I was supposed to go back to work, I had pushed it off another six months just to see if I could figure out this business thing. That was when my, my business, was ultimately birthed. That was when I decided that it was time to do something different and to do something that allowed me to be at home with my kids.

Speaker 1:

And ultimately, six months went by. I still wasn't making money, I still wasn't cracking the code that is a whole other story for another time but I made the hard decision to leave my job anyway, and obviously this was a decision that was made with my husband. It was right at the start of COVID as well. So there was some stuff there around like sending her to daycare and different things that we weren't super keen on, as we were like watching the world kind of crumble. But all of that to say, I made the decision to just stay home, and I have been home ever since and in that time I have had business success and I've also gone through seasons where I have not made money or I have not made much money to, you know, have a real financial impact on the landscape of our family, financial impact on the landscape of our family. And all of that to say when it put me in a position where I wasn't the breadwinner anymore, where I wasn't the one running the show, where I wasn't the one that could say, fuck you, I'm going to do what I want because I have my own money and I have my own whatever.

Speaker 1:

It brought me over the years into a place of submission and that word might be kind of triggering to some of you, because submission sounds like this really scary thing maybe. But what submission looked like for me was putting the ultimate trust in my husband to lead our family. Now, keep in mind, in our relationship he had been proving himself worthy, right. He had been proving that he had everybody's best interests at heart. He had been proving that he was a good, stable, healthy man who was not going to, you know, manipulate or abuse us, right. So that context needs to be there.

Speaker 1:

But I started to come to a place of submission where at first it was like, well, I'm going to do what I want anyway, and I started to slowly soften into the idea that I owed him the respect to value his opinion, to value his insights, and it doesn't mean that it leads my life all of the time. We are allowed to disagree, but I had to soften into this submission that he knew what was best for us financially, that he knew what was best for us even, you know, emotionally and mentally as a family. Right, if I would have an idea and I would want to go do something or spend money on something or whatever, and he was like no, actually, and he would show me the other side of what I was thinking where in the past I would have just gone and bought the thing or gone and made that decision on my own, and so it started to be a lot more of a collaborative relationship. But also I started to learn how to hear no and be okay with it. And if my parents were listening to this episode they would laugh because even as a kid, me hearing no was like a big middle finger. I'm going to do what I want.

Speaker 1:

But I really had to come to a place of respect for him, for the hours that he spends away, for the sacrifices that he makes for our family, family and for everything that he misses out on and all of the burdens that he carries because of our joint decision for me to stay home right Especially in the world today where costs are rising through the roof and things like that it puts even more pressure on his shoulders, and that's what he carries every day. And at the time, you know, maybe I didn't see that or maybe I just didn't value and respect it the way that I needed to, but that's really ultimately what brought me into submission. It was this understanding and it was this seeing him in all of his challenges and all of his struggles, and everything that he deals with outside of just going to work, right, we always talk about the mental labor or the mental load that women carry in the house, and, yes, that's true and that's valid. But the one thing that I've learned through all of this is that he's also carrying his own cross, so to speak. Right, that sounds so religious, but you know what Like it's like? He is carrying his own burdens, he is shouldering his own weight in his own way, and it's not as simple as like oh, he just gets to go to work and I'm left with everything else, which, by the way, is not entirely true. He does a lot when he's home, he's just away a lot.

Speaker 1:

But with that realization I started to come into more balance For one, I started to lean more into my feminine energy and letting him lead, because he is a worthy leader and he does deserve my respect and I wouldn't have married him if he did not, um, but there's there's this fine balance that I've had to find of, like, my own free will and still living my life and still standing up and speaking up for things that are important to me, if I do disagree with him, while also softening to so much and trusting that he actually sees things differently and, um, you know, trusting in, in his vision and in the way that that he, he, you know, through his perspective as the breadwinner, as arguably the logical one Not that I can't think logically, but, like, our brains do work very differently and so, when he brings his logic into things, every single time it's like, oh, I didn't think about it like that, right. Every single time it's like, oh, I didn't think about it like that, right. So it's found this beautiful balance between free will and respect that I wouldn't have been able to find if I was still hopped up on this feminist ideology, if I wasn't pushed into the home, if I wasn't pushed into homemaking, homesteading you know I don't homeschool but there was a bunch of life experience that I had to go through in order to find that balance with him. And I will say on the side note that that has amplified and grown our relationship in ways that I never thought possible, where I've been able to lean even more into him and really trust in the masculine and really trust in the support that is there for me in a way that I never had before. And if you've worked with me in the past or if you've heard past episodes and things like that, like you know that there is a connection and I will always say this, there is a connection between all of the masculine energies in your, in your life, right, and so that is your masculine partner, that is your and that is your faith, right, faith in God, faith that you will be supported and provided for when you are manifesting and things like that. So that has, in trusting in him, that has also furthered me spiritually, in my faith, and that has also furthered me financially because I have more trust in the masculine showing up for me where there was a lot of wounding and there's a lot of collective wounding around the masculine, you know, growing up and in life at large.

Speaker 1:

So the last myth that I want to dispel and again this came from my own beliefs at the time when I was deep in the feminism stuff, but this is that trad wives are somehow weak or inferior or suppressed in some way. And I think I kind of touched on the suppression part already with the balance of free will and respect. But a true trad wife in the 21st century, in my opinion, is a strong ass woman. Even in the, the, the 20th century, um, I am sure that there were women who weren't just the victims of their husbands, right, and so like. We need to to dispel that idea that women are always the victim and they're always suppressed and they're always whatever and the men just get to run the show. And that's why trad wife is so toxic, right, because it's not. Trad wives are strong women. They may be softer in their approach, they may be softer in their language, they may be even softer in their energy at times, right, I know that's been true for me. I have softened so much.

Speaker 1:

But when you look, I was actually watching the finale of 1923 last night and when you look at somebody like Kara in 1923, to me that is the embodiment of a trad wife. Right, like she is the ultimate trad wife. She stays home, she overlooks everyone, she takes care of people, she's there for her. You know, grown in this case, nieces and nephews, but in theory, kids as well right, you know, she's there, she holds the family together. And also you look at the relationship dynamic between her and her partner and it is beautiful. There is so much love, there is so much strength and in the last episode spoiler alert, but you know he is not that much of a spoiler actually but he refers to her as if a shooting star could talk, right, and so there's just this really healthy respect and he sees her strength and he sees her resilience and you know, they just meet each other in this way where he's allowed to go be a man and she's allowed to be a woman. But they're both strong individuals and they're like this power couple dynamic.

Speaker 1:

And yes, I realize that TV is fiction and all of that, but like it reminded me so much, it was almost like a foreshadowing of, like how I expect my relationship to progress over the years, because that's really what it comes down to is that we're both meeting each other in our own ways. We're bringing our strengths as masculine and feminine dominant energies right and there's just this really beautiful complementary strength. I mean, you see that even with the, behind every successful man is a strong woman right behind every successful man is a strong woman right. And so trad wives are not weak, they're not pathetic, they're not meek, they're not helpless. They just bring their contribution and receive their value from a different place and I personally think that that's beautiful.

Speaker 1:

I think that I have absolutely loved the journey that I've been on as a trad-ish wife and it's shown me so much healing and so much growth and so much coming home to myself in a way that I wouldn't have been able to peel back those layers if I was still a feminist. So that's a little bit of my thoughts on like why trad wives are so misunderstood, and again, I do think that there are ways that it can be done well and there are ways that it can go sideways, just like anything, but ultimately it has been one of the most fulfilling and beautiful journeys that I have ever been on personally, and I just wanted to maybe bust some myths and open your mind to the fact that when women choose this, they're choosing it in their power, not outside of it. So that's what I've got for you this week. I hope you have an amazing week ahead and I will catch you in the next episode.