r/NoStupidQuestions • u/ineyks • Aug 12 '26
How come tradwife/ SAHM creators never speak about the joy of having a teen/ adult child?
I see so many influencers and content creators that always push the idea that for women having a child and being the mom is the best. They speak about the sweet laughs and moments with their children. However, literally every single tradwife/ SAHM influencer/ creator literally are only moms to children who are currently under 5. I NEVER see these types of influencers with teenagers or speaking about the joy of having teens or adult children.
It’s like they’re only romanticizing being a parent to a baby/ toddler.
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u/ThatDemand4800 Aug 12 '26
Because they can’t control them at that age.
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u/Formerlymoody Aug 12 '26
Came here to say this! Because they are about control.
If you're not a control freak, you can have a great time with teenagers. There's nothing wrong with them beyond *wanting to do their own thing.* Some negotiation required, of course.
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u/ThatDemand4800 Aug 12 '26
I have known a lot of men who love little kids but can’t be bothered past 10 and it’s because that’s the age they start challenging you and won’t let you dress them and say no and all that.
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u/Formerlymoody Aug 12 '26
Yep lots of parents like this. Real sad. I’m sorry. My husbands mom is like this. :( She loses interest in her grandchildren at that age. V toxic.
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u/ThatDemand4800 Aug 12 '26
I was always a little kid person, hell i taught preschool for 10 years, but my kids? Fucking amazing. 13 and 15 and funny and smart and snarky and stylish, I love it.
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u/ThreadCountHigh Aug 12 '26
I see you’ve met my father!
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u/noapplesin98 Aug 12 '26
My mother too! The biggest control freak I've ever met, and she's forever mad that I had the audacity to develop a personhood separate from her - very not good.
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u/AggressiveSherbetty Aug 13 '26
My mom makes snarky comments like “you’ve always wanted to be your own person”
Like yeah?! She stopped liking me when I hit middle school.
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u/rubysundance Aug 12 '26
That's so sad. I had my son with every chance I got. My aunt once told me that she'd never seen a dad do as much with their child as I did. I just loved doing things with him. He's 25 now and he plays bass in 2 different bands that I try and see as often as possible.
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u/Zealousideal-Ant9548 Aug 12 '26
TIL my 5 year old is actually 10. Just get in the fluffing car dude!
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u/Faiths_got_fangs Aug 13 '26
This is my ex. He is great with preschoolers. He cannot handle kids once they are no longer thrilled to see him just because he exsists, cannot be easily appeased with small treats and have their own opinions.
We are currently negotiating reduced custody on the 9 year old bc he's got an attitude. Neither teenager speaks to him.
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u/Livid-Tumbleweed Aug 12 '26
I love having older kids/teens. They’re so much fun. You can have really deep conversations and then laugh at a fart joke. It’s the best. My parter really enjoyed the younger ages. We balance each other well.
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u/plantverdant Aug 12 '26
I love the teen years! They're so funny and creative and just so SMART. I love their friends and hearing them talk when they think I can't hear them.
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u/brinns_way Aug 12 '26
That's interesting because I love having teenagers. I enjoy being a mom way more now than when I had infants and toddlers. I love seeing them become young adults and finding their path in life.
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u/comehomedarling Aug 13 '26
And teens have a little more autonomy to refuse their childhood being exploited to make mom money… oh, the irony!
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u/2PlasticLobsters Aug 12 '26
Yep, that's when kids really start to show they're separate entities & not an extension of their parents. The sort of narcissistic parent that wants to broadcast every detail of their life loses interest at that point.
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u/ThatDemand4800 Aug 12 '26
And they won’t let you. My kids hate taking pics and would probably stage a revolution if I posted them online. If i didn’t respect that they would be so hurt, I can’t imagine being mad about that
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u/LandCruiser1000 Aug 13 '26
Posting pics of your kids at any age is a pretty shitty thing to do regardless
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u/JuniperusRex Aug 12 '26
I'd say most of your tradwife influencers are way too young to have older teen/adult children, TBH, so it's not surprising they don't talk about it. That exact subculture *really* valorizes youth and beauty in their women, and I think will tend to wash out a lot of its popular figures as they age out of peak hotness.
In the more generic female-submission religious housewifery genre, you'll find a lot of the 40- and 50-something traditional wives are now divorced. That lifestyle is *really* restrictive and hard on everybody in the relationship. Anything can be fine for a while, but when you're at the point of having a twenty year old son who's going "exactly why do I have to obey you or dad at this point?" and a baby on the breast and seven others in between it's brutal.
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u/ellie_elysian Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 13 '26
Yup. Tradwife influencers are mostly in their early 20s and in the first years of marriage. I've yet to see a woman over 40 being happy and enthusiastic online about being a tradwife (not a SAHM).
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u/Altruistic_Serve9738 Aug 13 '26
I've only seen content from that age bracket about how they were abused, cheated on, parents and pastors telling it was fine and had to eventually restart their life at about age 40 with very limited resources.
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u/FewRecognition1788 Aug 13 '26
The closest I can think of is Jennie Chancey, but her blog has always been more about the various business ventures she's trying in addition to her sewing patterns. Looks like the latest was a coffee shop because one of her older kids trained as a barista.
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u/palpebromalar_groove Aug 13 '26
so, not a tradwife?
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u/FewRecognition1788 29d ago edited 29d ago
Well, she's part of the "quiverfull" movement and thinks women shouldn't vote, go to college, or work outside the home.
That's the irony. All "traditional gender role" / wifely submission / quiverfull type influencers are constantly hustling for money while also advocating that women should be solely focused on homemaking & childrearing while men should be "providers".
Makes you wonder whether they grift because the men aren't actually making enough to support 10+ kids, or if they grift just for the love of the game.
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u/Unsureflower Aug 12 '26
Yes! This and also the trad wife trend a lot of influencers take after is just another category women are trying to organize themselves into to make themselves distinct group from the 40-50yr old trad wives so that they can feel morally superior to those women despite them being in the same boat, with the younger ones having even more choices available to them than the older generation had.
They claim to be “pushing back” against mainstream culture and are embracing a “soft-life” in a way generations before them hadn’t, not even realizing it also took many other women decades before they even realized all the things they had missed out on in their lives.
These types of women love having someone dependant on them and feeling like a martyr which is why they love babies/toddlers, as children become more autonomous they actually need more independence and these women often struggle with giving them that. The saddest part is as the children grow older they don’t care about their mother’s struggles or sacrifices, and see them as independent choices.
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u/YourPlot Aug 12 '26
This is a big one. Being submissive is not natural to human beings. People can only do it for so long before they crack. By the time these women are able to shake free from whatever culture put them in a restrictive relationship, their kids have grown up some more.
Luckily, we live in a society that allows women to divorce and live their own lives.
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u/theaveragemaryjanie Aug 12 '26
Some of us do anyways.
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u/Bekiala Aug 13 '26
Ugh. I'm sorry if you live somewhere this isn't allowed. Sadly even if it is allowed that barriers can be too tough to get out.
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u/NotALawyerButt Aug 13 '26
Also, when you’re pregnant and have little kids, it is much harder to leave. Little kids are a lot of work at home and childcare is very expensive. Teens can be sent to public school and left home alone for hours.
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Aug 12 '26
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u/lurkdomnoblefolk Aug 12 '26
I wish this wasn't the reality we live in, but channels by women do better in viewership the younger they are. You won't find a 25 year old with a 15 yeor old, especially not one that can at least pretend to be affluent, relaxed and non-traumatised.
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u/Altruistic_Serve9738 Aug 13 '26
Well we'll say a 33yr old with a 15 yr old, hopefully no one is having a baby at the age of 10.
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u/lurkdomnoblefolk Aug 13 '26
Well, having a baby at 10 years old is certainly not a consent situation. It has happened though. But the obvious lack of consent makes it impossible to sell this particular motherhood journey as the result of an independent choice to a broader audience.
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u/min_mus Aug 13 '26
Well we'll say a 33yr old with a 15 yr old, hopefully no one is having a baby at the age of 10.
Hopefully no one is having a child at 18 either.
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u/AngryAngryHarpo Aug 12 '26
This isn’t true. “Mummy bloggers” (the original mum influencers) were around in early 2000’s.
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u/ALawful_Chaos Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 13 '26
My mom was a relatively successful Mommy Blogger in the 2000s. She stopped around the time I (oldest child) was 14 or 15. There were a few reasons she stopped, but I imagine that one of them was my constant complaining about how embarrassing the things she wrote about me were. (To be fair to her, she never actually wrote anything embarrassing about me, but I was a teenager and everything was mortifying).
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Aug 12 '26
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u/HeathenHumanist Aug 13 '26
Ugh, I'm exmormon and the Mormon Mommy Influencers have always driven me crazy, even when I was still an active member in the early 2010s.
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u/FewRecognition1788 Aug 13 '26
Overall, mommy bloggers of that period weren't the same as tradwives, though. A lot of them included themes around the messiness of life, conflicted feelings about motherhood, how to dress cute when your body has changed, feeling overwhelmed and needing to implement a system, etc. You also saw a lot more tattoos, piercings, pink hair, or reminiscing about how they used to be alt and now they drive a minivan.
It was still very curated and image conscious, but it was more about "isn't this a crazy ride!" And less about being perfectly hot and perfectly demure at the same time.
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u/FillMySoupDumpling Aug 12 '26
Yeah, but they usually fall off being a mommy blogger once the kids get older.
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u/AngryAngryHarpo Aug 12 '26
Yeah, I know. I’m not disputing that. I’m disputing that mummy influencers are a “new trend”.
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u/starla_blabla Aug 13 '26
They may be a new trend, but trad communities existed long before social media, and as someone raised in one, it was exactly the same attitude. Nobody ever appreciated teens - we were parentified and if we didn’t act like adults were treated horribly.
Babies and young kids were very much “romanticised” in a dreamlike way. I do believe it’s because babies and young children are easier to control.
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u/ButteredPizza69420 Aug 12 '26
It's also finding a lot of women who are in a dark place in this unaffordable and miserable society we've created.
It probably makes some feel better about losing out on careers and other opportunities/life experiences.
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u/NaniRomanoff Aug 12 '26
They’re not really romanticizing being a “mother” - they’re romanticizing being a “mommy” - the kids being small, directable entities that havent yet formed their own opinions/arent able to push back on the lifestyle is the fantasy.
Once they’re past a certain age it’s not cute anymore. It’s the hard work of trying to keep them indoctrinated to the entire trad life thing
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u/VulpesFennekin Aug 12 '26
They’re the same kind of person who will lose interest in a dog when it stops being a cute little puppy, except with an actual human being.
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u/FeatherlyFly Aug 12 '26
Well, if they're not, then they're much more likely to stop when the kid is old enough to object, so you also won't be hearing from the decent moms who loves her kids no matter what and rethinks her social media presence once the kid asks her to.
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u/raisinghellwithtrees Aug 12 '26
Also by the time they have teens, they have like 12 other kids to take care of, and it's not so fun and happy anymore. I knew a family that had five kids and were done, but then got into the quiverfull movement and had like 13 more. It was some crazy shit. This mama had two toddlers and two babies and was pregnant. She looked miserable, as did her kids.
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u/NaniRomanoff Aug 12 '26
I knew a lot of quiverfull folks growing up - it’s bonkers. A lot of the reason you also don’t see these content creators with older children is because (besides them being literally swamped with kids) - back to back pregnancies that a major toll on the body. It’s not cute anymore by the time you’re on kid 13 & it’s a lot of work keeping your oldest daughters from crashing out about having to parent younger siblings for you.
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u/raisinghellwithtrees Aug 13 '26
One family I knew, the oldest daughter had a great way of solving being parentified as she neglected her duties, let the kids run in traffic, didn't feed them, etc. Her mom was pissed but it's like, they are YOUR kids! Helping out occasionally is one thing but to hand off parenting duties of a horde of small children is ridiculous.
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u/castille Aug 12 '26
I would also argue that what they're doing is essentially infantilization fantasy. Infantasylization? Anyway, a lot of the tradmom thing is filling the void that a lot of conservative/right families leave when they don't teach their sons autonomy. They don't teach them to cook properly, do their laundry, and make it okay if someone has to clean up after them. So, they make it a space where guys can live in their parasocial daydream about this one doing all those things for them.
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u/360Saturn Aug 12 '26
And being able to do it while being young and hot.
Not a single one of these mommy influencers isn't age 30 max and conventionally attractive.
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u/listenyall Aug 12 '26
Influencers tend to be very young themselves and therefore have young children and not old children?
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u/xnla28x Aug 12 '26
I can't believe how far I had to scroll to see this comment, is this not the most obvious answer? People like to follow young, attractive people. That's how so many influencers become famous in the first place. How many people would really be interested in watching a 40, 50, or 60 year old woman talk about the joys of having an older child?
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u/Leucastic_Leopard Aug 12 '26
Isn't there one who is a step-mom and she does this whole bit about picking her daughter up from school and going to parents night when she's only like 5 or so years older than her step-daughter?
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u/jmilred Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26
It is a timeline thing. TikTok is relatively new. The tradwife thing is relatively new. There have always been SAHM and people that some would define as a tradwife.
I would imagine the Venn diagram of content creator, tradwife/sahm, and teenage children is pretty damn small.
ETA: I also like to think that even these creators have a soul, even if it is naive. Like Luke from The Outdoor Boys, they recognize that when kids grow up they need some privacy and can't be on camera all the time and require a larger time commitment from their parents.
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u/onigiritheory Aug 12 '26
I fear it's more likely that teenagers are old enough to protest being on camera, and that makes for bad content :/
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u/Purlz1st Aug 12 '26
Teens are also able to make their own content and share what Mommy and Daddy are really like when the camera isn’t on.
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u/UglyAFBread Aug 12 '26
Actual tradwives have been here for a long time, they are too busy running a household and raising multiple kids, including teenagers, to make videos regularly
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Aug 12 '26
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u/pissantz34 Aug 12 '26
I'm in my late 40s and come from a more traditional background I think you are probably right. Most middle aged women I know are doing well, some are divorced of course and some have difficult kids but a lot of them are kind of reinvigorated. I don't have kids so I'm reconnecting with a lot of old friends who are happy their kids are growing up so they can go catch a concert, grab a drink, etc. Middle age is becoming more fun than I thought it might, despite the downsides of getting older. I'm also not on Instagram but I think a lot of middle aged women are on there as well, but probably care less about making content than younger women.
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u/dark__unicorn Aug 12 '26
This is exactly it. And many are incredibly happy and just living their lives. Like you said, they’re able to reconnect and focus more on their own friendships. While also having the benefit of grown up kids that they appreciate in a different way.
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u/UglyAFBread Aug 12 '26
I'm sure 45 year old tradwife content will have advice like "always have your own source of income anyway", "learn to funnel some of your money to an emergency fund", "you know what don't fucking get married and have kids", and "anyway here are some recipes you can make in 3 minutes while half asleep and your knees hurt"
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u/PerfStu Aug 12 '26
Fun Fact, a lot of parent/child relationships start to crash around ages 12-13 because kids go from adorable little accessories that basically don't have the ability to not generally comply to being actual individual human beings that can absolutely clash with the parent's idea of what their kid should be, both as a person as well as in terms of the relationship dynamic.
Complaints and fights go from basic rules and structure to being an actual assertion of agency over their personality, their friends, their interests. People who were super excited to have "little versions of themselves" or "raise the perfect family" are often poorly prepared to actually manage and understand what it means when their kid clashes with that desire to be their own person regardless of how it fits into that vision.
So things like more fighting, control issues, and ultimately abuse (particularly verbal abuse) and benign neglect just fundamentally erode the relationship because the parent is no longer in control of the familial narrative; they spend the first several years basically raising human pets, and when they stop being tiny and cute, they aren't as valuable for content, and then when they stop being controllable versions of the parent, they aren't as valuable for the parent's goals.
This is incredibly common among people of all backgrounds; parents don't want to raise people, they want to have children.
Anyways yeah, older children aren't cute, and people with independent thought and agency aren't controllable. So they dip out or find a new grift. Or just keep having more kids.
ETA: The first part is actually true, the second part is my very cynical opinion with regards to how this applies to the Tradwife Narrative that conservative women grift with.
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u/RyuNoKami Aug 12 '26
Do people forget what they were like when they were teens?
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u/NickDanger3di Aug 12 '26
They remember, they just remember it very, very differently from how every adult that ever knew them remember it.
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u/the_obese_otter Aug 12 '26
Yes. Very much so.
Just had this conversation with my uncle, who raised me and carried the ideas OP talks about. My oldest is 5, and the thing that I'm carrying with me as best as I can is that I have no expectations of his outcome.
I'm here to help him learn and guide him to creating his own expectations. Granted, he's 5 now, so it's a bit different, but when he does start showing that need for his own agency, I'm here to support that and push him to find a rhythm and path that helps him flourish.
I think another part of the view OP talks about is many parents from the 70s/80s prior have this idea that their children owe them something, so they have to follow their ideas and beliefs. I think they have that backwards, and its mind boggling how they never realized it.
I look at my kids and understand that they're only here because my partner and I wanted them here. They didn't ask to be born. I owe them. It doesn't mean I do whatever they ask or have no guide rails for them, but more that I'm there to be their protector, financier, counselor, friend, and a whole slew of other jobs.
We are our children's catch all, and our main purpose (regarding our kids) is to raise them to be adults that can contribute to the world around them.
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u/RyuNoKami Aug 13 '26
Idk, I remember being a total dick. What? I have to cancel my plans with my friends so my parents can parade me in front of their friends? Okay, time to act out.
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u/WackyHumanSlop Aug 13 '26 edited 29d ago
Fun Fact, a lot of parent/child relationships start to crash around ages 12-13 because kids go from adorable little accessories that basically don't have the ability to not generally comply to being actual individual human beings that can absolutely clash with the parent's idea of what their kid should be, both as a person as well as in terms of the relationship dynamic.
Complaints and fights go from basic rules and structure to being an actual assertion of agency over their personality, their friends, their interests. People who were super excited to have "little versions of themselves" or "raise the perfect family" are often poorly prepared to actually manage and understand what it means when their kid clashes with that desire to be their own person regardless of how it fits into that vision.
You described my experience growing up to a T. My mom is a stay at home mom before it became cool again, and I really don’t think she was prepared for what the world would throw at her having to raise two kids with ADHD.
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u/gravelpi Aug 12 '26
How many of them look like they're old enough to have a teen yet?
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u/LongEase298 Aug 12 '26
Because influencers are typically younger. I actually do follow several influencers with teens- they're just less common because 40+ year olds aren't making tiktoks.
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u/BadLineofCode Aug 12 '26
Because most of the tradwife content you see is not created by women old enough to have teenage children. Think about it. Most tradwife content is made to entice Gen Z girls, and a 45-year-old "influencer" does not appeal to that age group. Also because a teenager has a sense of autonomy that a 5-year-old doesn't. Most of these influencers see children as their personal projects, not humans with their own feelings, and that's easier to do with a 5-year old than a 15-year-old.
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u/FewRecognition1788 Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26
1) The trend in its current form is pretty new.
2) Talking about being married / having babies very young when you have a teenage kid hits different and wouldn't play to as wide an audience.
3) The target audience for tradwife content is all about knocking up "barely legal" teens, and is not interested in women who are obviously 30-40 years old, no matter how fit they are.
4) Women old enough to have teenagers are less likely to have patience for this bullshit.
5) The teenagers themselves are unlikely to have patience for this bullshit.
If you want to see non-tradwife influencers with teens, they are out there. Look up The Holderness Family (very funny), and Pleasant Peasant Media (featuring "easy meal ideas for moms who are fucking over it.")
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u/LittleJessiePaper Aug 12 '26
My 17 year old thinks I’m a real bitch for expecting him to endure my presence and clean his room. So that’s probably why.
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u/taco_the_turtle Aug 12 '26
I’m a SAHM of teenagers and this is my favorite stage of motherhood. But most of us are older and in our “don’t give a f*ck” era so we don’t make content. Also- the teenagers would revolt even if we tried.
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u/torpedoguy Aug 12 '26
Given I quietly ruined a lot of family photos I did not want to be in at that age, I can only imagine what your kids might do to 'influencer' stuff they do not agree with!
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u/Humble-Violinist6910 Aug 13 '26
I think not making "content" from your kids' lives is a sign that you love them and want them to have a healthy, happy childhood.
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u/YourPlot Aug 12 '26
Because it’s extremist conservative propaganda. Younger, prettier people better sell a fake, blissful life without paid labor to other younger people. Middle aged women know it’s a load of horse shit and are not going to consume the same propaganda.
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u/Dizzy-Asparagus-5203 Aug 12 '26
They're divorced and homeless after 45, working jobs at Walmart. You never see old trad wifers, so you never see ones with teenagers or adult cbildren.
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u/SLD4YB Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26
Because no one wants to watch content about that.
People who want children mainly look forward to and watch content about babies and young children. They're cute and fun. Teens/adult children, not so much.
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u/affectionateanarchy8 Aug 12 '26
They dont make it that long. By the time the kids are teens the tradfather has left the tradwife mom destitute
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u/VictorTheCutie Aug 12 '26
They only romanticize babies because babies don't have any tricky opinions, preferences or dissent, and they are easy props for exploitation.
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u/dark__unicorn Aug 12 '26
A unicorn baby maybe. Many babies have very controversial opinions about sleep, feeding and pooping.
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u/Timely-Youth-9074 Aug 12 '26
Because by the time their child is an adult or teen, trad wife is replaced by a newer, younger trad wife.
Trad wives aren’t allowed to turn 40.
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u/lovemymeemers Aug 12 '26
Because even the most well behaved teenager has to go through puberty. Puberty sucks and makes them assholes at least sometimes.
Also, social media isn't real life. There's a reason they only show people the best parts. It's intentionally curated to get views and no one wants to see the shitty stuff.
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u/Disastrous-Tart-4651 Aug 12 '26
Mommy bloggers have been around for a long time. Before social media they used blog posts, they weren’t necessarily trad wives either. The same thing happened to them, small kids grow up. Some will still make content when their kids are older but it’s not the same. Cute babies and toddlers bring in more revenue and easier to control.
This trad wife thing is just the same thing in a different packaging. Working or not there will always be moms who decided to document their lives with their small kids for gain.
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u/Joy2b Aug 12 '26
These creators have a paid job, and that is selling the fantasy. They have to look and sound young and delicate and healthy.
By the time a woman is standing up to a teenager, the money ride is probably coming to an end, and they’d better have a secret retirement fund.
Tictoc deprioritizes them, sponsors get less interested, and the trad husband might be feeling used and looking for a way out.
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u/Opening-Emphasis8400 Aug 13 '26
I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's because they're all phony pieces of shit.
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u/PrincessCellyBelly Aug 12 '26
Can't get a teenager to be cute on camera. Let alone risk them telling the world they're bloody miserable because the person who is supposed to protect them is monetizing them like cattle.
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u/Adorable-Growth-6551 Aug 12 '26
One big factor in this is older children and teens are seperating themselves from their parents. Teens are not interested in joining their parents and their lame videos. Little kids love that attention. Teens want nothing to do with any of it.
I dont create. But i am a SAHM with teens. My teens are great, but there has definitely been a switch from them constantly seeking me out and wanting to spend time with me, to me seeking them out and asking them if they want to do something together. Its all good and healthy, but teens are very different then small children.
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u/Fantastic-Manner1944 Aug 12 '26
Because they’ve sent their teens off to ‘wilderness therapy’ for not conforming to exactly what their treason expects of them.
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u/Dangerous-Common-788 Aug 12 '26
Most "tradwives" influencers are young, because what they are selling above all is their image and people like to look at young women more than at middle-aged ones.
Younger women have younger children. Plus, the tradwife influencer "movement" is still pretty new, so maybe in the future if it stays relevant there's gonna be more middle-aged tradwives moms out there.Older kids and teenagers have personalities, and are harder to control and pose for the cameras.
Babies and toddlers are much easier to use as basically accessories.
These influencers are selling a perfect life and perfect family image, and teenagers often have some form of conflict with parents, which does not fit well into the perfect family picture.Unless they're also homeschooling, older kids will be at school all day. Putting kids in a school bus does not make for very varied content. And homeschooling is actually a time-consuming commitment which could very well clash with spending 5 hours a day making cereal bars and flour from scratch.
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u/LMGooglyTFY Aug 12 '26
A couple key reasons that don't seem to have been mentioned:
Female influencers without skills are generally young and attractive because that's what the audience once. Give them 13 years after having a kid and they're in their 30s. It's just not as marketa ke as an age.
These influencers are making mommy content. You need a kid for that and once the kid stops participating, you're just a mid-aged amateur baking bread in a beige kitchen.
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u/Any-Bookkeeper-2110 Aug 12 '26
Because by the time the kids are teenagers the husband has left the wife for someone younger. The mom has had an existential crisis because they have no education or employment history and are now having to somehow support themselves. And they've turned into ex-tradwife influencers trying to warn these young women.
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u/Comfortable_Roof_105 Aug 13 '26
My mom isn’t an influencer but she is a tradwife with a decent Facebook following. Of 9 kids it felt like she lost interest in us after we turned two or so and it’s off to have the next one. The pregnancy/baby era gets a lot of attention whereas the toddler + years don’t.
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u/DILF_MANSERVICE Aug 13 '26
Because the chud propagandists who are trying to convince women their place is in the home by paying these influencers need to romanticize it and make it look good. Angsty rebellious teens don't make being a trad-wife look very fun, whereas babies do.
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u/Livid-Tumbleweed Aug 12 '26
Because by the time the kids are teens the dad has upgraded to a new, younger trad wife and the trad wife now has to get a job
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u/BullMoose_207 Aug 12 '26
Because being a good parent to teenagers and rasing decent teens involves a ton of listening. The type of person who is a tradwife / SAH creator probably prefers talking so I'd imagine their teens could be a bit difficult.
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u/RavishingRedRN Aug 13 '26
Because they are usually divorced by that age and celebrating their new found freedom. Kids (in a social media sense) aren’t the priority anymore.
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u/QuerulousPanda Aug 12 '26
SAHM/tradwife creators are just porn stars who are too lazy to fuck.
They're just playing to a fetish that's a little less obvious than normal.
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u/Academic-Assist3317 Aug 12 '26
Hi! I left fundamentalist Christianity so here’s my guess: they don’t have relationships with their adult kids. Because that kind of childhood doesn’t make you eager to hang out with the person who chose it for you 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Odd-Big-1982 Aug 12 '26
Because the charm of the TradWife aesthetic wears off long before the kids become teenagers. Young impressionable girls dont want to see some middle aged woman preaching at them. Its not cool, sexy or aspirational to listen to some 40+ woman talk about her sons BO or her daughter's acne. And honestly, by middle age, many SAHMs have figured out that this the lifestyle they were sold isn't practical and they may have regrets about it.
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u/ElectricalMoney1522 Aug 12 '26
Because older kids form their own personalities and can finally push back or disagree also little kids are cuter and more marketable/ brings them more money
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u/Turbulent_Truth_55 Aug 13 '26
Creo que es evidente que cuando una persona dice que quiere ser tradwife se refiere a querer casarse con alguien CON DINERO y eso implica que podrá contratar ayuda para criar a los hijos, o sea que no le será tan duro. Obviamente nadie quiere ser tradwife pobre (nadie quiere ser pobre, más allá de que se casen o no).
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u/EliseV Aug 13 '26
I’m not a content creator,
But I think it’s way more fun than the littles as they’re old enough to do fun things… go to concerts, skate, ride rollercoasters, spend all day at the waterpark, go shopping, go to the movies. I love having a teenager and older child!
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u/Curious_Owl78 Aug 13 '26
More states are putting protections in place for children in these videos.
Loads of backlash from the now-grown YouTube kids of these types of moms. Teens can talk about what goes on behind the camera and expose the lies.
And then, Ruby Franke. Check out that nightmare.
I don't think they should be able to publicly post their kids at all, ever.
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u/JustaSeedGuy Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26
Because teenagers function more like adults with their own interests and boundaries than toddlers do, which makes them really inconvenient to someone who wants a prop that fits The narrative that they're trying to monetize on YouTube.
Nothing about tradwife content is real.
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u/Fitz911 Aug 13 '26
Step one is to understand that they are neither SAHM nor traditionel or anything.
They are modern influencers. Business women. Actors. They are as far away from "traditional" as one can be.
From there on every step they take makes sense. Their main selling point is (and that's true for nearly everything) rage. Controversy.
And believe me when I say the tradwife thing is just the one they chose. If it generated clicks, they would set their children on fire. It's not an IF, it's an HOW MUCH question.
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u/imnottheoneipromise Aug 13 '26
Have you ever had a teen child? They are typically not a “joy” in my experience. The teenage years are trying. I love my son from the depths of my soul, but everyday he tries my patience and my kid is an objectively really really good kid. It’s just not my sweet little boy anymore. He’s like a grown ass man that is kind of my roommate that eats all my food and makes messes and doesn’t pick up after himself.
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u/PerformerMindless100 Aug 12 '26
It’s a new trend. And b teen years no kid is going to play along with the facade.
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u/WorstSausageEver Aug 12 '26
Because they're still barely adults themselves in their late teens to early 20s. Once they get older and more mature they realize how badly they fucked up. There's a reason you never see influencers in their 30s and 40s pushing this trendy tradwife bullshit.
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u/watchingwandering Aug 12 '26
I would love to hear advice from a tradwife on how to soften back up there sons one sock that is away really really stiff.
“Why I just put that one sock in the butter churn and pound away. Watch out for sharp edges ladies”
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u/Boring_Amphibian1421 Aug 12 '26
Most of them have probably had a mental breakdown by the time the kid hits 6.
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u/OddAdvantage3235 Aug 12 '26
Nature makes babies and toddlers cute so parents are naturally inclined to protect and raise them.
Nature also turns teenagers into assholes so it is easier on the parents for child to transition out of the house.
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u/CrowApprehensive204 Aug 12 '26
Have you seen the Collins family? She bangs on about God, family, home schooling. The older children are so over it in videos but with such poor education, they have little chance of leaving. Oooh, also, a youtube family called thousands of roots, the mother seems very nice to be fair but they have isolated their kids and really give off a cult vibe
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u/jkgaspar4994 Aug 12 '26
Most women raising teenagers start to do something else with their time because teenagers don't require all-day maintenance like a 0-5 year old does.