No, "trad" is not merely esthetic
The movement is a response to some of the most cosmically significant moral and spiritual issues of our day. Let's not belittle this.
I heard recently that the “trad wife” trend is on its way out.
I found this information rather amusing because it was many years after the movement became a thing that the mainstream decided to pay very much attention to it.
For 10 years, I have been both aligning with and critically examining “trad” culture, a term that can only be applied to a very broad movement of younger people who believe that pre-postmodern values (if you will) were likely better for society than this whole hot mess we’ve got going on around us now.
And I have to confess that despite the very valid concerns that I have always had about certainmindsets within this movement, I’m still more eager to promote it than ever before.
To distort an idea does not mean to undermine its original value, and the macro value and significance of the “trad” movement must not be lost on us now that it’s grown to bigger significance in the modern lexicon.
I also refuse to accept that just because there are some issues with trad culture, this means that the underlying motivation behind the movement is inauthentic or insincere.
Unfortunately, there are indeed a lot of attacks against trad culture that throw the baby out with the bathwater or otherwise sorely miss the mark.
The worst and most prevalent critique I’ve seen is the assumption that trad culture is a mostly esthetic movement involving flowy dresses and sourdough and concerned with things we are meant to believe are merely superficial and can have no deeper significance or meaning to the people whom they are appealing.
As an elder millennial who converted to Christianity in 2010 and after falling in love with homemaking and found an ideological home in the trad movement online, I’ve seen its errors up close for a decade.
And esthetics ain’t it.
There are the men who have an unhealthy fixation on the idea of having a wife who dutifully submits to them and plays the Stepford Wife; the women who think the answer to everything ranging from a messy house to concerns of marital rape can be solved with a reassuring “just submit to your husband!” while discouraging raising concerns about or seeking a voice in one’s marriage.
On the other hand there are others to whom the lifestyle is merely that; a personal lifestyle choice. And while they enjoy things like keeping house, wearing vintage fashion, and keeping cozy “grandma” hobbies, have socially liberal or libertarian values that differ little from those living LGBT lifestyles, disregarding the institution of marriage, or having children out of wedlock.
So, it’s frustrating to turn around and hear the most common complaint about trad culture framed as “you don’t have to wear dresses, homestead, or bake sourdough to be a Christian,” as though anyone was saying that in the first place.
There are many far deeper and cosmically significant issues at play in any discussion of “trad” culture, so please stop trying to convince me it’s just esthetic.
The problem with people to whom trad is a means to an end of personal gratification or bolstering a hollow Stepford Wife-fantasy of marriage is that they are not extending “trad” into traditional values.
They may play the part superficially, but they ultimately do not adhere to the Christian social values as we understand our traditional values to be.
These externally-oriented values — as starkly opposed to the self-oriented paradigm of contemporary postmodern understanding of life — holds both men and women accountable to the higher calling of marriage and family, involving self-sacrifice, individual responsibility, and social accountability.
The “trad” part isn’t the issue; the distorted modern re-interpretation of it is. “Trad” culture is a reaction to radical feminism and so when one is building upon feminist fallacies about traditional values, you’re sure to miss the mark.
Yet since the movement is overwhelmingly defined by a desire to return to the traditional ideal for the family unit, we must concede it is simply not just about being a housewife and not just a matter of personal choice.
The “trad” movement necessarily includes both men and women who are defying the depraved sexual values of postmodern culture. We look at the landscape of government, corporatism, and entertainment culture and seek to break free from the hold these things have on social and family values. This is what defines “trad.” This is a lofty aim.
And this is why I continue to support “trad.”
So, I’ve said it before and I will say it again, and hopefully you will echo this in your own immediate circles on my behalf:
Traditional values are not mere empty esthetic values. Trad culture is not an empty, shallow movement. It is the growing voice of a generation that is fed up with the postmodern values that have so obviously wreaked so much havoc on marriages, families, and society as a whole.
The prevalence of classical feminine fashion, slow living and a simpler lifestyle, baking from scratch, drinking raw milk, eating sourdough, homesteading, and homeschooling is not a mere trend, nor hardly a coincidence. There is a theme here, and it is no superficial or shallow one.
Wives and mothers, husbands and fathers in this day and age, many of whom were reared in and harmed by the Sexual Revolution, desire and are pursuing a life that reflects their values of classical Christian morality, self-reliance, and social cohesion.
You most certainly do not need the idyllic setting or fashion sense to pursue these values.
But please do not diminish our values to something as shallow as what looks good on Instagram.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 YES!!! As always, you get to the heart of the matter.
I have a friend in Florida who lives in a large apartment building with her husband and three children that I would consider "trad" because her family and moral values reflect it. She doesn't homestead for obvious reasons, and she doesn't wear dresses or bake sourdough. 😄 But like you said, IT ISN'T AN ESTHETIC!!! Would she love to have land one day where she can raise some of their own food? Yes! She's told me she would. But she is rocking the "trad" lifestyle because she holds very strong traditional values.
I think you may be confusing people who have “traditional values” (Christian values) and those who define themselves (and call themselves!) as “Trad” and also play the part in an online setting. In the case of the first, it *does not look a certain way.* In the case of the second, it *absolutely* is all about the aesthetics, and if you don’t adhere to whatever the current definition of what “trad” *looks like* then you’re out of the club. It’s so easy to see through that it’s laughable.
It gets murky though because some of the people who are focusing on the *look* (aesthetic) of traditional values may also adhere to the *actual* values themselves, and may even believe that you cannot have one without the other. So. I think it’s important to distinguish that the actuality of traditional values has very little to do with the “trad” aesthetics that we see pushed in our ever-increasingly visual online world today.