The TikTok 'Soft Life' is a Lie
how tradwives conceal the labor that makes their lifestyle possible
I love cooking for other people. It’s a love language that centers preparation, care, thoughtfulness, and, when the table is set and the meal is served, sensory pleasure and satiety. On this day I was cooking shakshuka for me and my dad on his birthday. Signs of my work lay everywhere across the counter, splatters of peeled tomatoes and their juices, rinds of red pepper and onion skins scattered across our wooden cutting board. The sauce was simmering on the stove when I realized something was wrong: the pan was too small for the six eggs I needed to add. In retrospect, it’s a small, easily rectifiable mistake, but standing in the kitchen, hot, tired and hungry, I felt like I wanted to cry.
It’s hardly the first or the worst mistake I made in the kitchen. In the heat of stress, I tell myself that this is water. These moments are part and parcel to being alive, to growth. Social media, however, would lead me to believe otherwise.
I’m speaking, of course, about tradwives, the illustrious homemakers with dubious political alliances and perfectly curated Instagram pages portraying breezily picturesque lives. Often paired with a vintage or cottage core aesthetic, these women have grown large followings
through their unearthly domestic grace: baking perfect golden loaves of bread, milking cows and wrangling a blonde brood of adorable toddlers like it’s nothing. Critics say they are sinister harbingers of a post-feminist future. In her piece for Mother Jones, Morgan Jerkins called tradwives “henchwomen in an ongoing effort to functionally erase modern women from the public sphere.” But in 2024, their romanticized lives don't seem out of place on a social media timeline.
A standout among tradwives is Nara Smith, a German and South African model married to Mormon model Lucky Blue Smith. Smith racked up a large following for seamlessly making everything from sunscreen to lasagna entirely from scratch while dressed in high glam. As Jerkins notes, Smith is notable for being one of the only Black figures associated with this movement. I would argue Smith is also exceptional in the way she blends tradwife ethos with the aesthetics of a typical influencer. Far from modest billowy floral prints and a rustic farmhouse aesthetic, Smith’s spotless white kitchen and designer outfits are more befitting a Kardashian than a homesteader.
What binds Smith with other famous ‘tradwives’ like Hannah Neelemen (aka Ballerina Farms) isn’t just their focus on domestic life, but how easy they make it look. Fans of Nara Smith praise her for promoting her “soft life.” Writer LaCriessa Malone defines soft life as “a lifestyle of comfort and relaxation with minimal challenges and stress.” She notes that for Black women, the ethos of a soft life is intended to counter the misogynoir and systemic obstacles they face on a day to day basis. As examples of Black women living a ‘soft life’ Malone cites gymnast Simone Biles dropping out of the Tokyo Olympics to prioritize her mental health and singer SZA’s emphasis on empowerment and female friendship. A soft life is not about “flamboyant expressions of materialism or wealth” but rather a system of values. Despite Smith’s soothing voiceovers and placid expression, her videos squarely fall into the former.
Smith’s content and those of her tradwife peers are dishonest by omission. Like an Instagram model who whittles away at her waist on Photoshop or counts calories to portray an impossible beauty standard, tradwife content is designed to conceal the labor that makes its lifestyle possible. Describing Smith’s videos, Jerkins observes “No powder, liquid, or sauce ever touches the hem of her sleeve or splashes her face…There is not a single sweat bead dotted on her forehead.” Who cooks like this? Where is the planning process? The meandering through aisles at the grocery store for obscure ingredients? How many outtakes go into an under five minute TikTok about baking bread? We don’t get to see this labor that undoubtedly goes into each of Smith’s videos and the reason why is simple; it’s boring. All of us would rather skip to the stage of cooking where our cabinets are stocked and we know a recipe with robot-like automation. Smith’s videos are less a reflection of real life than an escapist fantasy. And she isn’t the only tradwife whose videos lack important context. Neeleman, a blue-eyed pageant queen who owns a sprawling Utah farm with her husband, spends her days milking cows and swanning around her spacious farmhouse in long floral gowns. What isn’t mentioned in her videos, is that her simple, gingham clad life is her husbands uber-wealthy background
This lack of transparency distinguishes tradwives from the long history of women who’ve found success in their domestic skills. Homemaking and culinary icons like Rachel Ray and Martha Stewart are very clearly working women. After all, you don’t go to jail for insider trading unless you’re a #girlboss. Of course, tradwives also cash in on their fame. Nara Smith has a sponsorship with the prebiotic drink Poppi; Neeleman hawks Ballerina Farms branded aprons. But when those deals are contingent on how well you sell a hyper curated, seemingly authentic lifestyle, the veil between the professional and the personal is non-existent. In blending their personal life with contextless-fantasy, both Smith and Neeleman play into women’s deeper capitalist anxieties. As Jerkins writes, there is an exhaustion among women who internalized the girl boss era narrative that true empowerment lies atop the corporate ladder. Why suffer through a dead end, bullshit job for meager time off and poor healthcare when you can build a life wearing beautiful gowns and making delicious treats for your loved ones?
Buying into the soft life lie feeds into a right wing narrative, even if unconsciously. In stripping their content from dialogues about class and labor, tradwives paint a picture of domestic life as distinct from capitalism, when in fact the opposite is true. The New York Times reported that if American women were paid minimum wage for their domestic labor they would have made 1.5 trillion dollars. This labor is essential to keeping, not just households, but the entire economy afloat. Yet, when NFL star and trad-Catholic Harrison Butker made his now infamous speech at conservative Catholic Benedictine College, he drew a fine boundary between homemaking and professional life. Calls for women to join the workforce, he said, were “diabolical lies.” He used his own wife as an example of a woman “living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.” Butker acknowledged the personal benefit he received from his wife’s homemaking, but never called for homemakers to receive independent financial compensation. To make that leap would be to upend his own argument and the conservative evangelical philosophy of complementarianism it evokes—the idea men and women were created by God with different but equally important roles. For men, that role is household headship and for women, submission to their husbands.
The girlboss era may have been an overly individualistic, white feminist movement that ran women ragged, but it got one thing right: in a capitalist society, money is power. Recognizing and compensating domestic laborers would illuminate how homemaking skills—organization, design, emotional management—are all transferable to careers outside the home (like influencing!). It would also strike at the heart of male headship in conservative relationships. While complementarian Christians often claim that gender roles are different but equal, in practicality that isn’t the case. According to the National Network of Domestic Violence, financial abuse occurs in 99% of domestic violence cases. One form of financial abuse is “forbidding the victim to work.” Without financial freedom, women cannot make necessary arrangements, like housing and childcare, to leave abusive relationships. Complementarianism is a fever dream, only palatable in an abstract theological context, much less so in material reality.
Are tradwives really trying to “erase women from modern life” like Jerkins claimed? I think so, but their advocacy may not look how we expect it to or in some cases even be a conscious effort. While some tradwives openly advocate for a return to 1950s gender roles, others, like Smith, are more opaque about their views. When asked about her religious beliefs, Smith demurred. She’s also made a point of emphasizing that she cooks because she wants to, not because it’s an expectation. However, an image of domestic bliss is now expected from her followers who glamorize her online life at face value and, presumably, for her influencer career. Women's existence in the domestic sphere has never been, and never will be, apolitical. So then why are we expected to see Smith and Neeleman’s content that way? Whether they acknowledge it or not, their content places them at the center of discussions of gender, class, religion, and labor rights. Questioning why they don’t acknowledge that and who benefits from their silence, should tell you everything you need to know.