This episode was so good. I was hanging on every word. Katie, at the end you said, "I think we should listen for a moment to actual tradwives. We need to hear from women who have left high-control, often religious/fundamentalist situations about their experiences." I am the editor of an anthology coming out in December called The Book of Once-Mormon Women. It's being published by Signature Books, here in Salt Lake City where I live. It will share the stories of 30 women who have left Mormonism. Many speak about wifehood and motherhood and the struggles of having been raised in such a patriarchal system. I would love to send you and/or Caro an advanced copy of the book, if you're interested! (Celeste Davis is one of the contributors, who Caro mentioned in a recent interview! )Thank you so much! My email is katiestringham1@gmail.com if you'd like to get in touch!
I know that many women suffer from dissociation after having a new baby like Nara but I cannot help make the parallel between her confusion about what's real and her job presenting a stylized and impractical aesthetic of motherhood and domestic chores. I also appreciate you bringing in the Christian part of it because there is a very popular version of “King James Christianity” that states everybody would be fine if they just went back to their roles of making things easier on rich white men, regardless if that is attainable, practical, or part of your life plan
Toni Morrison’s thoughts on motherhood (in an interview with Bill Moyer) are the truest to my experience of Black mothering I’ve encountered so far. “There was something so valuable about what happened when one became a mother. For me it was the most liberating thing that ever happened to me. . . . Liberating because the demands that children make are not the demands of a normal ‘other.’ The children’s demands on me were things that nobody ever asked me to do. To be a good manager. To have a sense of humor. To deliver something that somebody could use. And they were not interested in all the things that other people were interested in, like what I was wearing or if I were sensual. . . . Somehow all of the baggage that I had accumulated as a person about what was valuable just fell away. I could not only be me — whatever that was — but somebody actually needed me to be that. . . . If you listen to [your children], somehow you are able to free yourself from baggage and vanity and all sorts of things, and deliver a better self, one that you like. The person that was in me that I liked best was the one my children seemed to want.”
For sure. I discovered it while I was up late with a newborn and it really helped me. I had read Morrison and I thought, “surely, thousands of pages wasn’t enough. She must have had more to say about motherhood,” and I was right.
I really appreciate the nuanced and curious ways you’ve been speaking about motherhood. It is so often discussed as a purely economic, sociopolitical, or clinical experience. And not often (enough) discussed as a complex, person experience of being in relationship to a new and vulnerable person within oppressive institutions.
This is so true and I had no realization that this was what was happening (or awareness enough to actually articulate that sentiment) but to me it was most apparent in my relationship to my physical body. It now had a purpose and it had served it in a way that transformed my relationship to it; all the other things I expected of it before—specifically those that were male centered or consumer driven were completely muted.
Absolutely. For me, seeing my own features on the face of someone who had inherited them from me, and who was so beloved, changed my relationship with my reflection. I wasn’t cured of my internalized misogynoir, but the most beautiful person I’ve ever known looks just like me.
Something I can’t stop thinking about during this episode is how growing up in the 90s my family did make a lot of things from scratch, we were middle class, but things were definitely tight. Food for 2 picky kids was not where my parents were willing to throw away money. Ironically my Dad did most of the from scratch cooking and baking. He grew up very poor, his family didn’t even have an indoor toilet until he was about 10. As a kid, my wealthiest friends had pantries stocked with ultra processed individually packaged snacks and meals like Lunchables. This to me was a sign of wealth. Now in 2026 we’ve done a complete 180, where time is the ultimate luxury under late stage capitalism. Living in an ingredient only home, where everything is whole foods, organic and fresh is just not cheaper or sustainable for most families. Make no mistake, the MAHA “eat real food” ideology and Nara Smith’s downplaying the real cost, labor included, of fresh baked bread and jam is still pushing an ideal lifestyle few can afford. Its framing as approachable, thrifty and simple is so disingenuous as capitalism continues to robs us of our time and sell it back to us as convenience.
this is such an interesting observation because you're right, there's a real sense of dissonance between what 'cooking at home' means for most people (usually the frugal, thrifty option compared to doordash, takeout, etc) and the amount of wealth communicated in a nara vid
thank you -- we cut that comment for clarity and issued a correction in the show notes! the intention was to communicate "proximity to whiteness" which is, to the comments here, different than white-passing
Yeah that one gave me pause; high proximity to whiteness and maybe clearly not black American culturally or in her general aesthetic, but no one would see her and think she’s yt…
I think in this context, pointing out Nara Smith white passing (as a German South African Mormon married to a successful white male model) and how that gives her more access to privilege and success, is worth examining.
Before my current job (therapist), I worked at a daily newspaper. Coming from the newsroom environment I think that the journalists interviewing the women mentioned today don't take them seriously enough to ask them serious questions. The questions are mostly softball (in my opinion) because the time slots (that tv interviews will run) or sections (that online or newspaper interviews will go) are not the "hard news" side. If you ask me it is because women are not taken seriously as businesswomen but also motherhood isn't viewed as a serious news story. Even when writing about health statistics like teen pregnancy rates my stories typically ran in the features section which is almost universally acknowledged by the newsrooms I was in as more "girly." I could go on and on.
Side note: just listened to the blonde highlights episode. I think you are spot on with the way it portrays wealth. I also think it goes back to obsession with youth because truly blonde hair is rare in adults but way more common in children.
I'm so irrationally angry about Nara Smith pretending that she didn't know what the term tradwife meant in the same interview where she claimed to be a hard working business woman. She's a content creator! That means online content is her business, and her area of content is integral to this term.
I'm not an online creator, I'm not in the business of social media, and I'm not a mother, but I never had to look up the term tradwife because it's meaning was generally clear as soon as it became popular. If she really didn't know what the term meant, that would mean she's bad and lazy at her job, and she's not. She's great at her job of content creation, and she 1000% knew what the term meant.
Not that Alex Cooper was ever going to push back on that, but still, I'm annoyed by it.
alyssa grenfell made a really brilliant but simple point in her nara smith vid, that the way in which a tradWIFE is different from a stay-at-home MOM is evident in the label, one is defined by her relationship to a man while the other is defined by her caretaking responsibility for children. that tidbit didn't make it into this section but feels relevant
I keep thinking about this because it's such a good point. Imagine if when Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman were first being called a tradwife and they were actually unhappy with the term before it had more heat on it, and they reacted to the term with something like "I hate that you look at my videos where I'm making food and caring for my children and you boil my role down to my relationship with a man. That's very misogynist."
Like, they could have taken the wind out of the term before it became a term, but they are actually selling a world where women are seen as extensions of their husbands who are beholden to him. It's just that they didn't want to do that. They liked and embraced the tradwife brand when it was under less scrutiny.
I loved the Adrienne Rich discussion about how mothering is different than the institution of motherhood. Also, the aesthetics part… never thought of that! Thanks for always making me think!
The way Caro stayed so calm as a pregnant person in the various not so savory parts of pregnancy and postpartum discussed in today’s episode is wild and admirable. Happy birthing!
Thank you for this endi
LOL
This episode was so good. I was hanging on every word. Katie, at the end you said, "I think we should listen for a moment to actual tradwives. We need to hear from women who have left high-control, often religious/fundamentalist situations about their experiences." I am the editor of an anthology coming out in December called The Book of Once-Mormon Women. It's being published by Signature Books, here in Salt Lake City where I live. It will share the stories of 30 women who have left Mormonism. Many speak about wifehood and motherhood and the struggles of having been raised in such a patriarchal system. I would love to send you and/or Caro an advanced copy of the book, if you're interested! (Celeste Davis is one of the contributors, who Caro mentioned in a recent interview! )Thank you so much! My email is katiestringham1@gmail.com if you'd like to get in touch!
I know that many women suffer from dissociation after having a new baby like Nara but I cannot help make the parallel between her confusion about what's real and her job presenting a stylized and impractical aesthetic of motherhood and domestic chores. I also appreciate you bringing in the Christian part of it because there is a very popular version of “King James Christianity” that states everybody would be fine if they just went back to their roles of making things easier on rich white men, regardless if that is attainable, practical, or part of your life plan
woah this observation/parallel is brilliant. i wish i had thought of it
thank you so much, I will email you now!
im an Exmormon living in Utah and this sounds great! Looking forward to reading it when it comes out!
So good to have a smooth transition out of the—
hahahhaa
Toni Morrison’s thoughts on motherhood (in an interview with Bill Moyer) are the truest to my experience of Black mothering I’ve encountered so far. “There was something so valuable about what happened when one became a mother. For me it was the most liberating thing that ever happened to me. . . . Liberating because the demands that children make are not the demands of a normal ‘other.’ The children’s demands on me were things that nobody ever asked me to do. To be a good manager. To have a sense of humor. To deliver something that somebody could use. And they were not interested in all the things that other people were interested in, like what I was wearing or if I were sensual. . . . Somehow all of the baggage that I had accumulated as a person about what was valuable just fell away. I could not only be me — whatever that was — but somebody actually needed me to be that. . . . If you listen to [your children], somehow you are able to free yourself from baggage and vanity and all sorts of things, and deliver a better self, one that you like. The person that was in me that I liked best was the one my children seemed to want.”
this is beautiful. i've never read this before. thank you for sharing
For sure. I discovered it while I was up late with a newborn and it really helped me. I had read Morrison and I thought, “surely, thousands of pages wasn’t enough. She must have had more to say about motherhood,” and I was right.
I really appreciate the nuanced and curious ways you’ve been speaking about motherhood. It is so often discussed as a purely economic, sociopolitical, or clinical experience. And not often (enough) discussed as a complex, person experience of being in relationship to a new and vulnerable person within oppressive institutions.
Thank you for sharing, never read this before. I screencapped it so I can read it again when my 4 year old is driving me to the brink 😂
This is so true and I had no realization that this was what was happening (or awareness enough to actually articulate that sentiment) but to me it was most apparent in my relationship to my physical body. It now had a purpose and it had served it in a way that transformed my relationship to it; all the other things I expected of it before—specifically those that were male centered or consumer driven were completely muted.
ETA: spelling
Absolutely. For me, seeing my own features on the face of someone who had inherited them from me, and who was so beloved, changed my relationship with my reflection. I wasn’t cured of my internalized misogynoir, but the most beautiful person I’ve ever known looks just like me.
Something I can’t stop thinking about during this episode is how growing up in the 90s my family did make a lot of things from scratch, we were middle class, but things were definitely tight. Food for 2 picky kids was not where my parents were willing to throw away money. Ironically my Dad did most of the from scratch cooking and baking. He grew up very poor, his family didn’t even have an indoor toilet until he was about 10. As a kid, my wealthiest friends had pantries stocked with ultra processed individually packaged snacks and meals like Lunchables. This to me was a sign of wealth. Now in 2026 we’ve done a complete 180, where time is the ultimate luxury under late stage capitalism. Living in an ingredient only home, where everything is whole foods, organic and fresh is just not cheaper or sustainable for most families. Make no mistake, the MAHA “eat real food” ideology and Nara Smith’s downplaying the real cost, labor included, of fresh baked bread and jam is still pushing an ideal lifestyle few can afford. Its framing as approachable, thrifty and simple is so disingenuous as capitalism continues to robs us of our time and sell it back to us as convenience.
this is such an interesting observation because you're right, there's a real sense of dissonance between what 'cooking at home' means for most people (usually the frugal, thrifty option compared to doordash, takeout, etc) and the amount of wealth communicated in a nara vid
Donuts in the parking lot of injustice 😮💨
unsure if we can or should be calling nara smith white passing
thank you -- we cut that comment for clarity and issued a correction in the show notes! the intention was to communicate "proximity to whiteness" which is, to the comments here, different than white-passing
thank you katie 💛
Yeah that one gave me pause; high proximity to whiteness and maybe clearly not black American culturally or in her general aesthetic, but no one would see her and think she’s yt…
Yeah… no. More proximate to ytness than me? Sure. But not likely to be cast in any production of “Imitation of Life”.
Came here to say this! She has proximity to whiteness with family and being biracial but Nara Smith may be many things- but not white passing.
I think in this context, pointing out Nara Smith white passing (as a German South African Mormon married to a successful white male model) and how that gives her more access to privilege and success, is worth examining.
that’s called being white adjacent
Request to get small button pins that say “flag that!” With a little astronaut with a red flag 🚩😄
Before my current job (therapist), I worked at a daily newspaper. Coming from the newsroom environment I think that the journalists interviewing the women mentioned today don't take them seriously enough to ask them serious questions. The questions are mostly softball (in my opinion) because the time slots (that tv interviews will run) or sections (that online or newspaper interviews will go) are not the "hard news" side. If you ask me it is because women are not taken seriously as businesswomen but also motherhood isn't viewed as a serious news story. Even when writing about health statistics like teen pregnancy rates my stories typically ran in the features section which is almost universally acknowledged by the newsrooms I was in as more "girly." I could go on and on.
Side note: just listened to the blonde highlights episode. I think you are spot on with the way it portrays wealth. I also think it goes back to obsession with youth because truly blonde hair is rare in adults but way more common in children.
Loved the ending
10/10 on the ending. No notes.
Just from reading the show notes alone, this one is going to be such a fucking banger.
The Irish goodbye in podcast form
I'm so irrationally angry about Nara Smith pretending that she didn't know what the term tradwife meant in the same interview where she claimed to be a hard working business woman. She's a content creator! That means online content is her business, and her area of content is integral to this term.
I'm not an online creator, I'm not in the business of social media, and I'm not a mother, but I never had to look up the term tradwife because it's meaning was generally clear as soon as it became popular. If she really didn't know what the term meant, that would mean she's bad and lazy at her job, and she's not. She's great at her job of content creation, and she 1000% knew what the term meant.
Not that Alex Cooper was ever going to push back on that, but still, I'm annoyed by it.
alyssa grenfell made a really brilliant but simple point in her nara smith vid, that the way in which a tradWIFE is different from a stay-at-home MOM is evident in the label, one is defined by her relationship to a man while the other is defined by her caretaking responsibility for children. that tidbit didn't make it into this section but feels relevant
I keep thinking about this because it's such a good point. Imagine if when Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman were first being called a tradwife and they were actually unhappy with the term before it had more heat on it, and they reacted to the term with something like "I hate that you look at my videos where I'm making food and caring for my children and you boil my role down to my relationship with a man. That's very misogynist."
Like, they could have taken the wind out of the term before it became a term, but they are actually selling a world where women are seen as extensions of their husbands who are beholden to him. It's just that they didn't want to do that. They liked and embraced the tradwife brand when it was under less scrutiny.
The end, so funny!
I loved the Adrienne Rich discussion about how mothering is different than the institution of motherhood. Also, the aesthetics part… never thought of that! Thanks for always making me think!
The way Caro stayed so calm as a pregnant person in the various not so savory parts of pregnancy and postpartum discussed in today’s episode is wild and admirable. Happy birthing!