20-Year-Old Stay-At-Home Wife With No Kids Explains How Her Marriage Works — ‘I Am Always Right’
Is it wrong to glamorize the stay-at-home lifestyle in the modern world?
K Petro via Shutterstock / Sketchify via Canva Women can do it all: be a career woman, a wife and a mother — if they want to. It’s often praised that women are the master multi-taskers, but there are still more changes that need to be made to improve women’s rights.
In our modern era of feminism, there are many polarizing opinions about women choosing to be homemakers — especially if they don't have kids.
One young woman shared how being a stay-at-home wife with no kids works for her marriage.
TikTok user Makenna Hagemeyer, or @kennahags, posted a video discussing what she and her husband do in her marriage that works for them. She revealed that her husband is the main provider and she doesn’t work, opting to be a stay-at-home wife.
Listing the "controversial things" the couple does in their relationship, she explained, “Another big thing is that we got married super young. I am 20 and my husband is 25. And we dated for about a year and a half before we got married.”
With a glimpse into her day, she added, "I stay home and I cook and clean. He does not step foot in the kitchen."
Not surprisingly, the responses to Hagemeyer's TikTok varied greatly from jealousy over her "dream" life to criticisms over her dependency on her husband and lack of financial freedom. Adding fuel to the comment fire, she explained that she doesn’t drive herself anywhere since her husband does that for her, he pays for everything and she doesn’t need to ask for permission to spend money as she just takes the card and does whatever she wants with it.
From rules about who each can follow on social media (no one of the opposite sex unless they are family) to taking out the garbage being a "man's job," perhaps the most interesting statement she made about their traditional marriage was the notion that, as she stated it, "I am always right. No matter what it is — wife is always right."
Traditional gender roles are a topic of heated discussions online.
The concept of a man being the breadwinner and provider and a woman taking on the household duties is something that many people have issues with. The Women’s Rights movement questioned traditional gender roles and many feminists traded in their aprons for power suits. But ultimately, women's rights are not about labeling one choice as better than the other — it's about having the autonomy to make the choice.
Recently, the traditional wife model has been revived through influencers and their experiences as stay-at-home wives.
The modern traditional housewife model seems to emulate the traditional wife lifestyle of the 50s, but isn’t that oversimplifying things? Modern traditional housewife roles look nothing like they did when women had no other option but to stay home. For example, women weren't given the right to open their own bank accounts until 1974, which meant that they were completely dependent on their husbands for finances. In the 50s, statements like "My money is mine, and his is mine," would be ridiculed, but Hagemeyer said just that — with confidence.
There is nothing wrong with choosing to be a stay-at-home wife. But the underlying question remains: Has social media put rose-colored glasses on the reality of the traditional homemaker role?
Some people believe that being a stay-at-home wife is inherently anti-feminist.
A true feminist would argue, however, that it is inherently anti-feminist to judge women for choosing to be stay-at-home wives. As author Mia Hayes wrote, much of the criticisms surrounding the "tradwife movement," as it's been dubbed, are centered around notions of women giving up their financial independence and a misguided understanding of the fundamentals of feminism.
I find it strange that people interpret being a stay-at-home wife as being unemployed. Isn’t a stay-at-home wife in charge of household duties like cooking, cleaning, running errands, and anything that counts as maintaining a household? Isn’t being a stay-at-home wife a job?
Beyond that, many people view being a homemaker as a sacrifice of independence, and that's where the true controversy lies. It's true that there are risks to promoting the stay-at-home wife as an aesthetic and glamorizing the lifestyle is deceptive, but judging others for choosing a traditional role is not productive.
Despite the controversy, it’s clear that for Makenna Hagemeyer and her husband, the traditional roles work. As Psychology Today notes, as long as both partners agree to their roles and are happy with the division, there's no reason a relationship that resembles Hagemeyer's can't work.
There’s nothing wrong with being a woman who does it all, and there is nothing wrong with being a woman who wants to be a housewife. And that's what being a true feminist is all about.
Amani Semper is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news, pop culture and lifestyle.